2006 1st gen MacPro 2.66Ghz x 2 - Need Minidisplay Port!

[Kennyyoli]

Wanting to use a new 24" Cinema Display with my 1st Gen Mac Pro (2006, 2.66Ghz x 2) Have looked at replacing my video card with ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit. Can't get a clear and difinitive answer as to the functionality of this with my MacPro. Any ideas or info on this? Thanks in advance.

[sgunes]

Wanting to use a new 24" Cinema Display with my 1st Gen Mac Pro (2006, 2.66Ghz x 2) Have looked at replacing my video card with ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit. Can't get a clear and difinitive answer as to the functionality of this with my MacPro. Any ideas or info on this? Thanks in advance.

Did your time machine break down?
Please let us know what it is like in 2066.:p

[Kennyyoli]

yeah.... I noticed that right before you mentioned it

[Spanky Deluxe]

Yup, the 4870 kit supplied by Apple *does* work in 2006 Mac Pros although a lot of people who want 4870s in their 2006 Mac Pros opt instead for the PC card flashing route because it is far cheaper, however, if you need a mini display port adapter then the Apple 4870 is the only way to go for 2006 Mac Pros. The nVidia GT 120 does *not* work in 2006 Mac Pros so again, Apple's 4870 is the only way to get display port support on 2006/2007 Mac Pros. Both the 4870 and the GT 120 will work on 2008 Mac Pros though for anyone else stumbling across this thread looking for answers.

[Kennyyoli]

Thanks for the info Spanky, very much appreciated :)

[alphaod]

As with the monitor, if you have yet to actually buy the 24" display, I would highly recommend the Dell U2410 which offers the same if not a better experience with a matte panel to boot.

[Kennyyoli]

The monitor is a freebie from a fellow photographer who is getting out of the business all together. It's always nice to have great friends with "stuff"... lol:)

[hms84]

ATI 4870 will work. My Mac Pro (2.66, 2006) is working great with it (Mac

[Kennyyoli]

Everything is installed and connected and working perfectly! Thanks all for the info and suggestions :)

[Spanky Deluxe]

No problem! Enjoy your new card and new display, I wish someone gave me a freebie 24" cinema display!!

[miknurb1]

Does the HD 4870 operate at the same speed as it does on the newer MacPros?
I can't seem to find a posting that compares the specs for the newer MacPros and the performance on a MacPro 1,1.

[Spanky Deluxe]

The clock speeds are exactly the same. The only difference is you can only run the bus at 16x PCIe 1.1 speeds rather than 16x PCIe 2.0 speeds. It means that the bandwidth between the system and the graphics card is halved. However, this makes virtually no difference in practice since even 16x PCIe 1.1 speeds are difficult to saturate. The only program that I know of where this bandwidth difference is noticeable is Mudbug.

For what it's worth, I ran two 4870 cards in my Mac Pro 1,1 with 8x PCIe 1.1 - so a quarter of what a single 4870 can run with in a 2008 or newer Mac Pro and I never observed any visible slow downs. When going from 16x PCIe 2.0 to 8x PCIe 1.1 you're talking a real world performance difference of like 5%.

[miknurb1]

Thanks for the first hand experience. I run Final Cut Express and Photoshop CS4 and am hoping for a performance bump over the stock GeForce 7300.

[Spanky Deluxe]

Thanks for the first hand experience. I run Final Cut Express and Photoshop CS4 and am hoping for a performance bump over the stock GeForce 7300.

Anything that uses graphics acceleration will get a significant performance boost with a 4870 over a 7300. However, I don't know how much Final Cut Express or Photoshop utilise graphics cards. I'd expect them to not use them all that much so you may not get much of a boost if any.