Radeon 6870 confirmed working in Mac Pro 1,1

HD Radeon 6870 in Mac Pro 1,1

Is this thread dead. I just upgraded to Lion and was wondering if I could use the flashed 6870 for the 3,1 on my 1,1 even though it says it is incompatible but some of you guys got it working with a regular PC Card. Also I don't care about the boot screen and am noob at flashing cards.

Vinny96 said:

Is this thread dead. I just upgraded to Lion and was wondering if I could use the flashed 6870 for the 3,1 on my 1,1 even though it says it is incompatible but some of you guys got it working with a regular PC Card. Also I don't care about the boot screen and am noob at flashing cards.

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I have a Mac Pro 1,1 running Lion (not Mountain Lion). I put in a Radeon 6870 (non-flashed) and it works great, other than the blank screen during boot (which isn't a problem for me either). I posted about it earlier in the thread.

Vinny96 said:

Is this thread dead. I just upgraded to Lion and was wondering if I could use the flashed 6870 for the 3,1 on my 1,1 even though it says it is incompatible but some of you guys got it working with a regular PC Card. Also I don't care about the boot screen and am noob at flashing cards.

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You don't need to flash it for a 1,1. The only ROMs out there are for 64-bit EFI which your 1,1 doesn't support.

6870 Mac Pro 1,1

I have a question, concerning the power cable. Will I need a special power cable since I'm using it with a PC video card or will the one that is included in the the Mac compatible one work?

All Mac Pro PCIe power cables are compatible with PC graphics cards.

Having had a read through this thread can someone please confirm some info for me?

6870 on a 3,1 2008 MP seems to work fine without any kext / alterations?

Does that also include a boot screen?

I'm a previous owner of a 4890 which I flashed with Cindori's wonderful tool, but alas that finally gave up the ghost and had phantoms all over the place so I've bought an XFX 6870 HD-687A-ZHFC, only using one DVI monitor @ 1920x1200 so I should be ok with getting a boot screen?

Also has anyone been using these cards with Mountain Lion yet?

Thanks in advance...
Si

Mac Pro 1,1 6870

How about a pc non-flashed 6870 in a Mac Pro 1,1 running Mountain Lion using chameleon boot loader.

Vinny96 said:

I have a question, concerning the power cable. Will I need a special power cable since I'm using it with a PC video card or will the one that is included in the the Mac compatible one work?

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You can use the one included in the Mac, but you need two cables for the 6870.

You can get them here:
http://www.svideo.com/x1900.html

caseys said:

Having had a read through this thread can someone please confirm some info for me?

6870 on a 3,1 2008 MP seems to work fine without any kext / alterations?

Does that also include a boot screen?

I'm a previous owner of a 4890 which I flashed with Cindori's wonderful tool, but alas that finally gave up the ghost and had phantoms all over the place so I've bought an XFX 6870 HD-687A-ZHFC, only using one DVI monitor @ 1920x1200 so I should be ok with getting a boot screen?

Also has anyone been using these cards with Mountain Lion yet?

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Yes. No. No. Yes if you flash. Don't know, but it seems very likely.

6870 Mac Pro 1,1

Which 6870 do you recommend, because there a lot out there and want to know which you guys prefer. I heard the Saphire and XFX are good.

6870 Mac Pro 1,1

Hey guys, I've read through this thread and I'm not quite sure of the answer:

If I got a PC 6870 and put it in my Mac Pro 1,1, will I be able to play games like Civ 5 or Starcraft at the highest resolutions?

I understand about the no-boot screen, and the trouble with getting two power connector cables.

There were people mentioning issues with not every program running at the beginning of the thread, and then everyone seemed to be okay at the end....

I can run either Snow Leopard or Lion, I have both.

Thanks for the help.

I got the XFX one because I didn't see any negative reviews, but didn't see more than a couple positive in the mac pro 1,1. I've had no issues with it, other than black boot screen.

For those who have successfully done CPU upgrade/6870 to your 1,1 MP, is there a dirty simple way of installing 10.8?

9Charms said:

If I got a PC 6870 and put it in my Mac Pro 1,1, will I be able to play games like Civ 5 or Starcraft at the highest resolutions?

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Can't tell about those games, but another Blizzard game: WoW. Having x5355 CPU's, 12GB Ram and a PC 6870 with SnowLeo 10.6.8 running from a SSD i could _not_ play it smoothly on FullHD with everything maxed! "Good" settings worked fine, though. Therefore i'd guess that at least StarCraft (2) would run flawlessly at higher resolutions if you are willing to tune down details a bit, like e.g. shadows etc.

discounteggroll said:

For those who have successfully done CPU upgrade/6870 to your 1,1 MP, is there a dirty simple way of installing 10.8?

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Define "simple"! The way to go is probably the hackintosh route and treating the Mac as yet another PC machine, only pretty much compatible in every detail. One user on these forums even described in detail how to do it (haven't got the name ready, but there have been a few threads about ML on 1,1).

Black screen with 68xx on Mac Pro 1.1
After several hours of online research I purchased a Sapphire 6850 <http://tinyurl.com/am9them> hoping to squeeze another year of service out of my mature Mac Pro 1.1. quad with a Bootcamp partition. My understanding was that it would run out-of-the-box (sans a boot screen). I tried it in SL 10.6.8, Lion 10.7 and 10.7.5. In all cases I hear the chime and what sounds like a normal boot, however no video on either DVI port. Checked it with a Cinema display and 17” monitor. The fan is spinning. If I boot up with my old nvidea 7300 with the 6850 in another slot I get video and can move my mouse but can’t click so I have to shut down with the power button. I had great success flashing a Sapphire 4870 with Zeus for the same Mac a few years ago so perhaps I was over confident that this would be a simple GPU upgrade. The odd thing is that it boots up fine on a friends PC. This has me stumped. Any thoughts?

did you connect power cables?

MacVidCards said:

did you connect power cables?

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Thanks for the quick response. The 8650 requires a single power cable and its plugged in and the fan is spinning. One of the same cables thats currently running my reinstalled 4870. I tried the other cable and power connection as well.
Is there a way to force it to load with the bootcamp partition? Since I no longer have access to a PC, and I'm taking it in for a free diagnostic tomorrow. I am bewildered by this apparent anomaly and appreciate any help.

pepintrout said:

Thanks for the quick response. The 8650 requires a single power cable and its plugged in and the fan is spinning. One of the same cables thats currently running my reinstalled 4870. I tried the other cable and power connection as well.
Is there a way to force it to load with the bootcamp partition? Since I no longer have access to a PC, and I'm taking it in for a free diagnostic tomorrow. I am bewildered by this apparent anomaly and appreciate any help.

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The card checked out fine so there's must some issue with my Mac. I don't get it, its a vanilla mid-2007 1,1 tested with several versions of the OS. Others are successfully running this card? Installed it one last time tonight, no luck! Going to try a different 6850 tomorrow but it looks like I may need to fork it over for an Apple blessed 5770. Running out of adjectives to describe my frustration. Any ideas?

It's possible that the device id of your 6850 isn't in the drivers.

If you don't see any people posting with same card, just do a 6870.

MacVidCards said:

It's possible that the device id of your 6850 isn't in the drivers.

If you don't see any people posting with same card, just do a 6870.

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Good advice!
Seeing the same behavior with a different 6850. I’ve seen post claiming that they’re running this card, but I don’t recall anymore if they had Mac Pro 1,1 or 3,1’s. I also saw that some had flashed it to a 6870. From what I understand flashing would be pointless for a 1,1. Most of the usual discount online stores are sold out or have discontinued the 6870 so I may reluctantly spring for an apple 5770 locally.

Moving on…
Thanks for your guidance