Sapphire Launches Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition Graphics Card for Mac Pro

[Squishy Tia]

Originally Posted by alfistas

I know... but I think it would look awesome if it did! Backplates offer extra protection to the pcb against static discharge and distortion. If this were a PREMIUM product then they should have added a backplate or at the very least offer it as an option.

Not much room to spare for a backplate when used in a Mac Pro. Besides, without the backplate a little extra air from the PCIe bay fan will get back there to cool the card a bit better. It won't be much, but anything helps.

[MacsRgr8]

Originally Posted by bhuel

Works fine, but no boot screen in OS X, running 10.7.5. Installed drivers, etc. and works fine once you get to the login screen. Anyone else seeing this problem, or know a solution?

Originally Posted by Kissaragi

Would imagine the switch isnt in the correct position

Kissaragi is correct.
I had the same issue. The manual says the dipswitch is default set "to the right" which enables OS X EFI mode, but in my case it was "on the left" which enables PC UEFI mode, therefore acting like a "normal" PC card.

You can adjust the dipswitch by simply removing the side cover off the Mac Pro.

[captmatt]

If the (future) Mac Pro is going to support the Thunderbolt display, will it require a video card that has Thunderbolt on-board? I ask because this is the latest for the Mac Pro but doesn't have TB. Does it give hints at the near future?

Does it look like the Mac Pro won't support Thunderbolt video out, instead utilizing it for storage, etc..?

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by captmatt

If the (future) Mac Pro is going to support the Thunderbolt display, will it require a video card that has Thunderbolt on-board? I ask because this is the latest for the Mac Pro but doesn't have TB. Does it give hints at the near future?

Does it look like the Mac Pro won't support Thunderbolt video out, instead utilizing it for storage, etc..?

I doubt very much that the next Mac Pro will have Thunderbolt on the GPU.

There simply isn't the bandwidth to support a high-end GPU and thunderbolt.

I'm extremely interested in how Apple are going to add thunderbolt to the Mac Pro.

[Squishy Tia]

Originally Posted by Concorde Rules

I doubt very much that the next Mac Pro will have Thunderbolt on the GPU.

There simply isn't the bandwidth to support a high-end GPU and thunderbolt.

I'm extremely interested in how Apple are going to add thunderbolt to the Mac Pro.

Apple would have to use an Intel board with dual PCIe controllers. There's no other way to get enough PCIe lanes to support Thunderbolt, which takes eight lanes on its own. There are boards from a couple manufacturers out there that have dual PCIe controllers onboard, but none of the boards have Thunderbolt AFAIK.

[boinkboink]

Originally Posted by sputnikv

there's contradictory information regarding compatibility from their website. in the product description, they say this is compatible with 2010 mac pros onward while in a more obscure spec page they say the 2009 mac pros are supported. surely if the later is true, the former is as well

I installed the card in my MP 2009 and it works flawlessly. As usual, 1 minute is all it took. Kick ass card. I am in the experimenting stage with overclocking right now. I am running the card (in Windows) at 900Mhz base frequency with 1300 Mhz memory frequency. The card is running at 72 DegC with 46% fan speed. My aim is to increase the base frequency to 1Ghz and see what happens.

[Concorde Rules]

Originally Posted by Squishy Tia

Apple would have to use an Intel board with dual PCIe controllers. There's no other way to get enough PCIe lanes to support Thunderbolt, which takes eight lanes on its own. There are boards from a couple manufacturers out there that have dual PCIe controllers onboard, but none of the boards have Thunderbolt AFAIK.

Not sure what your on about there?

The CPUs have a fixed number of PCI-E lanes (40ish IIRC).

Two x16s and two x4s kind of use all that up, sharing bandwidth is easy and far from an ideal solution.

Nor does it solve how to integrate display port into it. Either thunderbolt is on the GPU and shares the GPUs PCI-E lanes, or display port signals are send back via the PCI-e lanes to the thunderbolt controller or an external cable merges a non-DP enabled TB port with the GPUs DP port.

Or a discrete GPU is included on the motherboard itself, but then you need to pipe the output from the high performance GPU.

Very interested anyhow on how apple will manage it.

[cannfoddr]

I too delivery of my 7950 at the weekend to install in my Mac Pro 3,1 3.0Ghz Xenon machine.

I was replacing a flashed PC 4890 (??) Radeon that has been working fine but I felt the need for something a bit more modern. I had tried some other newer PC cards without success and finally gave in and ordered the Sapphire

My Install experiences:

1. Initially I could not get the machine to power up with the card installed - I just got a click from the power supply. I reseated the card without any success. Through some trial and error I eventually realised that I could not use the new graphics card and my CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 USB 3.0/eSATA card. Removing the card enabled the machine to power up - I dont really understand why this is the case as I am sure the Mac Pro power supply should be up to the job, setup worked fine with the old graphics card.

2. The bios switch was set to PC OOB so no boot screen - opened the case panel and flicked the switch and voila a boot screen

3. System initially came up with a non native resolution on my 2 23' cinema displays had to manually set the resolution back down to native - also gave me a readbale display (fonts were a bit too small for my taste)

4. No need to install mac drivers on 10.8.3 they are included but the install just told me that I didnt need them

5. Has made a huge difference to Starcraft 2 and WOW frame rates

6. Bootcamp install went fine booted up and installed the catalyst drivers for windows

All in All very happy if a little confused about the power issues - can live without USB 3.0 ports for the time being whilst I investigate.

Adrian