eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS on my Pro, 3dMark 9800+

It wasn't pretty. I don't yet have that hard-to-find molex adapter to power the 8800GTS card yet (local dealer and Apple Canada didn't know what I was talking about). As a temp fix, I ran the 6-pin power chord from my PC's guts (been building my own for about 15 years) into the guts of my Mac and attached to to the 8800GTS. (see the attached pic). I installed the driver for WinXP and wham! it soared to a respectable 9826 on 3dMark. My Mac's spec when running Windows under BootCamp is:

Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad Core Zeon (2X Dual core 64 bit w/1333MHZ front side bus)
3GB Ram
Single 250GB Western Digital Caviar 8mb cache
Windows XP SP2 (32 bit) w/Direct X 9.0c
the GeForce 8800GTS 640MB with latest driver for XP


Found this 5.25 inch power supply on the web, which I might consider using in lieu of powering it from the board....reason is I want to still run my 7300GT for a 3 monitor set up and Mac Pro's guide says don't draw more than 300W total for PCI-e cards....the GeForce 8800 GTS alone takes 24A peak at 12V.

So then I put the card back into my PC and ran it on 3dMark which I hadn't done yet. Here are my comparable PC specs:

Asus M2N-E mobo
AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 4200+ CPU
4GB Ram (effectively 3.5GB only under 32 bit Vista)
Two 160GB 16mb cache Seagate Barracudas in Raid 0
Windows Vista Ultimate (32 bit)w/DirectX 10
the GeForce 8800GTS 640MB with latest driver for Vista

It scored 7030.

The greatest lesson I learned? Apple is completely unprepared for the wave of "PC Enthusiasts" about to invade their shores with all kinds of demands for weird parts for modding and customizing. I think they're seeing the past with a market of folks who buys Macs precisely because they don't homebrew-and are frustrated trying get Windows to work-and to the future at technology that won't need (or allow?) any homebrewing anymore (so they think;-). Which leaves us mod-happy PC converts in the middle somehere risking our Pro's to try wierd things to make it go faster.

But I'm proud and impressed with what I could do with my Pro tonight and glad to be back.

ps the following picture will seem odd and even offensive to some old-time Mac users and downright sexy to PC enthusiasts. In the background is my 3dMark score.

an ex-PC guy waxes phiosophical about it all....

It is true that it's always been hard to customize Macs, if not impossible, but I almost get the impression that now it's not because Apple opposes supporting a little of that, they just don't seem to care whether we do or not. If Apple was opposed to users meddling with the hardware, they didn't show it by buiding a machine that could finally make it possible, particularly by making it Windows compatible. It's not Apple's hardware that stopping us from trying stuff, it's the drivers, the software they didn't develop.

I say forget about taking months and years to build a Mac-compatible piece of ATI video hardware; just code up a mac driver to run an 8800GTS just as it is.

So with this machine, they allow for this kind of experimentation, they just don't take the extra step and support it with a little work like developing drivers or teaching their techs about that little cable we all need. The hardest part now is that Apple doesn't need to the money of the enthusiast market that's coming over anyway.

So I predict that third parties will begin to step in and we'll find that little 'mini-fit' Molex cable and such, a little more available someday soon.

Meantime, the challenge has made being a hardware hack that much more intriguing again, like the efforts this fellow goes through to make that cable himself.

eMagine said:

I upgraded my card in my mac pro as well. this is the power cable i used. works perfectly.

http://www.welovemacs.com/9227128.html

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Thanks eMagine. Yep, that's the one. I'll be trying to find it locally today, not optimistic.

If others have subbed Mac cards for Windows compatible cards and made alternate arrangements for power, a post here on what you did would be appreciated.

panzer06 said:

Do these card upgrades only apply to the Windows Boot? Do you still need to remove the new card to get OS X to boot? I seem to remember all sorts of little annoying issues with doing this. Have those been resolved?

Cheers,

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Yes, this card will only work under the Windows boot . My next experiment is to leave the original card that came with my Pro (7300GT) in the case with the 8800 and run one monitor to the 7300, one to the 8800 and ensure OSX will be ok. Will get back to this forum with my result...and if the riddle about swapping quad core Zeon CPUs with the Dual cores has not been fully resolved with the year, I intend to try that too one day.

Any know of conclusive evidence we can just swap out our duals for quads?

Anandtech, but....

robbieduncan said:

Anandtech did it ages back...

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Yeah, read that quite a while ago. But it's the part about "We can't say with 100% certainty that you will be able to upgrade to Clovertown when it comes out, but so far the results are looking good." He was using "betas" and so my question extends a little further...can we ramp this certainty up to 100%?

Searched a little more and found it done again in other places...now I'm fully satisfied.

-http://www.hardmac.com/articles/70/ Again, using the pre-production engineering CPU's

-http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6663792.html Once again using (beta?) Quad cores before the Octo-core Pro was publicly on the market.

-http://www.o0o.it/pro/. Here finally a Mac Pro CPU swap done with current market Quad core Zeons at 1.86Ghz, then modded up to 2.33...these chips for sale in Canada for $350 (http://www.memoryexpress.com/index....ProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=10369&SID=)

flappo said:

i have to ask what's the point of a card like that on a mac ?

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Because we're old enough to still be affected by Oscar Goldman telling us "faster...stronger....better. We can rebuild [it]."

Actually yours is a good question...I've sat with buddies around a table full of a gutted PC and wires and cards as we upgraded a machine and asked ourselves why were upgrading perfectly fast machines. Then we went back to work. Absurd as it sounds, the answer lies somewhere in not asking the question....sort of "because the upgrade is there".

But since you asked, for me it's mainly because I already own the card and I need more power for my three monitors to run Flight Sim X full on. Even a Pro with 256MB card can't provide the oomph. Which is what now drives the Pro to upgrade realms...the insatiable demand games, especially Windows-based games, have put on systems to be stronger, faster, better. "We can rebuild it."

SDAVE said:

Mac Pro's are workstation machines and not gaming

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That used to be true, then they went Intel, allowed for Windows, and now they are both workstations and great gaming rigs if that's what you want.

Sometimes I am a sophisticated power-user respecting the engineering that is a Macintosh workstation, other times I'm a hack giddy about pumping up my Pro's innards just because I can.

To be honest, at times I find the whole dichotomy a little tiring....