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GeForce GTX 280 on a mac pro??

E

edo10

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2008
12
0
Hi i really don't know that much about hardware stuff but i was wondering if i could run a GeForce GTX 280 on my early 08 mac pro and keep the 8800GT for OSX? also I'm hearing stuff about BIOS flashing? and i was wondering if someone could explain that to me
it says the GTX 280 needs 500 watts power supply is that possible cause i thought i heard that the mac pro only has like 300 watts
so basically i don't know anything about anything!!:)
anyway i know that this card is brand new but i get very excited about this kind of stuff and was just wondering if anyone knew anything about it

thanks!!
 
I dunno about the PSU requirements, but I'd think that if you're running it exclusively in windows, you wouldn't have to flash it. I could be wrong, though.
 
The Mac Pro's power supply is rated at over 1kWatt. Yes, over 1.000 Watts.

It is using server parts after all ;)

What you may have heard is that the combined watts supplied by the PCI-Express ports cannot exceed 300 Watt. Which is not important as the graphic card will get juice directly from the power supply.

I would, however, wait a week or two and see what kind of performance two Radeon HD 4850 in CrossfireX can deliver.

A hint can be found here

TweakTown said:
The other thing I have to say before I wrap this all up is that I’ve tested the HD 4850, and I’ve tested it in Crossfire. Now, if I hadn’t tested those cards I may have been more impressed with the GTX 280, but I have. I’ve seen the performance figures the cards put out. We also know the price on a pair of HD 4850s is going to be under $600 AUD, while the new GTX 280 in stock form seems to be launching at the absolute cheapest in Australia in the low $700 AUD area. Ouch.
Click to expand...
 
Hay thanks for the quick replies! i was planning on waiting a little bit for the price to drop (hopefully:)) and also seeing to 4870 benchmarked
does crossfire work on a mac pro? as i heard SLI doesn't and i thought it was basically the same technology
 
also i was just wondering if i have to disconnect the monitor and reconnect it with either the 8800GT for the mac and the GTX 280 for the PC side every time i want to switch operating systems
thanks!
 
edo10 said:
Hay thanks for the quick replies! i was planning on waiting a little bit for the price to drop (hopefully:)) and also seeing to 4870 benchmarked
does crossfire work on a mac pro? as i heard SLI doesn't and i thought it was basically the same technology
Click to expand...

CrossfireX is supported in Windows on the Mac Pro. NVIDIA has forced Scalable Link Interface to only work on their own chipsets.

edo10 said:
also i was just wondering if i have to disconnect the monitor and reconnect it with either the 8800GT for the mac and the GTX 280 for the PC side every time i want to switch operating systems
thanks!
Click to expand...

You would have to switch the monitor cable between the two graphic cards or even have to remove the Geforce GTX 280 to boot into Mac OS X.
 
thanks very much this is really helpful just one last question!:eek:

If i have two monitors would i be able to hook one up to one of the graphics cards and a different one to the other?


thanks so much!
 
Just butting in here, but I have a few GTX280's coming in tomorrow, mainly for my Windows machines but I should have a couple left over. Is there a shop that I can buy the Pro GPU cables over-the-counter in London?
 
Sesshi said:
Just butting in here, but I have a few GTX280's coming in tomorrow, mainly for my Windows machines but I should have a couple left over. Is there a shop that I can buy the Pro GPU cables over-the-counter in London?
Click to expand...

You could probably buy the parts and make them.

I seem to recall reading an article that showed you exactly how to make a power cable for the Mac Pro. Let me have a trip down the memory lane and I will report back :)

Update: this article covers how to make the cable and here you can buy one from ATI.
 
hi sorry but i have one more question:eek: if i want to flash the 280 what am i supposed to do? i really don't know anything about flashing
is there any website that explains it? is it a software that flashes it or something i have to manually change on the card?
I'm sorry that it's such a stupid question
thanks!
 
edo10 said:
hi sorry but i have one more question:eek: if i want to flash the 280 what am i supposed to do? i really don't know anything about flashing
is there any website that explains it? is it a software that flashes it or something i have to manually change on the card?
I'm sorry that it's such a stupid question
thanks!
Click to expand...

The question is rather why you would want to flash it?

It will still not let you boot Mac OS X.
 
Pressure said:
The question is rather why you would want to flash it?

It will still not let you boot Mac OS X.
Click to expand...

it doesn't? i thought that if you flashed it it would work on the mac side
i thought that was why someone would flash it??
 
You can only flash something if there's already drivers for it, and in this case a. there aren't, and b. there most likely never will be. Unless you want to write drivers yourself. ;)
 
Mackilroy said:
You can only flash something if there's already drivers for it, and in this case a. there aren't, and b. there most likely never will be. Unless you want to write drivers yourself. ;)
Click to expand...

That and the problem with regards to availability of an EFI compatible rom to flash the card with.
 
There's also a practical issue. The card needs one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector. Not a huge issue for the DIYer but may be a problem for some.

I've decided to give the exercise in curiosity a miss for the time being. My Windows PC's are far better equipped to support this card properly.
 
Custom built and ready-built.

The initial recipients of the 280's will be a Dell XPS 720H2C that I haven't got rid of yet and a couple of 5400XS based custom builds built by our tech guy. He's still sorting out the one on water, but the one on air is humming away nicely - and all of them should in theory benefit from 280's in SLI.

Hopefully the courier will attempt redelivery of the cards tomorrow, and during the weekend I'll be tipping out the Ultras from the 720 (assuming I can get power connectors sorted out) for starters to see how much improvement there really is.
 
Sesshi said:
Custom built and ready-built.

The initial recipients of the 280's will be a Dell XPS 720H2C that I haven't got rid of yet and a couple of 5400XS based custom builds built by our tech guy. He's still sorting out the one on water, but the one on air is humming away nicely - and all of them should in theory benefit from 280's in SLI.

Hopefully the courier will attempt redelivery of the cards tomorrow, and during the weekend I'll be tipping out the Ultras from the 720 (assuming I can get power connectors sorted out) for starters to see how much improvement there really is.
Click to expand...

Sesshi, from reading your posts, you seems to be very anti-Mac. What makes you dislike the Macs so much and prefer the PCs? Are all Macs bad to you in terms of quality?
Sorry, but I just want to know. Thanks. :)
 
The specific reasons are long and varied. However it does mostly boil down to the engineering quality of the hardware. Apple is superb at the superficials which is clearly making a lot of you out there very happy, but I'm definitely not convinced by how well they can engineer a PC to perform as it should.
 
edo10 said:
it doesn't? i thought that if you flashed it it would work on the mac side
i thought that was why someone would flash it??
Click to expand...

The main reason for flashing a video card is to allow one designed for the PC to be used on the Mac. However as others have stated there has to be a driver for the card. For instance you can buy an 8800GT card for the PC a lot cheaper than Apple charges. You can flash the EFI chip to allow the Mac to use it (with the drivers for the Mac version of the card).
Does all that make sense?
 
Sesshi said:
The specific reasons are long and varied. However it does mostly boil down to the engineering quality of the hardware. Apple is superb at the superficials which is clearly making a lot of you out there very happy, but I'm definitely not convinced by how well they can engineer a PC to perform as it should.
Click to expand...

There's no doubt Apple have QA issues but... take the Mac Pros for
example. Most of the stuff in them hasn't been engineered by Apple.
It's just bought in. What does Apple need to do to ensure that stuff
they don't make, e.g., stuff made by the likes of Intel and ATI, is of
the right quality?
 
Infrared said:
There's no doubt Apple have QA issues but... take the Mac Pros for
example. Most of the stuff in them hasn't been engineered by Apple.
It's just bought in. What does Apple need to do to ensure that stuff
they don't make, e.g., stuff made by the likes of Intel and ATI, is of
the right quality?
Click to expand...

The motherboard specifications, the cooling specifications, etc are all up to Apple. We're not talking about individual components here - parts fail sometimes, it's fact. I'm talking about the system as a whole and Apple's inability to engineer it to address any use beyond what I've come to suspect as their core customer base - people who do very little.
 
Sesshi said:
The motherboard specifications, the cooling specifications, etc are all up to Apple. We're not talking about individual components here - parts fail sometimes, it's fact. I'm talking about the system as a whole and Apple's inability to engineer it to address any use beyond what I've come to suspect as their core customer base - people who do very little.
Click to expand...

Is there any Mac that you think is good or good enough in terms of this?
 
To be honest, I would just ignore him.

I can't, at this time, find a system that is better assembled than the Mac Pro. It's clean and very accessible. Good looking too.
 
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