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9600 GT on my Mac Pro

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pmkenny1234

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 21, 2008
8
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Okay. I've settled for the fact that upgrading the graphics card on my previous generation Mac Pro is going to be a pain. I've been defeated. However, the 9600 GT is out now. It's cheap, powerful, and something very enticing to me.

Does anyone know if it is possible to add this card to my Mac Pro and at least play games in Windows via Boot Camp? I would be very happy to at least be able to do this since native OSX support for new graphics cards is such a sticky point for Apple. I would gladly give up the ability to play modern games in OSX if I had any possibility at all of playing them in Boot Camp without spending an arm and a leg on a Quadro card.
 
I hear ya. You should be happy to know that for the most part the 9600 GT and the 8800 GT are nearly identical in performance (I know this isn't perfectly accurate...but still). It won't be until they release some sort of 9800 GT that you can start crying.

The main issue is that I've got a previous generation Mac Pro and I want ANY option for affordable graphics acceleration. I switched to Macs because I loved the interface. If I could play the PC games I left behind as well I could get the best of both worlds.
 
DO NOT GET IT. people are saying it sucks ass. Newegg is slashing prices because no one wants to buy the damn thing. The higher end 9k series cards will be out in like a week to two weeks. just get one of those.
 
Thanks knome. Do you know if I'll be able to get a higher end 9k card and run it on my Mac Pro in Boot Camp? I can't seem to find a clear answer from the searching around on the net.
 
The 9600 replaces the 8600, and is still around 20% slower than the 8800GT. The extra video features on the new 9xxx series will be included in the next Nvidia drivers and will also work on all 8 series cards. At least on Windows... ;)
 
Yeah. I'm seeing inconsistent results regarding the performance of the 9600 GT. The HardOCP review puts the 9600 GT at about the same performance of the 8800 GT when overclocked. Regardless, I'd love to put either card into my Mac Pro if it were possible to just slap it in and run it in Boot Camp when I want to play games.
 
The 8800 is way better then the 9600. The 9800 will be better then the 8800.


And yes, ANY graphic card can be run under Windows on a mac pro.
 
The 9800GX2 is due soon, but by the time they've fixed the inevitable driver issues we'll be onto the 10x series cards. :rolleyes:

The 9600 is around $20 cheaper than an 8800GT, but my money would go on the 8800. The higher the resolution, the more benefit you'll get from the faster card.
 
Cindori said:
And yes, ANY graphic card can be run under Windows on a mac pro.
Click to expand...

A friend of mine is thinking about getting a Mac Pro for Gaming. He now has two 8800GTS in SLI. Could he put them in the Mac Pro and use them with Windows?
 
It does. However, there are hacked drivers to let you use SLI in non-nvidia MOBOS. I dont know how stable they are though.

I would advice your friend to get a PC. With those cards he cant even boot OSX, so what is the deal of getting a MP? The parts in the Mac Pro are not specialized for gaming either, he would get better performance from a PC.
 
Cindori said:
It does. However, there are hacked drivers to let you use SLI in non-nvidia MOBOS. I dont know how stable they are though.

I would advice your friend to get a PC. With those cards he cant even boot OSX, so what is the deal of getting a MP? The parts in the Mac Pro are not specialized for gaming either, he would get better performance from a PC.
Click to expand...

It's also the advice I gave him: keep his current gaming PC and add a regular iMac eventually.
 
pmkenny1234 said:
Okay. I've settled for the fact that upgrading the graphics card on my previous generation Mac Pro is going to be a pain. I've been defeated. However, the 9600 GT is out now. It's cheap, powerful, and something very enticing to me.

Does anyone know if it is possible to add this card to my Mac Pro and at least play games in Windows via Boot Camp? I would be very happy to at least be able to do this since native OSX support for new graphics cards is such a sticky point for Apple. I would gladly give up the ability to play modern games in OSX if I had any possibility at all of playing them in Boot Camp without spending an arm and a leg on a Quadro card.
Click to expand...

The 8800GT is faster than the 9600GT. You should be able to flash your ROM. Read the 8800 EFI64 ROM thread starting about here. You should be able to substitute your EFI32 ROM, use the same procedure, and flash any 8800GT. Actually. If you make a FreeDOS boot CD you should be able to read your ROM with the nvflash.exe tool from that thread, and you may not even need the 128K ROM. Your ROM could be 64k, and in that case it's possible that any 8800GT could work with your Mac Pro. Early 2008 Versions have to find a card that has a 128K ROM which limits our choices. And it's a hit and miss game for us because the same card from the same manufacturer is often coming with different size ROM's. It's not a consistent manufacturing process. Go check it out. ;)
 
Cindori said:
It does. However, there are hacked drivers to let you use SLI in non-nvidia MOBOS. I dont know how stable they are though.

I would advice your friend to get a PC. With those cards he cant even boot OSX, so what is the deal of getting a MP? The parts in the Mac Pro are not specialized for gaming either, he would get better performance from a PC.
Click to expand...

That's wrong. SLI will not work with 8xxx series Nvidia cards in a Mac running under either platform. There is a hacked driver to get the 7xxx series to work, but your better off getting a single 8800.
 
Thanks to everyone for all the helpful responses. I will probably wait until the 9800GX2 comes out and upgrade to that one while keeping my current video card installed so that OSX is still functional.

While the 8800 flashing is a possible route, the fact that the card will be out of date in a week and there are likely to be no options from Apple for 9xxx series cards for some time turns me away from even bothering to get OSX native support from my gaming card.

That said, I'm very happy with my Mac and if I have to reboot to play the latest games it seems like a small price to pay compared to fighting Windows all the time (believe me...I've done plentty ;P ).
 
I will be purchasing a 9800GX2 for my computer the instant they come out. I'll leave my 1900 in for osx and booting and have the 9800 for windows. That is if my power supply will put out that much power.
 
dukebound85 said:
so any real incentive to get a 9xxx series over the 8800gt?
Click to expand...
There's no incentive to get the 9600 GT over the 8800GT.

The 9600GT will work in the Mac Pro just fine under Windows. It looks like nVidia really made a turnaround after the very disappointing 8600GT/GTS cards. The 9600 series looks like a true successor to the popular 7600 GT/GTX OC lines.

ATI dropped the prices on the 38xx Series cards but the 3870 and 9600GT are a tough pick.
 
Dude, give the 9800GX2 some time to develop. If it's anything like the last GX2 cards, support will be dropped in 3 months... Besides, SLI is still a very iffy technology, and isn't supported in all games, and doesn't scale consistently.

Stick with the 8800GT for now.
 
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