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5870 in Mac Pro

The Rominator said:
Would make most sense to have 5870 in 1st slot, and put the 7300 in 3 or 4.

7300 is never gonna saturate a 4x or 8x slot, it is a slow card, certainly not fit for any heavy 3D apps. but just fine for desktop, web browsing, etc.

Recently I was testing a GTX285 in OSX. Because I have a 1,1 I need to have the 7300 in to make GTX285 work using Netkas magic.

I fired up COD4 to test the GTX. COD4 was lagging and stuttering horribly. It was in fact unplayable. I was worried that I had a bad GTX285...then I realized that I had never moved DVI plug from the 7300 at boot. I was trying to play COD4 with all settings on "High" or "Insane" on a 30" on a 7300. Not doable. But everything up to COD4 had been beautiful, thought i was using GTX until that point.
Click to expand...


Sorry to hijack the thread here Rominator but is that a PC GTX285 you're using with the 7300? If so could you please post a link to any instructions on how to get this particular setup working?

I'm currently using a MP 1,1 with a X1900XT but I have a spare Mac 7300 kicking about and would love to be able to use a GTX285 in my MP.

TIA

Alistair
 
Hi, I'm newbie, but I visited frequently macrumors, now I follow this type of threads talking about the 5870's and 5970. I saw some threads very interestings and very useful, cleared my many doubts about the installation and operation of this card on a mac pro. I have the mac pro 1,1 , and I want to install the HD 5870 or 5970. I shopped of these cables from Svideo.com, anyone buy from this site before? I hope they send me good cables.

http://www.svideo.com/x1900.html


I was thinking if it is possible to run two HD 5870 in Mac Pro 1,1 , one in slot 1, the other in slot 4, and connect them with a long crossfire cable, I know the slot 4 is running at 8x, but I read in some threads that say the performance loss is 6% to 8%.

My doubt is a how to install the 5870 in slot 4, this is a huge card, I don't know if exist lot of space to install there. The hard drives are in the top, and I see the fit problems there, but I don't know.

If someone having the card in your hands, please try to install it in the slot 4 to see if that is possible. I saw Rominator has one and runs very well, so if the card fits well we have an option to install crossfire in our macs, with some performance loss, but I will be conform and happy with these little monsters into my mac pro :)

tnks

Sorry for my bd english :D
 
Relatively benign question, but I ordered one for my Mac Pro and wanted to know about hooking it up to power.

What connections from the PSU should I use and what pin converters do I need?

Just wanted to order anything I need ahead of time before it arrives.
 
if you have 06-08 mac, you can use molex from superdrive
easier to buy proper cables tho, google G5 Graphics power cable
 
Cindori said:
1st, these cards will NOT run OSX today.



2nd,
The 2nd card would run in 4x if the first runs 16x.
So the viable option would be 8x/8x.
8x PCIe 1.0 = 4x PCIe 2.0.

a review of performance lost can be found here
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html

crossfire would work yes, but once again only in Windows
Click to expand...


Nice review, 16X 1.1 only 2% of lost!!, 5% for the 4X. So, the crossfire in mac pro 1,1 will run at 8X 5% lost of performance . :confused:
 
Bernerosky said:
Nice review, 16X 1.1 only 2% of lost!!, 5% for the 4X. So, the crossfire in mac pro 1,1 will run at 8X 5% lost of performance . :confused:
Click to expand...

Yup. I was running two 4870s in crossfire in my Mac Pro for ages. I never ran into any issues. The only program that actually shows considerable losses by dropping even to PCIe1.1 16x speeds is Autodesk Mudbox - which I don't even use.
 
Hi all new to this forum i'm considering upgrading to a XFS HD5870 just wondering from the picture in the first post are the power cord's used the ones that power the Apple HD4870 ?
 
If a 5870 ever comes out for the Mac Pro, yes, you'll use the same cables to power it. :)
 
That's not quite what i'm asking. Currently i know there is no 5870 for mac however the picture in the beginning of this thread looks like it uses the power cables from the board (That you would normally power a 4870 with). The reason i ask is the last time i experimented with using the molexes from the PSU directly it blew the computer up granted i think the VGA was faulty and that may have caused the surge i am somewhat reluctant to experiment using the PSU connectors for the video card again.
 
Hi all,

I want to install a new GPU into my MP (Nehalem Quad) and I am thinking about one of these cards

Radeon HD 5870 2 GB DDR5 OR HD 5970 2 GB DDR5

Which one of these cards will fit on my MP? I am going to use it for Win7 only.
I am not technical person, what will I need and how will I connect the Card into my system?

How will I boot to mac osx? do I have to plug/unplug the mini display every time I boot from mac to win and verse versa???


Thanks in advance
 
Both of those cards will fit. For power info look at my "golden guide" in sig.

To boot OSX you must switch the display cable to the Mac card.
 
Cindori said:
Both of those cards will fit. For power info look at my "golden guide" in sig.

To boot OSX you must switch the display cable to the Mac card.
Click to expand...

That is excellent; Many thanks for your support
 
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