OEM Radeon 4870 working on First Gen Mac Pro

[barefeats]

I installed the OEM Radeon HD 4870 in a First Generation "Clovertown" 3.0GHz 8-core Mac Pro. It's working. This is the model I mean (see right column).
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30

(I pulled the card from a Nehalem.) I booted from the drive that came with the Nehalem. (Easier than cloning the system or trying to get the drivers to copy over - which gave an error on boot.)

It runs with no problems. I'm busily running 3D Game benchmarks which I will report back on later tonight or tomorrow morning.

 

[Abidubi]

How about you get those nehalem gaming benchmarks up first

I mean it's ordered already, but I'm dying to know how well it will run and all I have to go by so far are sketchy cinebench scores.

 

[Eidorian]

Another win for ATI.

 

[barefeats]

I'm pedaling as fast as I can! I just got the Mac Pro 2.93 8-core this afternoon with the 4870. I ran the 3D Game benchmarks on it (as well as Photoshop, After Effects, and Compressor+QuickCluster). But I everyone was asking if the card would work on first gen Mac Pro.

I should have a posting ready by tomorrow morning with 3D benchmarks for the HD 4870 on two models of Nehalem as well as the Clovertown and Harpertown. I'll also have results for other cards including the GeForce 120 GT, 8800 GT, and Radeon HD 3870.

 

[tobyg]

I'm pedaling as fast as I can! I just got the Mac Pro 2.93 8-core this afternoon with the 4870. I ran the 3D Game benchmarks on it (as well as Photoshop, After Effects, and Compressor+QuickCluster). But I everyone was asking if the card would work on first gen Mac Pro.

I should have a posting ready by tomorrow morning with 3D benchmarks for the HD 4870 on two models of Nehalem as well as the Clovertown and Harpertown. I'll also have results for other cards including the GeForce 120 GT, 8800 GT, and Radeon HD 3870.

Get the heck off of the forums and get back to cranking out pretty graphs!

 

[Abidubi]

I'm pedaling as fast as I can! I just got the Mac Pro 2.93 8-core this afternoon with the 4870. I ran the 3D Game benchmarks on it (as well as Photoshop, After Effects, and Compressor+QuickCluster). But I everyone was asking if the card would work on first gen Mac Pro.

I should have a posting ready by tomorrow morning with 3D benchmarks for the HD 4870 on two models of Nehalem as well as the Clovertown and Harpertown. I'll also have results for other cards including the GeForce 120 GT, 8800 GT, and Radeon HD 3870.

Sweet, good work. I think it's a safe bet that the quad 2.93 = octo 2.93 in gaming.

Next question will be 4GB ram sticks in the quads. I'll be keeping an eye on your site in the future. Thanks again.

 

[barefeats]

I think it's a safe bet that the quad 2.93 = octo 2.93 in gaming.

Next question will be 4GB ram sticks in the quads. I'll be keeping an eye on your site in the future. Thanks again.

I should have both a 4-core 2.93 Nehalem and 4G sticks by Friday. I'm going to run it head to head with the 8-core but I agree with your hypothesis. Few games even use two cores. The core-clock, memory bus, system bus, cache, and GPU are more important in gaming.

 

[Jiten]

I should have both a 4-core 2.93 Nehalem and 4G sticks by Friday. I'm going to run it head to head with the 8-core but I agree with your hypothesis. Few games even use two cores. The core-clock, memory bus, system bus, cache, and GPU are more important in gaming.

Oh please let those 4 Gigs sticks be compatible with the Quads. I work on mostly on illustration and can't justify the price of the 8 core for what I do.

 

[Wormy23]

Thanks for confirming this Rob-ART. I guess first gen MacPros still have an upgrade path. Thanks Apple, thanks ATi.

Can't wait to see your benchmarks tho

 

[grue]

Another win for ATI.

It only wins until you compare to the current-model GTX 260, which I'm sad Apple didn't go with instead.

C'est la vie, I suppose.

 

[tobyg]

Just tested my flashed 4870 in my MP 2x2.66 Quad original MacPro1,1 and yeah, works the same as it does in my 2x2.8 Octo.

Doing a few benchmarks to compare.

 

[jjahshik32]

It only wins until you compare to the current-model GTX 260, which I'm sad Apple didn't go with instead.

C'est la vie, I suppose.

And have it fail in 6 months, NO THANK YOU. ATI for the win!!

I despise Nvidia.

 

[grue]

And have it fail in 6 months, NO THANK YOU. ATI for the win!!

I despise Nvidia.

When you mentioned failure in 6 months, I thought you were talking about the X1900 XT.

Yeah, nividia had a problem with one line of GPUs, in laptops primarily.

Meanwhile, ATI hasn't written a good driver set since Clinton was in office, and even then they were questionable.

Given the choice, I'll take a GPU that -might- fail in some cases over one that -will- have inferior performance.


But yeah, you despise nvidia. I despise ATI and Apple, it balances.

 

[Phydoux]

When you mentioned failure in 6 months, I thought you were talking about the X1900 XT.

Yeah, nividia had a problem with one line of GPUs, in laptops primarily.

Meanwhile, ATI hasn't written a good driver set since Clinton was in office, and even then they were questionable.

Given the choice, I'll take a GPU that -might- fail in some cases over one that -will- have inferior performance.


But yeah, you despise nvidia. I despise ATI and Apple, it balances.

lol, I think that jjahshik32 just got eaten by a grue.

 

[Pressure]

Why even bother bringing up the Geforce GTX 260? It's not an option.

Besides it is common knowledge that a certain company has better drivers for Mac OS X.

It's great that the Radeon HD 4870 works in the 1.1 Mac Pro, as I said earlier

 

[jjahshik32]

When you mentioned failure in 6 months, I thought you were talking about the X1900 XT.

Yeah, nividia had a problem with one line of GPUs, in laptops primarily.

Meanwhile, ATI hasn't written a good driver set since Clinton was in office, and even then they were questionable.

Given the choice, I'll take a GPU that -might- fail in some cases over one that -will- have inferior performance.


But yeah, you despise nvidia. I despise ATI and Apple, it balances.

I've never heard anything about the x1900XT having massive failure rates not like the Nvidia 8600M GT, G84 and G86 chipsets, Nvidia 8800GT.

Nvidia cards are a bit faster but they dont have reliability. Not to mention much better drivers with the ATI nowadays.

Hey at least a bit slower card will still work and get work done or play the games I want than a 100% dead card that cant do s*it.

BTW, you despise Apple so I guess it makes you a TROLL in these threads. Thanks for clearing that up. Good bye.

 

[grue]

I've never heard anything about the x1900XT having massive failure rates not like the Nvidia 8600M GT, G84 and G86 chipsets, Nvidia 8800GT.

Nvidia cards are a bit faster but they dont have reliability.

The X1900XT is pretty notorious for failure in the Mac Pro.

Yes, some of the 8000-series units failed, especially in laptops. Yes, it sucks. But hey, crap happens. Companies screw up.

Apple hasn't made a power adapter for portables that doesn't have ridiculously high failure rates since around the time of the PowerBook 180, yet people conveniently ignore that because hey, it's Apple.

 

[grue]

Hey at least a bit slower card will still work and get work done or play the games I want than a 100% dead card that cant do s*it.

Whatever blows smoke up your skirt. If I pull my 8800GT and put in a 4870, I -lose- performance in Flight Simulator X.

 

[jjahshik32]

Whatever blows smoke up your skirt. If I pull my 8800GT and put in a 4870, I -lose- performance in Flight Simulator X.

Well your going to have to pull that 8800GT card out sooner or later when it dies right? Might as well.

But coming to my whole point, at least you can still play Flight Simulator X.

 

[grue]

Well your going to have to pull that 8800GT card out sooner or later when it dies right? Might as well.

But coming to my whole point, at least you can still play Flight Simulator X.

_IF_ the 8800GT dies (that's mostly a laptop thing, and I don't think Apple has any laptops worth buying, so I'm safe!), I'll put in a 4870 for MacOS and a GTX260 for Windows, and switch the DVI cable when I restart.

As for the point… I don't consider 25fps playable.

edit: I forgot the GT120 won't work in my machine. Lulz.

 

[jjahshik32]

_IF_ the 8800GT dies (that's mostly a laptop thing, and I don't think Apple has any laptops worth buying, so I'm safe!), I'll put in a GT120 for MacOS and a GTX260 for Windows, and switch the DVI cable when I restart.

As for the point… I don't consider 25fps playable.

Nope desktops are affected too, sorry man you just ran out of stuff to retaliate me with.

 

[grue]

Nope desktops too sorry man you just ran out of stuff to retaliate me with.

Read harder, I said "mostly".

It's nowhere near a 100% failure rate in ANY machine. Thus, I will continue to say IF it fails, I'll replace it then. But I'll cross that bridge IF I come to it.

 

[jjahshik32]

[Deleted], dont want to get in trouble by the admins.

Anyway I cant wait to see the Barefeats benchmarks. I'm starting to lean on the 2.66GHz model and not really even thinking about the 4870 as I dont game much at all. I just want the Nehalem Mac Pro to run my 24" LED ACD with.

 

[Eithanius]

edit: I forgot the GT120 won't work in my machine. Lulz.

gosh... i was hoping that it'll work so that i can utilise CUDA on BOINC once the nvidia drivers are available on the Mac for gpu crunching...

my only hope is on 10.5.7 with the appropriate drivers...

 

[jjahshik32]

gosh... i was hoping that it'll work so that i can utilise CUDA on BOINC once the nvidia drivers are available on the Mac for gpu crunching...

my only hope is on 10.5.7 with the appropriate drivers...

This is not meant to be an insult or attack to you so no offense to you but man I'd never thought I'd see the day when I would think the 3.0GHz 8 core Clovertown would be considered old technology...

Time flies!! Life is short!!