Fastest video card for Quad G5 DC DP Pcie PM

[VanneDC]

Hi, ive searched around a lot and only found topics talking about the AGP PM (which the x800xt sounds like its the best card) but iam looking for the best card for the Quad 2.5 DC DP.

will the Mac pro's x1900xt 512mb work in this box? or not?

ive got an old Nvidia 7900 GTX here that i retired a few years back. Is that possible to flash to use in my Quad? The quad currently has a Nvidia 6600 in it so ill be looking to upgrade that.

also, can someone point me to the Mac roms for the better cards for flashing from PC to mac. That would be great.

Ive got an older NV silencer also hanging around from an old gpu fan swap, so thats available for the upgrade aswell.

Please advise.

 

[Hrududu]

The X1900 for Mac Pro will NOT work in a G5. There is a specific G5 card. Probably the best, but by far the most expensive, would be the Quadro FX4500

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

If you don't want to spend $300+, then the $100 Nvidia 7800GT is next on the list.

 

[halprin]

The Mac Pro's X1900XT will not work in the G5 as Hrududu said. But, ATI did make a G5 version of the X1900. If you can find that on the Internet somewhere, it will probably be your best graphics card for your PCIe based G5.

 

[666sheep]

As written above:
- 7800GT 256MB
- X1900GT 256MB (this is correct name of G5 version - little slower than XT 512 for MP)
- Quadro FX4500 512MB

Of these three, 7800 is cheapest, but IMHO best price/performance option would be: buy PC FX4500 and flash it by yourself, this for example. Every listed card needs PCIe power cable.

 

[VanneDC]

Ive read that the x1900xt is supposed to be quicker than the Quadro 4500... any truth to that?

 

[666sheep]

^^ Depending on tasks. Quadro is for "Pro" tasks: 3D, video etc. For example, in FCP and Motion X1900XT performs worse (it's not my personal but my friend's experience, he had both in MP and sold X1900XT).
X1900XT is better for gaming.
Second thing is, that G5 version was X1900GT (not XT) and had 256MB of RAM - it was slower than XT for MP.

 

[VanneDC]

hi Sheepy,

mate not meaning to drag old cows out of the river, but i just bought myself a real FX4500 (like you suggested)

so ill be looking to flash that puppy across with a mac rom.

Have you done so? and what rom would you suggest? (mac elite ofcourse i would imagine)

Also, are there any dramas to be expected? will i need to do a re-install of OSX as i currently have the X1900 in there, with Ati drivers installed.

Just so youse know a heads up why i bought the FX4500 as it vents outside of the case where-as my X1900 vents nicely inside of the case also ive noticed since installing the X1900 my cpu temps have gone up at least 10 degrees, from the old 6600 that was in there previous.

cheers

V.

 

[666sheep]

Yes, I've done few FX4500, for PPC and MP too. Use PPC FX4500 ROM from themacelite (64k) - there is only one. Flash on PC or Mac Pro with BootCD method. Use nvflash 5.63. Dump and backup your original PC ROM first.
It should work with no probs.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

So you can flash Nvidia cards on a Mac? I never could figure out how to do that on the AGP G5s but what about PCIe? That works?

 

[666sheep]

I've read (on Strangedogs, I think) about succesfull 6800(?) flashing on Mac with OF flashing tool, but I've never tried it (this tool is unavailable now).
There is no (officially released) flasher for PPC which would support Nvidia cards higher than Ti4600. It's PCIe/AGP independent, it's platform thing.

I meant flashing this FX4500 on PC, using DOS method. You can do it in Mac Pro as well, because it could boot DOS.

 

[VanneDC]

the card should come in today, so will flash it later this arvo. *fingers xrossed please*

also will i have to reinstall Leopard? after i remove the X1900 and replace it with the FX4500? and will i need to install extra drivers or does it all come with Leopard?

cheers once again.

 

[VanneDC]

hey Sheepy,

Got the card in yesterday, and all set to do the flash, however, i was doing some final reading and came across that barefeats site where someone has taken the FX4500 rom and tweaked it to run quicker than the standard fx4500 mac rom. It also reports the card in "About" as being a 7800 GTX, not the fx4500..

youve been around a lot longer than me, what happened to that rom? is it still around, ive done a bit of digging, but came up dry.

any info around on that rom?

cheers
v.

 

[666sheep]

I'd say: if you got Quadro, use Quadro ROM. IIRC, that card was 7800 GTX so it had higher memory and core specs that real Quadro = overclocking was possible.

In matter of this ROM: it isn't public. It's hard to get, unless one of your friends has it, and wants to share.

Ask Rominator.

 

[VanneDC]

well, in the meantime, I flashed the Quadro with the mentioned Quadro mac rom. All works a damm treat and its funny. Working on just the desktop is now near silent (the whole box), as to before it was much, much louder, however, now when playing Wow, it sure does ramp up the fans when logging in. Its fine when just playing though.

So yeah, the flash worked perfect and seems to be a lot, lot quiter for general use. Id even go out on a limb and say that the 512mb makes for much smoother gameplay on Wow aswell. (not that i play Wow really, but just installed it to see how it would handle things)

I did have an issue once when going to sleep, the whole box would ramp up in fan speed and noise and then sit there at full noise. Had to do a hard reset to get it back.

This could ofcourse be due to the Ati graphics drivers that i installed before in 10.5.8...

I guess i should do a clean install....

but yeah, really happy with the card at this stage.