AMD Firepro in Mac Pro 3,1?

[Kenaz Filan]

I recently bought a Mac Pro 3,1 (3.0Ghz 8-core Xeon/24gig RAM) and have been tinkering happily with it ever since. I've installed a USB 3.0 card and a 512gb SSD boot drive: now I'd like to do something with the Geforce 8800XT graphics card.

I'd greatly prefer leaving my SSD in the second x16 slot where it is, so I'd like to get a low-profile card single slot card if at all possible. Some of the AMD Firepros meet that bill -- and have reasonable power requirements as well so I won't need to fool with extra power supplies or suchlike. I don't do a lot of gaming and don't really care about being able to play Crysis 3 4k at 150fps etc., but I do have a copy of Blender and a few manuals on my machine and may experiment a bit with 3d modeling just to see how it's done. And I'd like a card which would be able to handle 4k video for viewing rather than editing, which won't become obsolete within the next year or two, and which is built to last -- all of which should be met by a 4xx or 5xx Firepro.

If these are out of the question, what would my other options be for a single slot low profile graphics upgrade?

 

[h9826790]

Why you want to keep the SSD on the x16 slot?

 

[Kenaz Filan]

Why you want to keep the SSD on the x16 slot?

I thought it would be a faster connection: if moving it to a x4 lane would not significantly slow things down I'd be happy to do so.

 

[h9826790]

Most of the PCIe SSD adaptor is just x2 or x4 card. You get zero benefit to put them in the x16 slot.

On the other hand, I am quite sure you are looking for a x16 double width GPU. So, put that into slot 1 should be a smarter choice.

 

[nigelbb]

Most of the PCIe SSD adaptor is just x2 or x4 card. You get zero benefit to put them in the x16 slot.

In the Mac Pro 3,1 the 4x slots are PCI 1.1 whereas the 16x slots are PCI 2.0 which is why you should put any PCIe SSD adaptor in slot 2. in the MP 4,1 & 5,1 all slots are PCI 2.0 so with these systems you will see no extra benefit using a 16x slot. The OP is using a 3,1

 

[h9826790]

I see, I miss that one. Than I think OP should make a real world test and decide if it's worth to keep it at slot one but let the GPU sacrifice .

 

[Kenaz Filan]

Thanks for all the input! Right now I am leaning toward keeping my SSD in Slot 2 and replacing the current Geforce with a single slot card.

I have gathered El Capitan reads some Firepros straight out of the box (and identifies them as Radeon 7xxx or 9xxx) but will not recognize others. As I understand it the w7000 will work: I was interested in the w4*** or w5*** series but can't find much information as to whether or not they will work.

 

[nigelbb]

You don't need a low-profile single slot graphics card as there is extra space between Slot 1 & Slot 2 so that a double width graphics card can fit in Slot 1. I have a GTX570 in Slot 1 & a Apricorn Velocity Duo with 2x1TB SSD in Slot 2.