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Apple Radeon 5770/5870 in pre-2010 Mac Pro's: What We Know So Far

8

8rett

macrumors newbie
Jan 30, 2011
4
0
Problems with ATI Radeon 5770 HD on an early 2008 Mac Pro.

Okay, I have recently upgraded my graphics card to a 5770, I have an early 2008 mac pro, and I have MacOSX 10.5.4 installed.

I have been playing starcraft 2, and since the upgrade the game throws an error message saying that my card is incompatible with the game.

I then tried to run Warcraft 3 and get the message that the game is unable to establish open GL and to check that my display drivers are up to date.

Has anyone else encountered these problems and how do i fix em?
 
dimme

dimme

macrumors 68040
Feb 14, 2007
3,049
28,051
SF, CA
^^^
You need to run a minimum of 10.6.4 but 10.6.6 is better. You are just using a generic VGA driver right now.
 
S

StructAural

macrumors regular
Dec 7, 2007
135
23
The Netherlands
Wow, glad I found this thread.

My Apple 8800GT just died in my 2,1 MacPro (3GHz 2007 8-core). Didn't wake up from sleep and would freeze on the grey bootscreen. Thought it was the logic board at first as none of my other boot disks would work, but noticed funny green lines on the Apple logo. Took out the card and it booted up. Phew!
Just glad I use Jaadu/iTeleport, having to use my iPhone to control it unless I can get my wife's laptop off of her :)

So looking to get my 3rd card now, glad to see I can put the Apple 5770 and 5870 straight in, though the prices are extremely steep for those cards (449 euros for the 5870 in the dutch store). I'm not very rich at the moment so I'm probably going to try flashing a stock 5870 as they are much, much cheaper (I'm quite partial to PC gaming after a mammoth After Effects, Cinema 4D session on the OS X side). Though I've never done it before, but this thread may help:
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,692.0.html
I would probably just get one off ebay, but it's mostly american sellers and I'd end up paying a load of import duty.

Anyway thanks to the contributors to this thread, very informative.
 
cpnotebook80

cpnotebook80

macrumors 65816
Feb 4, 2007
1,210
524
Toronto
Could anyone shed light on the advantages of the 5870 over 4870
I dont play games etc but do alot of video editing. So not sure if the cards actually help in things like that. So far I dont see any other applications using the processor power of the 4870. Plus I just have one monitor nothing fancy.

I do use adobe cs5 and premiere which has gpu acceleration but that is meant for other cards so not sure what exactly the video cards help with.
Is it more cpu and ram for video editing than the gpu?
Any advice
Thanks
 
G

gullySn0wCat

macrumors 6502
Dec 7, 2010
396
0
cpnotebook80 said:
Could anyone shed light on the advantages of the 5870 over 4870
I dont play games etc but do alot of video editing. So not sure if the cards actually help in things like that. So far I dont see any other applications using the processor power of the 4870. Plus I just have one monitor nothing fancy.

I do use adobe cs5 and premiere which has gpu acceleration but that is meant for other cards so not sure what exactly the video cards help with.
Is it more cpu and ram for video editing than the gpu?
Any advice
Thanks
Click to expand...

If you don't know why you need a 5870, chances are you don't need one.
 
G

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,694
cpnotebook80 said:
I do use adobe cs5 and premiere which has gpu acceleration but that is meant for other cards so not sure what exactly the video cards help with.
Is it more cpu and ram for video editing than the gpu?
Any advice
Thanks
Click to expand...

Premiere is really built for acceleration by an NVidia card.
 
S

spda242

macrumors member
Sep 1, 2010
70
7
I was thinking of buying a 5770 for my old Mac Pro 1.1 but now a friends is going to USA and that means I can get a 5870 to a resonable price. 5870 costs about 674$ incl. VAT in Sweden.

I have seen several posts claiming that 5870 works in a Mac Pro 1.1 in this thread lately but in the begining people had mixed results in getting 5870 to work in a 1.1 Mac Pro and there was talk about boot rom versions and using bootdrives from the latest Mac Pro to make it work.

So my question are: What has changed? Why does/does it? 5870 work like a charm in Mac Pro 1.1 now? I have seen no post clarifying that!

Ny Mac Pro (Sorry for the Swedish):
Modellnamn: Mac Pro
Modellidentifierare: MacPro1,1
Processornamn: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processorhastighet: 2,66 GHz
Antal processorer: 2
Totalt antal kärnor: 4
L2-cache (per processor): 4 MB
Minne: 6 GB
Busshastighet: 1,33 GHz
Boot ROM-version: MP11.005C.B08
SMC-version (system): 1.7f10
 
R

Rad

macrumors regular
Aug 8, 2006
130
14
Mac Pro 2006 and 5870

I put an Apple Store-bought 5870 in my ancient 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 Quad 3.0 with the B08 ROM. It runs without any problem. I need to run three 30" dual-link displays, which my 8800 could not but the 5870 can. I doubt there is much real performance gain over the 8800, as others have found. It works fine in bootcamp running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. The power connectors are all present and there was no issue installing. Overall, no problems.
 
Squishy Tia

Squishy Tia

macrumors regular
Nov 17, 2010
138
1
Rad said:
I put an Apple Store-bought 5870 in my ancient 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 Quad 3.0 with the B08 ROM. It runs without any problem. I need to run three 30" dual-link displays, which my 8800 could not but the 5870 can. I doubt there is much real performance gain over the 8800, as others have found. It works fine in bootcamp running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. The power connectors are all present and there was no issue installing. Overall, no problems.
Click to expand...

It'll work fine for everything except audio output via the MDPs. Even 2009 Mac Pro owners, which should have that functionality as "supported", are having issues with it. GG.
 
P

phyber2004

macrumors newbie
Apr 6, 2011
3
0
MDP Boot Error

Hello all,

Frequent lurker, new poster... great forum. Hopefully one of you fine folks will have an answer, as I am unable to locate one!

I have recently installed a Radeon HD 5870 in my MacPro.

The specs of the machine:

MacPro3,1 ( 2008 )
OSX 10.6.7
Firmware MP31.006C.B05

The display that I'm plugging in is a NEC PA271W-BK. This display offers both DP and DVI-D connectivity on the back.

I purchased a MDP to DP cable from Monoprice.com and plugged it into the display and the new video card. Much to my horror, the machine simply will not boot when a display is connected via MDP. You can hear the hard drives spin up, but it will not make the Mac startup sound and will not begin the boot process.

The interesting part is, if I plug in the very same display via DVI-D, the machine boots with no issues at all. If I unplug the display from the DVI-D port on the video card and plug the display back in via the MDP port, it works fine, but only after it boots.

I verified that the cable and display work just fine by connecting them to a 2010 MBP.

I scoured the internet and was not able to find anything definitive on this subject. Some people allege that the MDP ports on the video card are functionally negative in MP3,1 and earlier, although barefeats ( and OWC ) have tested it with no issues.

I'm using the machine right now with the display connected via DVI-D, and have had no problems. Unfortunately, I need to connect a second display, and will be unable to do this without using the MDP connectors. Has anyone come across this issue? Is there a potential work-around?

Thanks in advance!
 
S

Shakko

macrumors member
Apr 14, 2008
53
18
Hey phyber2004, were you able to resolve your issue? A friend of mine is having a very similar problem, MDP doesn't work by itself; only works when DVI is connected. This is also a 2008 MacPro.
 
C

cwog001

macrumors newbie
Nov 15, 2009
5
2
Power connection for 5770 on an early 2008 Mac Pro

Attempting to install a 5770 Graphics card into an early 2008 Mac Pro

Please can you tell me where the power socket is on the main board that I plug the power lead into for the Graphics card.

So far I have not been able to see it - will I have to remove some other item to see the socket?
 
mzeb

mzeb

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
358
612
cwog001 said:
Attempting to install a 5770 Graphics card into an early 2008 Mac Pro

Please can you tell me where the power socket is on the main board that I plug the power lead into for the Graphics card.

So far I have not been able to see it - will I have to remove some other item to see the socket?
Click to expand...

The plugs are toward the front of the case at the same height as the PCIE slots. They are somewhat obscured by the case fan for the slots.
 
sigmadog

sigmadog

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2009
835
753
just west of Idaho
cwog001 said:
Thanks - will I need to remove the plastic fan holder to get to the sockets?
Click to expand...

I added a 5770 to my early 2008 MP a couple months ago and I only needed to remove the hard drive above the power output - that gave me just enough room to fit my big, meaty fingers into the space. I was able to leave the fan assembly alone.
 
C

cwog001

macrumors newbie
Nov 15, 2009
5
2
Thanks for your replies and tips, removing the second drive made it much easier to connect the power lead to the main board - and also gave me a clue as to which mound of dust contained the power socket.
 
R

Rad

macrumors regular
Aug 8, 2006
130
14
5870 and 10.7

I would think a 5770 would work in Lion on a Mac Pro 1,1 since I have no problem with my 5870 on the same machine running 10.7.1. :)
 
R

Rad

macrumors regular
Aug 8, 2006
130
14
triple screen

I have a 5870 in my Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) running three 30" monitors without a problem under 10.7.1.
 
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