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Apple's ATI Radeon HD 5870 Works in 2008 Mac Pro
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Who are the people who rate articles like this negative that have nothing negative in them.
I literally don't get it.
I literally don't get it.
The Service Manual for the 2010 Mac Pro has an interesting note on GFX Cards.
Important: Graphics cards from previous Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro models are not software compatible with Mac Pro (Mid 2010) models.
"Not software compatible"
Also, not supported is not the same as not compatible.
Important: Graphics cards from previous Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro models are not software compatible with Mac Pro (Mid 2010) models.
"Not software compatible"
Also, not supported is not the same as not compatible.
fanboys? I mean you should always be bying the newest apple product the day it comes out. The older product belongs in the trash. Apple should not provide any support to older products.
*Mind of a fanboy*
I'm glad for the 08 MP owners - Apple can't leave older MP owners in the dust. The whole point of forking out the extra $$$ for a scalable desktop machine is so you can put new parts in it later.
Sounds like they are trying to get folks to buy more iMacs.
Sounds like they are trying to get folks to buy more iMacs.
I'm just really baffled sometimes at some of the articles that just state something positive, at the number of people that rate them negative. I guess i just don't want to believe that anyone could actually lack that much mental capacity.
Anyways, I'll shut up now since I am not really adding anything to this conversation.
Thats a bit of a stretch. They are nit lying. Thye dont "support it" In other worrds, you have problems? Fry something? Your problem. They never said it wont work.
why not just support a slightly larger variety of cards - especially if they are going to tout the ability to easily upgrade as a selling point
EFI is the main reason they don't support every card. It means you can't just put in any PC video card and have it work. It requires a different firmware in order to have it be recognized in OS X. On top of that it requires drivers to be written to support it, though I don't see that as much of a problem these days.
Is it just me.. or is it when they say that the 2008 models "work better" then the 6 core... that they aren't using 2 CPUs like in the 2008? Sounds kinda stupid if they are saying a two year old machine is running faster... when it has more CPU cores.
Guys, there's a difference between *supported* and *works*. They're minimizing their support load by only officially supporting it on the newer machines. They don't claim anywhere that it wouldn't *work* on older machines. They'll probably even help you with problems related to it if you take it in to your local Apple Store, but they don't claim they will, so that's going above and beyond what they've promised.
Well, it's not that much faster anyway, at that high of FPS there isn't really any difference. Also it means small things can make a difference like that.
It would be more impressive if we could see the benchmarks of it running at 2560x1600 with maxed out settings, and maybe in HL2: Ep 2 instead of Portal which has way less effects going on in a scene. Then we could see a much better idea of what the performance difference is like.
These benchmarks are still great to see though, but at the end of the day it's still just a benchmark and doesn't mean a whole lot.
ya but it was base model vs. base model from what I understand. So the older, 2008 Mac Pro base model is faster than the 2010 base model in this case.
I want to see StarCraft 2 benchmarks. Portal is a 3 year old game. A current game would be more ideal to benchmark if I'm going to spend $449 on a video card upgrade (or buy a Mac Pro altogether). Either or, everything will run better in BootCamp anyway.
the new card is actually a PCI expression 2.1 spec card, which is what 2009 and 2010 mac pros are, the 2008 is a 2.0 spec pci e slot. I suspect this is the real reasoning. the fact it works in a 2.0 slot just means not all the cards features might work 100%, like the power management features of 2.1. I'd be interested to see how more tests pan out.
DVI only?
It might be worth noting, from barefeats.com →
"...(Caveat: the two Mini DisplayPorts on the 5870 are not supported on the 2006-2008 Mac Pro. If you only plan to use it with a single display, the remaining dual-link DVI connector will do the job.)..."
If I can't run two DVI monitors then this would be a deal-breaker for me.
It might be worth noting, from barefeats.com →
"...(Caveat: the two Mini DisplayPorts on the 5870 are not supported on the 2006-2008 Mac Pro. If you only plan to use it with a single display, the remaining dual-link DVI connector will do the job.)..."
If I can't run two DVI monitors then this would be a deal-breaker for me.
If this card worked in my 2005 PowerMac I'd buy it. Especially if Flash for Mac enabled video card decoding.
Youtube HD : The only daily task that thwarts my 5 year old machine.
I hope it does as i ordered one for my mac pro. Figured if one works, the other should too.
Here is the full quote from the post in other thread on the Mac Pro forums.
That seems to indicate that it does work with the 2008, but with the same MDP problem.