MP 1,1-5,1 Best GPU for Mac Pro 1,1

[ScreenSavers]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but what's the absolute best GPU that will function in a Mac Pro 1,1? I heard a while back when I used to have one of those machines that it was the Radeon 5770. I will likely be getting one locally soon and the stock card is obviously garbage.


Thanks!

 

[Petri Krohn]

The best card that is natively and fully supported in a Mac Pro 1.1 or 2,1 is the Radeon HD 5870. You can find reference design PC cards for sale online for about $30. You can flash the card yourself with a Mac EFI rom for boot screen.

The EFI rom is ATI cards is in EFI byte code. It works as well with 32-bit and 64-bit EFI. The Mac version of the Radeon HD 7950 / HD 7970 / R9 280X should also work on 32-bit Macs like the Mac Pro 1,1, but it requires as a minimum Mac OS 10.8.3, which is not natively supported on a Mac Pro 1,1.

If you run Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite or Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan you can also use a Radeon R9 390X. Radeon Fury X, RX 480, and RX Vega all require macOS 10.12 Sierra, which cannot run on a Mac Pro 1,1 because the CPUs lack the SSE 4.1 instruction set.

With Nvidia cards you should be able to use any card that has web drivers for El Capitan. I believe this includes the GTX 980 Ti and GTX Titan X. Flashed Nvidia cards however require a 64-bit EFI and will not provide a boot screen and will show no video unless the web drivers are installed.

 

[ScreenSavers]

Really appreciate the response. Just picked up the machine a few minutes ago. It is exactly as I expected. Yes I am going to install El Capitan on it but I can’t do that with this card.

EFI is important to me. I don’t like not seeing anything until you’re at the desktop. I’ve tried that before. I also have no experience flashing cards and couldn’t begin to guess how that is done…

 

[dfritchie]

Still running a 7950 in mine on El Cap. My son used it to game with under windows 10 (64 bit), still a very capable card today if you can find one. Very easy to flash for boot screens since there was a Mac edition one from Sapphire.

 

[ScreenSavers]

Well I just found a real good deal online for an Apple edition 5770- the old choice I guess but it should work. This thing isn’t for video editing anyway. Maybe a little Logic Pro work and stuff like that.

 

[dfritchie]

The 5770 should do just fine for what you want.

 

[ScreenSavers]

I think it will for now... thanks.

 

[ScreenSavers]

Well I’m honestly surprised this even works... to be fair it hardly does but at least it’s something until the card comes...

 

[ScreenSavers]

 

[ScreenSavers]

Figured I’d update this to say that I bought a flashed R9 370 2GB for a 3,1 and popped it in the 1,1 just to see what would happen. Everything works perfectly under El Capitan, including EFI boot screens. Go figure.

If I ever find myself with nothing to do I’ll put the RX 580 in there. I assume that would only work in windows if at all since El Capitan does not have RX 580 drivers.

 

[Amethyst1]

Figured I’d update this to say that I bought a flashed R9 370 2GB for a 3,1 and popped it in the 1,1 just to see what would happen. Everything works perfectly under El Capitan, including EFI boot screens.

Sorry for resurrecting this thread... Since that's based on GCN 1st-gen architecture (same as the 7000 series), it would be interesting to know if it also works in, say, Mavericks.

 

[sheapuppy]

Resurrecting this old thread. That 7300 GT went from 256MB > 7MB of GPU memory when you upgraded from Lion to El Cap?!

I'm glad you were picking up an HD 5770. Else, 7 MB of GPU memory wasn't gonna work! lol

 

[reukiodo]

Quite a bit late to this party, but I know a mac-flashed HD7970 works with efi boot screens in MP1/2 as that is what I use in mine (MP1 flashed to MP2). I am waiting for a GTX680 to arrive and test efi boot screens after flashing it with mac firmware.

 

[reukiodo]

It arrived earlier than expected! I flashed the GTX680 2G with the EVGA Mac Edition bios and confirmed that efi boot screen works in MP5, but when I put it in the MP1/2, no efi boot screen. It does work fully in 10.11 after it boots, but you do not get to see any of that boot process, so kinda flying blind. It also works fine in Win10 after boot, but again without any boot progress.

So I'd say that the HD7970 GHz or R9 280X are the best boot-screen options for the MP1/2. There are more powerful GPUs if you want to not see the boot progress, and/or use maybe the GT120 as your boot screen.