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EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition

HW status EVGA GTX 285 Mac vs PC

I have not found details in this thread about the differences of the EVGA PC version vs the Mac version. Here in Germany the price difference is 130€.

So naturally people will be interested to flash a PC version. Has somebody made a comparison of the hardware particularly regarding the EEPROMs? I assume that the PC card would have a smaller flash? But it isn't such a big issue to solder a bigger chip on it. Would there be any other problems to flashing a PC card with the Mac ROM file?
 
Sorry if this has been posted, but how do I check what speed the card is running at any given time?
 
irishgrizzly said:
Sorry if this has been posted, but how do I check what speed the card is running at any given time?
Click to expand...

A better choice is the "Hardware Monitoring" function of RIvatuner as it can graph the throttling changes. GPU-Z will only report one speed.

gugu, As far as flashing goes...I guess you didn't read my thread where I flashed first GTX285 for Mac. I have done 2 now and am eager to do more.

Will be installing 421a tonight to see if "2 Gig Bug" is an issue there.

The GTX285s I have flashed were both EVGA cards of the 1 Gig variety, as similar as possible to the Mac one. Since I only have a 1st Gen, the folks I flashed them for had to test & post about them. Both seemed to work out fine.

Eager to figure out 2 Gig ones, but have had NO HELP with EFI sewing for Nvidia cards.

Unlike 3870, there is no additional impediment to flashing. I imagine that Apple views the procurement and installation of a 256K chip to be enough bother to keep out the riff raff.
 
gugucom said:
I have not found details in this thread about the differences of the EVGA PC version vs the Mac version. Here in Germany the price difference is 130€.

So naturally people will be interested to flash a PC version. Has somebody made a comparison of the hardware particularly regarding the EEPROMs? I assume that the PC card would have a smaller flash? But it isn't such a big issue to solder a bigger chip on it. Would there be any other problems to flashing a PC card with the Mac ROM file?
Click to expand...

The ROM chip is larger. The Mac version BIOS file is larger and necessitates the larger ROM chip. So the only way to run the GTX285 PC card native in OSX is, as you said to solder on the larger ROM chip. Or you run the vanilla PC card with the netkas injectors.

As far as I know, the Mac ROM cannot fit on the regular chips in the PC Cards, hence the larger ROM chip on the Mac version.

I bought it online and had family mail mine to me. Got zinged by customs, but only paid a small tax on it since the "stated" value was low, hehe.
 
The Rominator said:
A better choice is the "Hardware Monitoring" function of RIvatuner as it can graph the throttling changes. GPU-Z will only report one speed.

gugu, As far as flashing goes...I guess you didn't read my thread where I flashed first GTX285 for Mac. I have done 2 now and am eager to do more.

Will be installing 421a tonight to see if "2 Gig Bug" is an issue there.

The GTX285s I have flashed were both EVGA cards of the 1 Gig variety, as similar as possible to the Mac one. Since I only have a 1st Gen, the folks I flashed them for had to test & post about them. Both seemed to work out fine.

Eager to figure out 2 Gig ones, but have had NO HELP with EFI sewing for Nvidia cards.

Unlike 3870, there is no additional impediment to flashing. I imagine that Apple views the procurement and installation of a 256K chip to be enough bother to keep out the riff raff.
Click to expand...

@rominator, can you confirm that you used the original Mac ROM file? Or did you have to do any mods?

If there were no mods I could take a Mac 285 ROM dump and get my Bios fixer to burn it on a 256K EEPROM to solder on the card? I would estimate that to cost 35-40€ over here. So I'm still 90€ in the good if I want to do this.
 
Is this kext full proof for future nvidia cards?

That are EFI64 only, so that those with 2006, and 2007 mac pros can make use of it?


netkas said:
pcs gtx285 works just fine(in osx) in macpro 1,1/2,1 with my injector kext :)
Click to expand...
 
Roman23 said:
That are EFI64 only, so that those with 2006, and 2007 mac pros can make use of it?
Click to expand...

Well, golly gee, let's see.

It got GT120 and GTX480 working on my 1st Gen. Can't see any further into the future than that without a Crystal Ball. You just need to have a 2nd Nvidia card in being the only catch.
 
Btw, did you get my other message about my apology to you? Well, it seems that..

2006-2007 mac pro owners NOW have options with nvidia. I am very pleased to see this as I have a friend who is in shambles because he feels Apple pushed him to the side with their video cards.. I explained to him that he should get the 4870 as this works in all mac pros.. but its good to see that a hack to the firmware on the nvidias make them work in 2006-2007 mac pros..

I know you don't have a crystal ball, but do you think with this injector kext that Netkas wrote, will ALL future nvidia cards(EFI64) work in the 2006-2007 mac pros, thereby enlarging the variety and choice for those folks?


The Rominator said:
Well, golly gee, let's see.

It got GT120 and GTX480 working on my 1st Gen. Can't see any further into the future than that without a Crystal Ball. You just need to have a 2nd Nvidia card in being the only catch.
Click to expand...
 
You need to read the "GTX 285 working in any Mac Pro" thread.

But let me put it this way. The ATY_Init he wrote months ago for the GTX285 was rather magical.

Eve though he had no way to specifically include the upcoming GTX480, when I read about Hack success with Fermi, I installed the "leaked" Nvidia Fermi drivers. To my surprise, the GTX480 booted up from 1st port while another Nvidia card was in slot 3.

This was using ATY_Init from months earlier.

This had working QE/CI from get go.

Old ATY already worked with a card from future.

I believe that basically the ATY looks for anything with "Nvidia" in it's name and tells it to run from it's PC BIOS while entering it in list of PCIE devices that are initialized. If the card's device id number can be associated with a driver package...BINGO !!! The card works. The card's BIOS is parsed into system registry in some fashion. The cards run from their PC BIOS AFTER driver's are loaded.

So big minus is there must be another card with EFI if you wish to see boot screens. The ATY_init'ed card will have it's first screen be the blue one right before desktop appears. The initial grey screen, disk select screen, and spinning Apple screen all require EFI and won't show up on ATY_Init'ed card.

On 1st Gens, use of EFI card from G70 family will result in monitor ALWAYS showing up on 7300/Q4500, EVEN IF NONE IS CONNECTED. This requires one display. So if you have only 1 display, you will need to plug into G70 card at least once after boot, then back into card you want to run.

Netkas wrote it and would have a 100% better understanding and explanation than I , but my feeling is that it will continue working.
 
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