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Expanding or extending PCI-E ports in Mac Pro 5,1

M

MannyGamazo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 8, 2012
7
0
Las Vegas
Hello everyone,

I have an interesting question: Currently I'm running my Mac Pro with two GPUs: The Apple NVIDIA GT120 (so that I have a boot screen) and an EVGA NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE (just using the native drivers)

I know one easy solution for me would be to send my GTX 1080 to MacVidCards.com to flash the EFI (I really wish I could just do it myself) but what I would like to do is buy the Apple Radeon 5770 (or 5780 or another Apple card), insert it into slot one, and then make a PCI-E EGPU enclosure for my GTX 1080. That way I could use two cards, create some breathing room in the chassis, and I could have the freedom to remove the GTX 1080 and put it in a TB3 E-GPU to use with my 2016 15" MacBook Pro.

I'm also trying to make an easy setup for me to sell my Mac Pro once the redesign is officially released and we see what that will be all about.

Had also considered just expanding my PCI-E slots but I have had a hard time finding out how to do that and I learned that the two x16 slots are already reduced to x8 when both are in use.

Basically I want to use an external PCI-E GPU, what would be the best way to do that?
 
AlexMaximus

AlexMaximus

macrumors 65816
Aug 15, 2006
1,212
567
A400M Base
MannyGamazo said:
Hello everyone,

I have an interesting question: Currently I'm running my Mac Pro with two GPUs: The Apple NVIDIA GT120 (so that I have a boot screen) and an EVGA NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE (just using the native drivers)

I know one easy solution for me would be to send my GTX 1080 to MacVidCards.com to flash the EFI (I really wish I could just do it myself) but what I would like to do is buy the Apple Radeon 5770 (or 5780 or another Apple card), insert it into slot one, and then make a PCI-E EGPU enclosure for my GTX 1080. That way I could use two cards, create some breathing room in the chassis, and I could have the freedom to remove the GTX 1080 and put it in a TB3 E-GPU to use with my 2016 15" MacBook Pro.

I'm also trying to make an easy setup for me to sell my Mac Pro once the redesign is officially released and we see what that will be all about.

Had also considered just expanding my PCI-E slots but I have had a hard time finding out how to do that and I learned that the two x16 slots are already reduced to x8 when both are in use.

Basically I want to use an external PCI-E GPU, what would be the best way to do that?
Click to expand...


For the MacPro 5.1 there is only one real working pice expansion available that I know off. Have a look here:

https://www.cubix.com/store/#buy-cubix-xpander-desktop

Great solution that works for the 5.1 - however it is expensive as you will shockingly see. The good thing about it, it's basically the technological precursor to today's thunderbolt expansion chassis, based on legacy pci technology.
There are noumerous devices out there, if you are lucky, you can score one on eBay if you are pacient.
However it is kind of old tech and even if you can get one cheap, you most likely will not be able to use it in the nex gen Mac machines, at least that's what I predict. See it as the absolute last pimp up option for that dying 5.1 that soon will be stamped vitage.

In terms of IO speed upgrades, there is only the card from cal digit out there, that gives you one usb c port. It has the speed of thunderbolt gen 1 but it's not enough or designed to run an external gpu.

CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 Plus PCIe Karte - Zwei USB 3.1 Typ A/C & Zwei eSATA 6G Anschlüsse für Windows und Mac https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0196YO9JI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_i_wZH5AbFVMA31N
 
T

thornslack

macrumors 6502
Nov 16, 2013
410
165
Pretty sure the Mac Pro x16 have all their own lanes, but the two upper pcie slots share lanes.
 
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