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External Power for AMD HD 6970?

J

jimmyducati

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 6, 2015
21
0
I tried searching and didn't find much (and I am not super computer savvy...). I bought a Radeon HD6970 to install into my 3,1 Mac Pro and have a question about the power supply. I know I at least need an adaptor cable to power the GPU if Im using the mini pci connecter from the motherboard, but my new card has an 8 pin and 6 receptacles... After further reading I found that if you have a card with a 6&8 pin receptacle, you really should use an external power supply.

Where do I get an external power supply and if I use one, is it the only thing that plugs into the 6/8 pin receptacles?
 
Power supply will be your least problem, OS X drivers for this card are broken.
 
Is there a current (updated in the last year or so with cards that "plug and play") list of cards that will work in a 3,1?
 
Do a search at Netkas about this card. I gave up a few years ago but it used to require some driver fix.

For the most part, I recommend that you read reports from other users before buying a card to find one that works.

A reference 7950 is a pretty good bet, or a 2GB GTX680.
 
From what I've read over at tonymacx86 the bugs are changing with OS X versions, but I've never seen anyone saying this card was working flawless, so I'd go for something else.

Your choice depends on what you expect: Bootscreens? 3D performance? CUDA/OpenCL?
 
I want something that I can play world of tanks on with a 27" HD monitor... I don't CUDA or OpenCL anything, don't even know what that means. I just know the grass isn't lifelike enough on the two games I play to satisfy me.
 
So what kind of problems are occurring with this card? Im tempted to throw it in and see if I can break some stuff.
 
Reports range from system crashes, black/white screens or graphic glitches. Throw it in and try yourself ;)

If you don't need bootscreens (=> screen will stay black until OS X loads), any Kepler-based Nvidia card should be fine for you. HD 7xxx cards require removal of some kext files for full performance in a 3,1, Maxwell Nvidia cards need additional drivers (both has to be repeated after each OS update), so Kepler cards are most painless.
 
Happy with my Gigabyte HD 7970 3GB OC. New card, pre-flashed and resistor modified by an ebay vendor and fully functional. I was too lazy to monkey around for several hours.

Running at 5.0GT/s with 16 lanes. All ports work on OS X.

Nice and quiet and nice frame rates, while not loading the PSU. Uses the latest Catalyst drivers on BootCamp without mucking around.
 
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haralds said:
Happy with my Gigabyte HD 7970 3GB OC. New card, pre-flashed and resistor modified by an ebay vendor and fully functional. I was too lazy to monkey around for several hours.

Running at 5.0GT/s with 16 lanes. All ports work on OS X.

Nice and quiet and nice frame rates, while not loading the PSU. Uses the latest Catalyst drivers on BootCamp without mucking around.
Click to expand...

But you do need Lion (patched driver) or better (no patches.) Snow Leopard runs, but the display glitches.
 
As I said, any HD 7xxx's will run like crap in a MP3,1 without modifications to the system, so I'd stay away...
 
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