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Flashing 5770 and 5870 for Mac Pro 2008 and later (EFI64 for now boys, sorry)
- Thread starter MacVidCards
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First 5870 working in Mac Pro '09 !!!
WHile I napped, Netkas wrote .
Now working !!!!
Oddly, same monitor EDID trick doesn't bring boot screen but card fires at desktop !!!
Unfortunately, the OpenGl View scores look awful, but that is due to them re-calibrating the scale.
I will do 4870 and GTX285 with new one and post later.
Meanwhile, I present the 1st Mac Pro with WORKING 5870 !!!
Congratulations to Netkas and Apple/ATI !!!
WHile I napped, Netkas wrote .
Now working !!!!
Oddly, same monitor EDID trick doesn't bring boot screen but card fires at desktop !!!
Unfortunately, the OpenGl View scores look awful, but that is due to them re-calibrating the scale.
I will do 4870 and GTX285 with new one and post later.
Meanwhile, I present the 1st Mac Pro with WORKING 5870 !!!
Congratulations to Netkas and Apple/ATI !!!
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DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Rominator, you wouldn't happen to have a 2008 Mac Pro that you could test that card in, would you? I'm dying to know if it will work, so I'll have an alternative in case:
1) Apple jacks up the price stupid high on the 5870 upgrade kit
2) the 5870 upgrade kit won't work in a 2008 Mac Pro
3) the 5870 upgrade kit will work in a 2008 Mac Pro, but Apple won't officially support it
4) there won't be a 5870 upgrade kit
That's what I figured, thanks!
Given the choice between an official Apple solution and a flashed card, I'd go the Apple route. Unless the price is way higher than a PC 5870, then I'd give flashing some consideration.
Guess I'll need to read up on Cindori's flashing threads then.
Rom, I'm sure 1,1 users are wondering, is there any chance that the EFI32 bit of the 4870 ROM could maybe be hacked together with this to make a compatible EFI32 5xxx ROM?
Yes. No EFI to deal with, and you'll get to use the standard drivers for OS X once avialable.
4870 1 Gig Scores to compare with
Oddly, the "new" OpenGl Viewer test shows 5870 barely faster.
Cinebench can hardly tell a difference.
But the OpenCl SmallLuxGPU can tell a HUGE difference.
I'll try these with GTX285 soon. Heck, I'll even toss in the GTX480 for kicks.
Any requests?
Don't know how to compare these now...the OpenGl benchmark seems less and less able to differentiate between cards. Not sure what they have done to it.
COD4? HL2? Doom 3?
Don't know how else to bench these cards.
Oddly, the "new" OpenGl Viewer test shows 5870 barely faster.
Cinebench can hardly tell a difference.
But the OpenCl SmallLuxGPU can tell a HUGE difference.
I'll try these with GTX285 soon. Heck, I'll even toss in the GTX480 for kicks.
Any requests?
Don't know how to compare these now...the OpenGl benchmark seems less and less able to differentiate between cards. Not sure what they have done to it.
COD4? HL2? Doom 3?
Don't know how else to bench these cards.
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Any time you use a PC card in a Mac, you want to stay as close to original "Reference" design.
So, no, most likely.
This is awesome! Just like a year and half ago when Rom, Netkas et al ran up the thread on the 4870....you guys have now done the 5xxx. Thanks so much for keeping my Mac Pro on the graphical edge. As for requests, can you get an fps on Wow running through Dalaran on full settings? Thanks!
I'm confused. I have a 2008 Mac Pro. I can buy that 5770 off of newegg and get it working (in OSX) tomorrow? Or is this process still in the works.
The drivers can be downloaded from Apple.
It is very easy to get these ROMs.
Cards need to be flashed in DOS, for time being.
From when you push power button to the desktop there is nothing on screen.
So no Grey boot screen.
Netkas used the EFI from iMac versions of these cards, so in all likelihood, the "real" EFI for these cards will be a better fit. (Unless they make it too big)
If you have two similar model displays with DVI, it is possible to get 5770 to show those EFI boot screens.
With 5870, it is also possible that this might work, I just need to drag the 3rd monitor back into office and test.
I would recommend the Sapphire 5770 I bought from Newegg, it is reference design. The XFX 5870 is one I got when the 5xxx series came out, nearly a year ago. (Price hasn't dropped, in fact I think it has gone up)
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Is there no way to make it work on older Mac Pros? It's possible for Nvidia cards, although they use EFI64.
If I knew the engineer who made the decision not to support EBC anymore, I'd hit him in the face with my 2006 Mac Pro. (just kidding, but this is really depressing )
If I knew the engineer who made the decision not to support EBC anymore, I'd hit him in the face with my 2006 Mac Pro.
(just kidding, but this is really depressing )We don't know yet for a fact that the actual removable Mac Pro cards will be EFI-64.
The iMac cards are EFI64. It would make sense that Mac Pro cards are too, i'm afraid.
It would seem likely, but we won't know for sure until after the 9th when someone dumps a EFI 5770 or 5870 rom.
It is also still possible that Mr. Brilliant...(ie, Netkas)....will figure out how to make his ATY_Init injector work if the ROMs are EFI64.
I am ignorant of most details on this stuff, but it is possible that by NOT being full 64 bit the EBC code doesn't allow complete access to all adresses. This could in theory limit the card in ways that would hamper all of this "GPU computing" stuff.
Would correlate with Nvidia never using EBC and always having better floating point.
Or maybe I'm talking out my....
I would love for someone to explain pluses and minuses to EBC vs. EFI 32/64.
Was nice that 4870 ran in 1st Gen.
Maybe Apple wasn't amused. Or maybe there is a good reason.
BTW, with all of this hou hah about the Team Red cards, I haven't been able to finish the "First Tri-SLi GTX285 in Mac Pro" thread i've been meaning to start.
requires removing drives 2 through 4
requires additional power
got the Nvidia software to enable it
Tri-SLi on a Mac Pro
still working out the kinks, but happy to share once I do
The iMac cards are EFI64. It would make sense that Mac Pro cards are too, i'm afraid.
It would seem likely, but we won't know for sure until after the 9th when someone dumps a EFI 5770 or 5870 rom.
It is also still possible that Mr. Brilliant...(ie, Netkas)....will figure out how to make his ATY_Init injector work if the ROMs are EFI64.
I am ignorant of most details on this stuff, but it is possible that by NOT being full 64 bit the EBC code doesn't allow complete access to all adresses. This could in theory limit the card in ways that would hamper all of this "GPU computing" stuff.
Would correlate with Nvidia never using EBC and always having better floating point.
Or maybe I'm talking out my....
I would love for someone to explain pluses and minuses to EBC vs. EFI 32/64.
Was nice that 4870 ran in 1st Gen.
Maybe Apple wasn't amused. Or maybe there is a good reason.
BTW, with all of this hou hah about the Team Red cards, I haven't been able to finish the "First Tri-SLi GTX285 in Mac Pro" thread i've been meaning to start.
requires removing drives 2 through 4
requires additional power
got the Nvidia software to enable it
Tri-SLi on a Mac Pro
still working out the kinks, but happy to share once I do
I don't think there is such limitation in EBC since PC cards use the good old BIOS (so do Mac Cards, right? EFI is merely for initializing).
Sorry ....Not quite :
HD 5770 Sapphire_Reference :
OpenCL :8,6 sec: Midrange GPU
OpenCL :34,9 sec: Ultra GPU
Cinebench_OpenGL :22,4 fr.
OEV: 200 fr.
OpenCL bench (pixel_filtering) crashed as well (not supported)
OS 10X 10.6.4 Q9550ES@2,2 GHz@1,0V@GB EP45-DS4P-MacBios 0.8