Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Quoted from wsgroves on another post:

I have recently upgraded my mac pro with a new Ati 4870x2 card.
I had a spare 500w BFG PSU lying around to test if indeed the mac pro PSU was the problem.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this mean you need an external power source for the 260 / 80?

p.s. still cant find pics of this setup I must be a bad searcher


[Edit]

guess that answers my question

so what is that psu thing ccan anyone explain it please?
 
Would anyone recommend spending $100 more to get the RADEON HD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 ? Supposed to kill the gtx 280

hmm I was just reading murphx's thread on the 4870x2 and he did not conclude if it worked solely off the mac psu. Does anyone know if it does?
 
so what is that psu thing ccan anyone explain it please?

Google my friend, use Google. When ever you don't understand something small, just do a quick google search, then post when you can't find a answer.

BTW, "PSU" = power supply unit.
 
He probably knows what it is, were just trying to figure out if an external one is necessary to power the 280 / 4870x2.
 
Wow.

There sure were a lot of posts since last night, holy crap!

The original threads that I was talking about was this one:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/599276/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/586507/

In this thread you can see that I am asking about putting a GTX280 into my new MacPro. It works fine, like I said. You just need to split the power for the 8-pin PCIe from the upper drive bay and run it down to the lower chamber. From there under Windows you need to change the primary display device under Display Properties to the GTX 280 and ta-dah!

Read again what I said about fan speed, for all this delightful power comes at the cost of the annoyingly loud fan on the GTX 280 running at 100%. I am trying to rectify this by updating the BIOS on the GTX 280 to set custom fan speeds. The Christmas rush and the like has sort of put a hamper on my hobbies for the time being :)

My wife has the same setup as me, but with a GTX260. Same thing, it works well.

Hope this helped and I need to go find coffee...


- Stan
 
Ty stanD, do you know if the radeon 4870x2 will work off of the mac pro psu as well? I have been searching but found no answers. Also I think the wires come with it? Not sure
 
Read again what I said about fan speed, for all this delightful power comes at the cost of the annoyingly loud fan on the GTX 280 running at 100%. I am trying to rectify this by updating the BIOS on the GTX 280 to set custom fan speeds. The Christmas rush and the like has sort of put a hamper on my hobbies for the time being :)

- Stan

Stan,

I too have a GTX 260 OC 216 running alongside an 8800GT, with the same result of the fan on the GTX 260 running at 100%. I'll be very interested to know if your BIOS mod has any effect on the fan speed....

I've been trying to tackle the issue from the EFI side. I've even spliced together the GTX 260 PC bios with the EFI option ROM from the 8800GT and modified the device and vendor codes to match, but alas it has not had any effect.

-Robert
 
I know it´s too late but I succeeded in using a 2600xt and 4870 1GB OC with Zalman LED VF 1000 cooler. No problems with noise or temps. Temps are in fact much better than with the stock cooler. Of course, there is no 280 GTX power going on but it´s a viable compromise given the shortsighted limitations of the MP.
 
I know it´s too late but I succeeded in using a 2600xt and 4870 1GB OC with Zalman LED VF 1000 cooler. No problems with noise or temps. Temps are in fact much better than with the stock cooler. Of course, there is no 280 GTX power going on but it´s a viable compromise given the shortsighted limitations of the MP.

Without any external psu? Does that mean the x2 will work?
 
Snowey Leopold has these driver kexts
:
- IOPCIPrimaryMatch
0x00f010de&0xfff0ffff
0x019010de&0xfff0ffff
0x040010de&0xfff0ffff
0x042010de&0xfff0ffff
0x06e010de&0xfff0ffff
0x060010de&0xffe0ffff
0x062010de&0xffe0ffff
0x064010de&0xffe0ffff
0x086010de&0xffe0ffff
0x05e010de&0xfff8ffff


I did a quick look around and couldn't find 860, but 5e0-8 would include:

NVIDIA_GT200.DEV_05E1.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280"
NVIDIA_GT200.DEV_05E2.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260"
 
SIMPLE AS THIS:



ANY PC graphic card out there, will work on a Mac Pro UNDER WINDOWS.

Only Apple's 8800, 2600 and some other crap cards will work in OSX.

If you have a Mac Pro purchased before 2008, you will have to switch graphic cards every time you reboot (you can not have 2 in at same time)


To get a very powerful PC card to run, you may need a extra power cable to run power from motherboard, or molex from DVD drive.
 
Good luck finding a rig that will run Crysis full @ 1080p with AA maxed. I have yet to see or read it happening. You would need a crossfire/sli board to come close to that and Mac Pro mobo is not setup for that to my knowledge. Take off the AA and that is possible.. because AA in Crysis is a bi*ch.
 
thank you guys i've almost get it, but i have only one more question:
Is it right what they say that i cant sli nvidia cards except the 7xxx series but i can crossfire any ati card?
 
Why is this?

Because you need a Mac card in slot 1 for the computer to boot. But the older-then-2008 computers have only 8x speed, that is HALF the speed, in their second and third and fourth slot.

So you will have to put your gaming card in a 50% performance slot, thus not a good idea at all.
 
Because you need a Mac card in slot 1 for the computer to boot. But the older-then-2008 computers have only 8x speed, that is HALF the speed, in their second and third and fourth slot.

So you will have to put your gaming card in a 50% performance slot, thus not a good idea at all.

You are exaggerating the performance difference between PCI-Express x16 to PCI-Express x8. They are, in most cases, negligible.

There is plenty bandwidth available on a PCI-Express x8 slot for even a high-end graphic card.
 
Because you need a Mac card in slot 1 for the computer to boot. But the older-then-2008 computers have only 8x speed, that is HALF the speed, in their second and third and fourth slot.

So you will have to put your gaming card in a 50% performance slot, thus not a good idea at all.

Do you really have to have a Mac card in slot 1? That's boned, I was going to put a GTX 260 there and put my 8800GT in Slot 4.
 
Listen to Pressure, grue, not Cindori. As Pressure said, even the x8 slot will have plenty of bandwidth for you. You won't miss it much.
 
Listen to Pressure, grue, not Cindori. As Pressure said, even the x8 slot will have plenty of bandwidth for you. You won't miss it much.

It appears to depend on the game somewhat:

"As long as a graphics solution can operate with data that is stored within its local video frame buffer memory, both the reasonably mainstream Radeon HD 3850 and the hardcore GeForce 9900 GX2 will operate close to their maximum performance, even if the PCI Express link width is limited to x8 or x4. Once larger textures need to be accessed, as is the case in Crysis or Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X, interface bandwidth becomes a crucial element. Any link width below x16 will noticeably limit these games’ playability. "

Presumably the problem would be amplified at 1920x1200, and seeing as the primary game I play is FSX, I'm disappointed at best.


Between this and the EFI32 abortion firmware, I'm thinking I should probably sell my 2007 8x3.0 and buy a 2008 model so I can have better PCI and non-retarded firmware.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.