Issues with Apple Cinema Display on 2007 Mac Pro

[MaximumDVD]

The MIS Department at my place of employment damaged my old Cinema Display and I had requested the new Cinema Display as a replacement. Well, to my surprise, the new 24" Cinema Display needs a Mini Display Port to hook up to that is standard on the new mac book pro, but not on the older Mac Pros. I am currently using a 2x 2.66Ghz Dual core Intel Xeon Mac Pro circa 2007 (OSX 10.4.11).

My MIS department ordered a new video card (NVIDIA GeForce GT 120), but that proved to not be compatible with my Mac.

I read somewhere that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 card would solve this problem, but I don't want to go through all the paperwork and approvals only to find out when it arrives that this too is incompatible.

Anyone have success with ATI Radeon HD 4870 Card and an Apple 24" Cinema Display working on an Mac Pro machine 2007 or earlier?

 

[a350]

you can either find a compatible video card that has mini display output or get something like this, Dvi To Mini Display Port Converter

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JQPRPG

 

[MaximumDVD]

Thanks, a350

I believe at the moment there are only 2 videocards with the Mini Display Port - NVidia GT 120 and the ATI HD 4870.

I know the GT 120 is not compatible with my Mac, but I'm not sure if the HD4870 is, so I'm trying to see if someone has tried this out yet before I put in a request for it. My company makes you fill out tons of paperwork and I need approvals from a lot of people, so I want to be sure before I go through all the work for it.

Many thanks on the adapter link, I'll be sure to look into that adapter, if no one has any experience with the HD4870 and the 2007 MacPro.

-MaxDVD

 

[a350]

this is what apples says
the requirements for the 4870

Compatibility:

* Requires Mac Pro (Early 2009 with 1066MHz DDR3 memory) or Mac Pro (Early 2008 with 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM memory) with PCI Express 2.0 slot
* Mac OS X v10.5.7 or later

 

[MaximumDVD]

Thanks again a350. I really appreciate your effort.

While researching the 4870, I checked out the apple store's comments under the 4870 card and apparently, Apple doesn't officially claim the card is supported by older Macs, but a few people on the Apple store community say it will work....


Best Answer: The card works just fine in all apple mac pros: 06,07,08,09 at full speed.

Tested and true.
Running one on my Macpro 1.1 (2006) just fine,installation took 4 minutes.

Answered by PJ from ONKIMAA Oct 14, 2009

There's a lot of discussion on forums about this. The overall consensus seems to be that, though it doesn't seem officially supported by Apple, the 4870 will run on the EFI-32 Mac Pro's 1.1 (first generation from 2006).

Answered by NK from Brooklyn Oct 10, 2009

uhm, PCIe 2.0 is fully backward compatible with 1.x, it's in the spec. So while it may not run at full blast it should still function.

Answered by TB from Wake Forest Oct 11, 2009

I think I'm going to investigate the adapter further before I take a chance on the 4870.

 

[Pee Jay]

Card

The graphics card should work with 07 to 09 Mac Pro models.