This isn't really Apple's fault. There's nothing stopping the manufacturers from making good EFI32 graphics cards, they apparently just don't think it's worthwhile
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Mac Pro (the most configurable mac or not...)
- Thread starter jmggs
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This isn't really Apple's fault. There's nothing stopping the manufacturers from making good EFI32 graphics cards, they apparently just don't think it's worthwhile
If apple release a simple EFI64 firmware..the problem is solved.
Most of the cards are apple cards..with no EFI32 support
just a simple EFI64 update...
Currently, ATI is using EBC based firmware which will work in both 32 and 64 bit versions of EFI. Presumably that trend will continue, so if the 5870 is made into a Mac edition, it will also work in the '06 - 07 MP's. Beyond that, who knows.
But the EFI32 is going to be a problem with OS X once it goes to pure K64 (no more dual Kernel versions), as Apple doesn't seem interested in fixing the firmware in those systems.
If it's so simple, feel free to do it.
Apple has zero financial incentive to throw engineers at a project like that, and it might not even be technically possible. What's better for Apple: Wasting hundreds (perhaps thousands) of man hours writing all new firmware for a machine and not getting paid for it or everyone crying about it buying a new Mac Pro?
another apple fan...
Consumer support
(many brands motherboard brands do update the firmware of older boards and sometimes add support to new cpus and so on..) is that to complicated to apple NO!
Mac pro's are too expensive to not support them
In another brands with enterprise class hardware, they support old hardware for a good 5 years or more.
an happy consumer will buy more hardware, i will not buy another mac pro ever!
imac or a pc workstation it's a smarter option.
Don't name other people "fanboy" when you clearly made an enormous mistake buying the wrong computer ...
There is a huge difference from a 7300GT and a 8800GT, so THERE ARE upgrade options for a 2006's Mac Pro.
And 4 years in this field are geological eras.
As someone already stated: return to the pc world, where you belong
Don't name other people "fanboy" when you clearly made an enormous mistake buying the wrong computer ...
There is a huge difference from a 7300GT and a 8800GT, so THERE ARE upgrade options for a 2006's Mac Pro.
And 4 years in this field are geological eras.
As someone already stated: return to the pc world, where you belong
x2
Mac is not putting these out as "gaming" machines but for Pro apps like video, photographic/graphic arts, music producing. Apple has created boot camp to add functionality for the computers and you should be happy with that,
Apple is a business and they're only going to function inside those parameters, if it makes $ sense then they will do it.
Now if you're complaining because of video work that's one thing, but for the love of Pete not gaming.
I think the issue is that many switchers see a Mac Pro and think of it like the millions of different PC towers out there but it's not, that's the iMac.
x2
Mac is not putting these out as "gaming" machines but for Pro apps like video, photographic/graphic arts, music producing. Apple has created boot camp to add functionality for the computers and you should be happy with that,
Apple is a business and they're only going to function inside those parameters, if it makes $ sense then they will do it.
Now if you're complaining because of video work that's one thing, but for the love of Pete not gaming.
I think the issue is that many switchers see a Mac Pro and think of it like the millions of different PC towers out there but it's not, that's the iMac.
Where does the guy say he uses it for gaming???
I have used macs since i was 10 and have slowly progressed through many versions of imac, mac mini, notebook and finally Mac Pro systems.
I too work in the digital video industry and am too a little pissed at the lack of support for my 2006 MacPro, in terms of graphics and EFI
I only wish i got more than my 3 years out of this system and knowing that soon i wont be able to maximise its usage due to only it supporting 32bit gets on my nerves simply because the same spec Mac Pro today costs more than i paid for my 2006 mac pro.
Due to the swift update calendar that apple now seems to be following since its switch to intel the second hand value of my Mac Pro is too low to sell as the difference of buying a new one is still very high.
This is supposed to be a pro computer, but i would argue that the imac would be abetter buy as its specs seems to outweigh even my mac pro and comes at a lower cost to upgrade every few years.
I don't really see where apple is going with the Mac Pro anymore... seems too busy keeping the consumers happy, instead of an even balance between consumer rich kid and professional.
First of all, Apple WOULD be making more money by releasing a firmware update for the first gen Mac Pro. Apple would be able to sell more video cards, LED Displays (with Mini Displayport), and future OS updates.
Second of all, these Mac Pro's are required for games if you want a decent Mac with powerful gaming capabilities. I can't think of a better Mac for games than a Mac Pro. So don't just say they're for Final Cut and Aperture.
I bought my Mac Pro because I wanted the flexibility of expansion. Plus, the Mac Pro is supposed to last longer than most Macs.
Second of all, these Mac Pro's are required for games if you want a decent Mac with powerful gaming capabilities. I can't think of a better Mac for games than a Mac Pro. So don't just say they're for Final Cut and Aperture.
I bought my Mac Pro because I wanted the flexibility of expansion. Plus, the Mac Pro is supposed to last longer than most Macs.
Any chance for a community-written firmware update?
I readily admit I don't have a high degree of understanding about the Mac Pro EFI and how hard it would be for some Mac geeks to take the 2008 firmware and re-write the 2006/7 EFI to be 64-bit compatible.
Is that even the realm of possibility? I'm probably in the middle in this debate, happy with the upgrades I've been able to make (1900 -> 8800 and adding tons of memory and 5 HDD/SSDs) compared to any other Mac, and it's still overkill for 98% of the work I do, and I'll keep it for another 2-3 years.
I think the new Firmware would probably enable us to run 10.7 (although we might be able to run it in 32-bit mode, who can say) but probably as soon as I can't run the latest version of OS X I'll be building myself a Hackintosh.
I readily admit I don't have a high degree of understanding about the Mac Pro EFI and how hard it would be for some Mac geeks to take the 2008 firmware and re-write the 2006/7 EFI to be 64-bit compatible.
Is that even the realm of possibility? I'm probably in the middle in this debate, happy with the upgrades I've been able to make (1900 -> 8800 and adding tons of memory and 5 HDD/SSDs) compared to any other Mac, and it's still overkill for 98% of the work I do, and I'll keep it for another 2-3 years.
I think the new Firmware would probably enable us to run 10.7 (although we might be able to run it in 32-bit mode, who can say) but probably as soon as I can't run the latest version of OS X I'll be building myself a Hackintosh.
You're out of your mind if you think I'm the typical Apple fanboy; If anything, I'm probably one of their biggest critics, I just do it based on my technical knowledge and ability to think from an alternate perspective.
Do you know if Apple is using EEPROMs that are large enough to hold an EFI64 base? I sure don't.
Maybe, but there could be technical issues, such as the mention of the ROM size of the chip used. If it's too small, then it just won't work. It would mean a new chip, and that's not going to happen (soldered part).
Such a move would also reduce the sales of the new systems, which have a larger profit than upgrades in total figures (lets say the margin % is the same, but which is larger: x % of say $3k vs. x % of $500?). For it to work out, they'd have to be able to sell 6x as many cards as new systems. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there's enough EFI32 systems ever made to make it viable, and not everyone would do it, making the number of manufactured systems even higher (it's still good for some uses with the newest existing hardware and OS version). I just don't know what the manufacture volume was, but I'm thinking it's not enough, given their marketshare is small, and finding numbers specific to MP systems only, isn't available AFAIK.
Apple's firmware is proprietary, and to do it without breaking the support for OS X (code that ties the OS to the system) isn't possible without copyright infringement (reverse engineering + modification).
Very good point. It's assumed it is, but that may not actually be the case.
You seem to confuse things: an iMac is definitely not as flexible as a Mac Pro.
RAM, graphics card, and you don't have the choice of display.
What a new graphic card can do to improve your productivity in digital video works ? Almost nothing if you already have a 8800 ...
And you keep speaking about "soon an EFI64 firmware would be mandatory" but how much soon ? One year? Maybe more ...
There is NOTHING, aside of gaming at high resolution, you can't do with your 2006 MP, and we are in 2010, and the situation won't change until maybe 2011.
Relax. You seem to' be worried about 3D Mark scores ....
Go to the Apple's web site and find out if they advertise the Mac Pro for gaming anywhere. Not? Ok, so wrong choice on your side, dude ...
They use gaming bechmark (and quite old like Quake2) just to compare different graphic solutions of the Mac Pro.
A MP is not a gaming machine and cannot be judged as a gaming machine. It is a workstation and a 2006's MP still is a good one.
but is more affordable
imac is not more flexible but the options of macpro and the price paid... the plus of macpro is the graphics cards (poor offer) more hard drives and PCIe cards nothing more for so expensive machine.
For that price i can by a super hackintosh or a pc workstation.
i don't use mac pro for gaming. i use for work!
Apple says the Mac Pro is for the "Ultimate Gamer"
http://www.apple.com/games/hardware/index.html#ultimate
There. They advertised that the Mac Pro is the best choice for gaming on the Mac platform and they're right. It really is the only choice if you wanna play high demanding games on the Mac. I boot into Windows and my games are smooth as butter (60fps or higher).
C'mon ! You're searching in the "GAME SECTION" of the Apple web-site, what do you expect they say: "we have no such hardware" ???
Also take a look at the suggested games:
The Sims 3: World Adventures
Guitar Hero World Tour
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
SPORE Galactic Adventures
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
ToCA Race Driver 3
Sid Meiers Pirates!
Battlestations Midway
Neverwinter Nights 2
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Need For Speed: Carbon
Everyone half competent could see that these are either old or "light" games, relating to hardware specs.
Me, too, I don't game on my Mac.
But for work a Mac Pro is much faster (of course you need to wait for the new Mac Pro in Q1 2010).
Generally, you need to replace an iMac faster. Mine is 2 1/2 years old and its RAM limit and bus speed etc. is seriously already a challenge, while a Mac Pro from the same era would still be quite good to work with.
C'mon ! You're searching in the "GAME SECTION" of the Apple web-site, what do you expect they say: "we have no such hardware" ???
Also take a look at the suggested games:
The Sims 3: World Adventures
Guitar Hero World Tour
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
SPORE Galactic Adventures
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
ToCA Race Driver 3
Sid Meiers Pirates!
Battlestations Midway
Neverwinter Nights 2
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Need For Speed: Carbon
Everyone half competent could see that these are either old or "light" games, relating to hardware specs.
What makes a good gaming machine versus a good workstation like the Mac Pro? (I'm getting a PS3, so it's really rather out of curiosity).
Look, the EFI 32 thing sucks.
Everybody on this subforum will agree with you. We think it's a little frustrating and all the '06 owners got screwed over on it.
But complaining about available graphics cards on this forum is beyond bizarre. Have you bothered looking at all the work The Rominator, Netkas, and Cindori have gone to on the behalf of others to make other options available? What they've accomplished is quite remarkable and worth looking into. Heck, even a lot of '08 owners like myself who had 8800 GTs flashed a 4870 because they made it so doable and it's still a good value proposition.
And even ignoring the graphics card thing for a minute, games aside, is there really anything your Mac Pro can't do yet? Pretty sure it's still a fast machine for all the pro apps written for Mac (and several written for Windows). Most applications still haven't been written to take full advantage of 4 cores yet.
What are you really trying to do? Of all the apps people actually use, many of them can be sped up with improvements in storage (SSDs), RAM, or CPU replacement, all of which can and have been done by people on this forum, who then wrote little walkthroughs.
I'm having a hard time understanding the real complaint here, aside from the "My machine isn't quite as awesome as I wanted it to be." And frankly, I actually think '09 Mac Pro owners have more to complain about there, given the cost of the machines and some of the limitations they were saddled with.
Everybody on this subforum will agree with you. We think it's a little frustrating and all the '06 owners got screwed over on it.
But complaining about available graphics cards on this forum is beyond bizarre. Have you bothered looking at all the work The Rominator, Netkas, and Cindori have gone to on the behalf of others to make other options available? What they've accomplished is quite remarkable and worth looking into. Heck, even a lot of '08 owners like myself who had 8800 GTs flashed a 4870 because they made it so doable and it's still a good value proposition.
And even ignoring the graphics card thing for a minute, games aside, is there really anything your Mac Pro can't do yet? Pretty sure it's still a fast machine for all the pro apps written for Mac (and several written for Windows). Most applications still haven't been written to take full advantage of 4 cores yet.
What are you really trying to do? Of all the apps people actually use, many of them can be sped up with improvements in storage (SSDs), RAM, or CPU replacement, all of which can and have been done by people on this forum, who then wrote little walkthroughs.
I'm having a hard time understanding the real complaint here, aside from the "My machine isn't quite as awesome as I wanted it to be." And frankly, I actually think '09 Mac Pro owners have more to complain about there, given the cost of the machines and some of the limitations they were saddled with.
As others have done, I've purchased my first (and only) Mac Pro late 2006. I use it for audio recording/sequencing (with Logic Pro 9) and light to moderate standard DV editing (with Final Cut Pro). I'm also interested in updating the graphics card to my Mac Pro (currently still using the original Nvidia 7300 GT) and, so far, haven't found one that is documented and guaranteed to work with my 2006 Mac Pro. I can't even find a compatible video card at the Apple store.
It's nice to read that I am not alone in my frustration. I like my 2006 Mac Pro. I just want to make it "better" with a new compatible graphics card.
The Spaz said:
jmggs said:
It's nice to read that I am not alone in my frustration. I like my 2006 Mac Pro. I just want to make it "better" with a new compatible graphics card.
Have you tried the 7600 GT? I have this one in my 24" iMac, which is from 2007. Should be really low priced, and has twice the amount of RAM.