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New life to a 2008 MacPro

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wahit said:
So, pretty much this plus this is all I need to speed bump my MacPro a little bit more? :D

As soon as I plug that inside the MacPro, the system automatically recognizes the disk?
Click to expand...

Yep good to go! Just use the adaptor Gav mentioned
 
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Alright! Thank you very much guys. I already had these on my basket. Ready to order!

Now my last questions. I promise.

Is the ATI 5770 the best graphics card update I can do on my MacPro? Will I notice a significant difference comparing to my actual graphics card? And once again, is it just plug-and-play? No crazy setups and tweaks to do after?

Finally, is it possible - or helpful - for me to have two different graphics cards on my MacPro? I only use one screen (Cinema Display), but is it possible for two different cards to work together as if they were only one? I'm sorry for my noobness.


Once again, thank you very much!
 
wahit said:
Alright! Thank you very much guys. I already had these on my basket. Ready to order!

Now my last questions. I promise.

Is the ATI 5770 the best graphics card update I can do on my MacPro? Will I notice a significant difference comparing to my actual graphics card? And once again, is it just plug-and-play? No crazy setups and tweaks to do after?

Finally, is it possible - or helpful - for me to have two different graphics cards on my MacPro? I only use one screen (Cinema Display), but is it possible for two different cards to work together as if they were only one? I'm sorry for my noobness.


Once again, thank you very much!
Click to expand...

First off you could get the 7950 mac edition or an even better PC Card but the difference if you don't do anything graphics intensive wouldn't be worth the price my 5770 arrives today so il yet you know how it is! Also regarding 2 cards unless you use bootcamp (windows) there's no point as OSX doesn't support crossfire (2 cards)

Cheers

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And yes plug and play and don't worry about posting too many questions that's what the forums are for!!
 
Hello!

The fact right now is this. I use this computer for work (I work mainly at home) and for leisure, and I use both Mac and Windows, dividing my stuff like this:


Mac
- iTunes / iPhoto
- Photoshop / inDesign / Illustrator
- Internet and all other stuff


Windows
- 3D Studio Max (always)
- Rhinoceros (not so much these days)
- Vray for rendering
- Photoshop


So pretty much, I use both Mac and Windows often and the Windows part gets most of the hard work, since all 3D work is done there. So, what can I do regarding graphics cards in order to keep my MacPro for a couple years more before I update to a new MacPro?

A Windows graphics card is compatible to Mac too, or not really? Gosh, since I moved to Mac system over 10 years ago, I totally forgot about buying parts and customizing stuff myself. I'm just totally lost here.

Thank you!
 
wahit said:
Hello!

The fact right now is this. I use this computer for work (I work mainly at home) and for leisure, and I use both Mac and Windows, dividing my stuff like this:


Mac
- iTunes / iPhoto
- Photoshop / inDesign / Illustrator
- Internet and all other stuff


Windows
- 3D Studio Max (always)
- Rhinoceros (not so much these days)
- Vray for rendering
- Photoshop


So pretty much, I use both Mac and Windows often and the Windows part gets most of the hard work, since all 3D work is done there. So, what can I do regarding graphics cards in order to keep my MacPro for a couple years more before I update to a new MacPro?

A Windows graphics card is compatible to Mac too, or not really? Gosh, since I moved to Mac system over 10 years ago, I totally forgot about buying parts and customizing stuff myself. I'm just totally lost here.

Thank you!
Click to expand...

Because of the amount of 3D work you do in windows you would benefit from crossfire I think if you wanted a mac card the best you could do is 2 5770s because of the power required from the 2 cards together. However you could take a look at something like a GTX 770 for PC which would give much more graphics power than the 2 5770s together. If you search on eBay for MacVidCards he flashes PC Cards to work with mac. He's a really helpful member here at macrumors so I'm sure if you shoot him a PM he would be able to help you out regarding GPUs

----------

Also PC graphics cards will work but you won't see anything on your monitor until your mac has booted however macvidcards mods PC ones to have boot screens
 
wahit said:
Alright! Thank you very much guys. I already had these on my basket. Ready to order!

Now my last questions. I promise.

Is the ATI 5770 the best graphics card update I can do on my MacPro? Will I notice a significant difference comparing to my actual graphics card? And once again, is it just plug-and-play? No crazy setups and tweaks to do after?

Finally, is it possible - or helpful - for me to have two different graphics cards on my MacPro? I only use one screen (Cinema Display), but is it possible for two different cards to work together as if they were only one? I'm sorry for my noobness.


Once again, thank you very much!
Click to expand...

You can have twin cards in a 3,1 but depending on the cards you buy you may need external power. Slot 1 on the 3,1 is a 16x slot and 2 is an 8x slot. The best single GPU upgrade without spending loads i what I did - I bought a used but unregistered for warranty reference design PC EVGA GTX680 2Gb card for £210 on ebay in total including a pair of new PCIe power leads, identical to the Mac Edition card apart from the Apple sticker which costs over £450 retail. Flashing the Mac EFI bios, the files and instructions are available on this forum took 5 minutes on bootcamp using a couple of commands from an admin command prompt, giving me a Mac EFI boot screen and in essence an EVGA Mac Edition card for under half price!

I run Photoshop CS6 on both OSX and Windows 7 and the boost I got from my old 8800GT was very noticeable, it has approx 6x the performance and runs hugely quieter also. IIRC 3DSMax is more CUDA enabled than OpenCL so you will get better performance from an Nvidia card than an AMD/ATI.
 
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Ok, so pretty much I have these options to increase the power of my Mac:

1) Radeon HD 5770 1GB (270 pounds)

2) Sapphire HD 7950 3GB (311 pounds)

Any other plug-and-play option that dramatically increases the performance of my early-2008 Mac and that works both in Mac and Windows (Bootcamp)?

Regarding flashed PC cards, the guy you talked about ships stuff from the USA. Living in Europe, I really want to avoid shipping stuff from there because of crazy taxes.

I just want to keep everything simple. Order the graphics card from Amazon (UK) or something like that, receive it at home and plug-and-play. I don't really want to mess up my computer, since I'm no expert in this kind of stuff. :cool:


Gav Mack: that seems a bit complicated. I'm really afraid of screwing up.
 
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wahit said:
Ok, so pretty much I have these options to increase the power of my Mac:

1) Radeon HD 5770 1GB (270 pounds)

2) Sapphire HD 7950 3GB (311 pounds)

Any other plug-and-play option that dramatically increases the performance of my early-2008 Mac and that works both in Mac and Windows (Bootcamp)?

Regarding flashed PC cards, the guy you talked about ships stuff from the USA. Living in Europe, I really want to avoid shipping stuff from there because of crazy taxes.

I just want to keep everything simple. Order the graphics card from Amazon (UK) or something like that, receive it at home and plug-and-play. I don't really want to mess up my computer, since I'm no expert in this kind of stuff. :cool:


Gav Mack: that seems a bit complicated. I'm really afraid of screwing up.
Click to expand...

A PC reference 680 card like I got will work on both Windows and OSX, will have the same performance gains but just won't have a mac EFI boot screen unless you flash the card with the mac bios. It really is simple - two command lines, one to backup the original bios and another to flash it and unless you have a power cut whilst performing the update it won't brick the card. If you are worried about doing it yourself I don't mind taking 5 minutes out of my life to flash it remotely via teamviewer!
 
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Thanks Gav Mack, that is super cool! Can you show me the instructions to to that? You said you had a link for something in this forum...

So pretty much this was the graphics card you were talking about?

What extra cables do I need to buy too?

Finally, that graphics card is more powerful than the Sapphire HD 7950 3GB? And is it the best graphics card I can buy under 400 euros in order to keep my MacPro for a few more years?

Thanks! :cool:
 
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wahit said:
Thanks Gav Mack, that is super cool! Can you show me the instructions to to that? You said you had a link for something in this forum...

So pretty much this was the graphics card you were talking about?

What extra cables do I need to buy too?

Finally, that graphics card is more powerful than the Sapphire HD 7950 3GB? And is it the best graphics card I can buy under 400 euros in order to keep my MacPro for a few more years?

Thanks! :cool:
Click to expand...

Could do but for a 3,1 unless you plan to upgrade to a 5,1 I wouldn't spend that much on a card.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321311180057?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

These are flashable, I know because 2 Mac Pro clients bought one each. Have a 30 day warranty which is enough cos a card will either be dead on arrival or work until you cook it! The PCIe power cables I linked in a previous post further back at £4 each, you will need one addtional cable.

I will post the instruction links up later, currently in gloves changing a MBP logic board!
 
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What about the 680 Mac Edition, if the OP doesn't feel comfortable in case he messes something up? Just a thought, however a PC card is a great option and much cheaper!
 
What about drivers? I've read somewhere that Nvidia doesn't support drivers for that card since Mavericks was introduced...
 
wahit said:
What about drivers? I've read somewhere that Nvidia doesn't support drivers for that card since Mavericks was introduced...
Click to expand...

The mavericks drivers work but not as ideally fast as they should be, but with 10.9.2 due shortly they should be fixed.

The Nvidia CUDA driver that works better on Mavericks is the one everyone is waiting for and that's due shortly too, probably just after 10.9.2.

Here's the simplest instructions I have found by far on the netkas forum

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php?P...3thmb61k9gp6mg4l&topic=5709.msg21237#msg21237
 
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5770 (mac), 5870 (mac), gtx 680 (win) are all 1GB and 2GB graphics cards, but the sapphire 7950 (mac) is 3GB.

In theory this one shouldn't be the best, or it doesn't work out that way?
 
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I upgraded my Mac Pro, the same you have. And there was no actual difference. I spent $1600, got a new 2GB Nvidia Quatro video card, it was about $600... no difference.

I have a 2010 iMac too. What I do is using the Mac Pro as a server connected with just one Cat 6 cable to the iMac and I can send renders using both computers. I got 2 x 4GB hard drives and I have most of my info there in the Mac Pro too (with back up).

You could keep the Mac Pro for extra rendering and storage and get a new iMac, it will be better. There is no way to make the mac pro faster.
 
rei101 said:
I upgraded my Mac Pro, the same you have. And there was no actual difference. I spent $1600, got a new 2GB Nvidia Quatro video card, it was about $600... no difference.

I have a 2010 iMac too. What I do is using the Mac Pro as a server connected with just one Cat 6 cable to the iMac and I can send renders using both computers. I got 2 x 4GB hard drives and I have most of my info there in the Mac Pro too (with back up).

You could keep the Mac Pro for extra rendering and storage and get a new iMac, it will be better. There is no way to make the mac pro faster.
Click to expand...

Weird, I upgraded mine (1,1) from 2.66Ghz 4 cores, to 3.0Ghz 8 cores, and went from 4GB of RAM to 24GB of RAM, and did dual SSD in RAID0 for boot drives. Geek bench went from 5500 to 14,000. But I guess that can't be right...haha
 
TheEasterBunny said:
Weird, I upgraded mine (1,1) from 2.66Ghz 4 cores, to 3.0Ghz 8 cores, and went from 4GB of RAM to 24GB of RAM, and did dual SSD in RAID0 for boot drives. Geek bench went from 5500 to 14,000. But I guess that can't be right...haha
Click to expand...

I didn't changes the cores, just added ram and vram... still the same.
 
rei101 said:
I didn't changes the cores, just added ram and vram... still the same.
Click to expand...

Yes, while RAM and VRAM both help with some work flows that are specific to graphics. They don't help the over all feel of the machine, but faster accessing drives, and faster processors do.
The SSD's help especially with scratch drives that photoshop uses, but the main difference with a Pro compared to any other Mac is, the ECC. Error correction is very important for scientific computation, and with graphics. iMacs, Mini's, and MacBooks do not do ECC, and while ECC can be a bit slower, it has fewer issues with longer running flows.
 
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