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NVIDIA 8800 GT (1st Generation) Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro!

I got my card this afternoon and just installed it a couple hours ago.

I already had the 174.74 beta drivers installed, but had to install them again after putting the card in. I tried Oblivion in Bootcamp at 1920x1200 with all the other settings set to max and it ran very smooth. When I played using the 7300GT I think I had to run it at 960x600 and it was still glitchy.

I am noticing an odd thing with this card. It seems like the fan is abruptly stopping at times. It was especially evident prior to reinstalling the 174.74 drivers in Bootcamp. It has done it two or three times in OSX as well. Not sure if it is the fan stopping or starting though. It sure sounds like it is stopping very quickly, and loudly.

Another benefit of this new card is how fast in renders the 3D buildings in Google Earth. It's not like I use it very often, but I wanted to see how much the card would matter.
 
Krevnik said:
Weird, I ran the Portal demo at max settings on a 1920x1200 display, and had to turn /on/ vsync to keep it from tearing due to a high frame rate.
Click to expand...

I'm running at 1680 x 1050 on a 20inch display. Portal runs awesome, as does Team Fortress 2. The 8800GT just has a hard time giving me constant frame rates in outdoor scenarios in Half Life 2: Episode 2. Namely the scenes where you drive the car around.

Oh and every setting is MAXED out. No matter what setting I put the anti-aliasing on, the frames seem to not be affected, strangely.
 
Played a little UT3 Demo (Windows XP) last night - about an hours worth. 1920x1200 at high settings at everything was super smooth and looked gorgeous.
 
Got mine today. Install was a bit of a pain in the ass. Broke the little plastic tab for the PCI-E slot. Damn. Not a big deal tho.

I'm using the beta drivers for Vista 32 bit. Crysis runs really smooth giving me slow to 30 fps on almost all very high settings at 1280 X 7XX (can't remember the numbers). The computer, under Windows, has frozen twice on me while playing Crysis tho. I felt the card to see hot hot it was getting and the thing felt like it was boiling.

I noticed that when I installed mine I was lacking a PCI access cover - I had an X1900 XT in before and it took up two slots. This card only takes one. I had to grab an extra PCI access cover from an old PowerMac that's not in use anymore.
 
Redneck1089 said:
Got mine today. Install was a bit of a pain in the ass. Broke the little plastic tab for the PCI-E slot. Damn. Not a big deal tho.

I'm using the beta drivers for Vista 32 bit. Crysis runs really smooth giving me slow to 30 fps on almost all very high settings at 1280 X 7XX (can't remember the numbers). The computer, under Windows, has frozen twice on me while playing Crysis tho. I felt the card to see hot hot it was getting and the thing felt like it was boiling.

I noticed that when I installed mine I was lacking a PCI access cover - I had an X1900 XT in before and it took up two slots. This card only takes one. I had to grab an extra PCI access cover from an old PowerMac that's not in use anymore.
Click to expand...

The same damned thing happened to me when I was installing my 8800GT. The PCI-E slot plastic tab snapped right off as I was getting my 1900XT out. I had to grab an extra PCI access cover from an old pc.
 
Redneck1089 said:
Got mine today. Install was a bit of a pain in the ass. Broke the little plastic tab for the PCI-E slot. Damn. Not a big deal tho.
Click to expand...
freezerburrn said:
The same damned thing happened to me when I was installing my 8800GT. The PCI-E slot plastic tab snapped right off as I was getting my 1900XT out.
Click to expand...


That's crazy....i did exactly the same thing....you can't see the little plastic tab from behind the x1900xt, so i ended up yanking the card out, breaking it off.

Can anyone tell of their experiences with Pro App performance with the 8800GT?
 
Obocop said:
That's crazy....i did exactly the same thing....you can't see the little plastic tab from behind the x1900xt, so i ended up yanking the card out, breaking it off.

Can anyone tell of their experiences with Pro App performance with the 8800GT?
Click to expand...

barefeats.com
 
Redneck1089 said:
Got mine today. Install was a bit of a pain in the ass. Broke the little plastic tab for the PCI-E slot.

*snip*
Click to expand...

freezerburrn said:
The same damned thing happened to me when I was installing my 8800GT. The PCI-E slot plastic tab snapped right off as I was getting my 1900XT out.

*snip*
Click to expand...

Obocop said:
That's crazy....i did exactly the same thing....you can't see the little plastic tab from behind the x1900xt, so i ended up yanking the card out, breaking it off.

*snip*
Click to expand...

Did anyone actually read the instructions before installing?

Either in the leaflet that came with the card or here.

Nope, thought not.

I'm sorry, but sympathy is in short supply right now. I really don't have any to spare for anyone who'd work inside a £1,600 computer without knowing what they'd find there.
 
Any halo players?

Does anyone else run Halo Mac on their 8800? I'm trying to find out if the visual garbage I'm seeing (relatively minor) is the card or the drivers. No one else seems to be seeing the color problems I have, so I assume that IS due to the board...

Maury
 
Problem with 8800GT and Battlefield 2142

I just got my new Nvidia 8800GT. Figured i would replace my stock 7300 and see great improvements in the framerate for Battlefield 2142. With my 7300 and low setting I get about 25-30 FPS. Well, either I got a bum card, or there is something else seriously wrong. I started by putting all the settings at high figuring that the card could handle it. That gave me about 5-7 FPS. Ok, maybe I overdid it. Tried the medium setting and that gave 10-15 frames when the screen is busy. I was astounded that at low settings it gives me lower FPS than the 7300 (about 20-25 at times).
Has anyone else had the same problem with BF2142?
Here is how to show the framerate if someone can try it:
Open the "config" file in ~/Library/Preferences/Battlefield 2142 Preferences, look for "ShowFPS" and set it to 1."
I don't currently have any other games to see if this is isolated to BF 2142.
The application XBench also gives me lower results with the 8800 than the 7300.
Any ideas?

Quad 2.66 MHz, 5 gig, 8800 GT, 7300
 
Full 3D Game Test Results coming soon on Bare Feats

I received my legacy "gen 1" GeForce 8800 GT yesterday. I ran my suite of 3D Games on the 2007 Mac Pro 8-core 3GHz test unit.

I'm getting results slightly slower than the "PCIe 2.0" GeForce 8800 GT we installed in the "early 2008" Mac Pro 8-core 3.2GHz. But that could be explained away by various varying factors (memory speed, FSB speed, core speed, and PCIe bus differences).

It is certainly faster than the our 3D game results for the Radeon X1900 XT or GeForce 7300 GT.

I'll post my full report on BareFeats.com either later today or early tomorrow.
 
barefeats said:
I received my legacy "gen 1" GeForce 8800 GT yesterday. I ran my suite of 3D Games on the 2007 Mac Pro 8-core 3GHz test unit.

I'm getting results slightly slower than the "PCIe 2.0" GeForce 8800 GT we installed in the "early 2008" Mac Pro 8-core 3.2GHz. But that could be explained away by various varying factors (memory speed, FSB speed, core speed, and PCIe bus differences).

It is certainly faster than the our 3D game results for the Radeon X1900 XT or GeForce 7300 GT.

I'll post my full report on BareFeats.com either later today or early tomorrow.
Click to expand...


I'm hoping you might do some wrapper game testing - specifically I saw HORRIBLE frame rates playing BF2142 and others have too - I 'upgraded" from the 1900 to the 8800 and performance went way down.
 
8800GT and BF2142

pprior said:
I'm hoping you might do some wrapper game testing - specifically I saw HORRIBLE frame rates playing BF2142 and others have too - I 'upgraded" from the 1900 to the 8800 and performance went way down.
Click to expand...

It would be great if you could do some testing with BF2142. I am getting terrible frame rates. I have written to NVIDIA tech support, and they are looking into it.
 
barefeats said:
I received my legacy "gen 1" GeForce 8800 GT yesterday. I ran my suite of 3D Games on the 2007 Mac Pro 8-core 3GHz test unit.

I'm getting results slightly slower than the "PCIe 2.0" GeForce 8800 GT we installed in the "early 2008" Mac Pro 8-core 3.2GHz. But that could be explained away by various varying factors (memory speed, FSB speed, core speed, and PCIe bus differences).

It is certainly faster than the our 3D game results for the Radeon X1900 XT or GeForce 7300 GT.

I'll post my full report on BareFeats.com either later today or early tomorrow.
Click to expand...

I was going to say the memory on the gen 1 mac pros are the bottleneck at this point. I would expect the new mac pro to be a bit better. But i doubt it'll be by much.
 
ReallyRedCobra said:
huh? :confused:

You do realize that both mac pros use different ram right? And yes, it will make a difference.
Click to expand...

not in windows games :), for example cyrsis, same fps new mac pro vs. mac pro 2007, with 8800GT :)

check barefeats.com 37fps, my machine has same results
 
trixter said:
not in windows games :), for example cyrsis, same fps new mac pro vs. mac pro 2007, with 8800GT :)

check barefeats.com 37fps, my machine has same results
Click to expand...

Well the graphics card should be the same speed. That test must be mainly GPU limited. In a situation where the GPU isn't limited then the newer system will be faster because, well, it is faster!
 
Legacy GeForce 8800 GT test results

I posted some 3D Game benchmarks for the legacy 8800 GT this afternoon.

It is an improvement over the Radeon X1900 XT when it comes to gaming. It blows away the GeForce 7300 GT which comes standard on the 2006/2007 Mac Pro.
 
cal6n said:
Did anyone actually read the instructions before installing?

Either in the leaflet that came with the card or here.

Nope, thought not.

I'm sorry, but sympathy is in short supply right now. I really don't have any to spare for anyone who'd work inside a £1,600 computer without knowing what they'd find there.
Click to expand...

Did they ask you to come and fix it? If you're going to lecture people, you could at least point them to the correct guide.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacPro_CTOGraphicsCard_DIY.pdf
 
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