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Radeon 5770 and 5870 Upgrade Kits Posted to Apple Store
- Thread starter ventro
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THIS is the key.
Apple doesn't want you to buy the card, sell your old one, then be unable to reinstall your machine because the factory restore disk lacks the needed drivers.
This is why the card might work great, but if you use it in your older Mac Pro you should keep your original video card around.
In theory, you don't need the drivers in order to use a video card. You just won't get any openGL acceleration and use the card in VESA mode. I believe that works for ATi cards on OS X, but Nvidia cards produce a kernel panic if drivers are missing. This doesn't happen on Windows, AFAIK.
This is unacceptable from Nvidia/Apple's part, as most graphic card upgrades for Mac Pros require a particular OS version that is more recent than that on the install discs. I'm pretty sure that's the case for the GTX 285. Maybe it ships with a full install disc though.
The wording's lost me. Could you clarify?
because Apple uses every possible trick to sell you custom pc graphiccards
@ their conditions
this was the case with the 8800GT for 2006/2007 Mac Pro. Apple released this EFI32 version but the 2006 computers came with Tiger and had 0 support from recovery CD
but I dont see why they can't include generic display support with their OS. I mean windows can run any graphic card at 800x600 without driver support.
Just chatted with someone from the online store. Still no availability date.
Attachments
Most likely won't have any available until they know they can meet the pre-orders and initial shipments.
That is exactly what I thought. I ordered my 12 core with the 5870 the 9th, and the store was saying shipment in 7-10 days, but immediately after placing order I received shipment date of August 23rd.
The store is still showing 7-10 days, which may apply if you don't order the 5870.
Maybe if we're lucky, computers with the 5870 will ship earlier, but I'm not counting on it.
7-10 business days... 10 business days after the 9th is the 23rd.
So there's no conspiracy delay on the cards. And they clearly set a pessimistic date.
Whoops. Forgot about "business days". Do they have business days in China?
Hah. Maybe that's where the cards are coming from (either there or Taiwan). But Mac Pros are still assembled in the USA, AFAIK. At least my '08 and my buddy's '09 were.
Most are assembled overseas as well (i.e. users getting base configurations direct from China IIRC). BTO systems are given their final configurations in the US for North American orders, and Ireland for European shipments. Not sure where the other BTO facilities are for other countries.
Anything to save a buck...
Um, have you ever heard of a backup? Carbon Copy Cloner makes really nice fully bootable backups. No original restore discs or video cards are needed to access the last working version of OSX you had.
No, Photoshop is not that gpu intensive.
Your GT 120 should work just as well for Photoshop.
BS: they did this with the geforce 6800.
They're doing it to force you to upgrade your mac pro, no other reason.
Out of curiosity for the question about restoring a Mac Pro with an older disk that may not have the graphics drivers for the newer units.
Isn't there a way to upgrade the install disks?
In Windows there is slipstreaming. Using a tool called nLite/vLite depending on the version of Windows I can take a Windows XP release disk from 5 years ago and integrate new service packs, hot fixes, drivers of my choice, etc.
Is there nothing like this for osX?
Isn't there a way to upgrade the install disks?
In Windows there is slipstreaming. Using a tool called nLite/vLite depending on the version of Windows I can take a Windows XP release disk from 5 years ago and integrate new service packs, hot fixes, drivers of my choice, etc.
Is there nothing like this for osX?
Apple offers service updates for OS X and you can always upgrade the OS. Aren't the install discs just OS X? The drivers and kernels are already on the disk.