Running dual 4870's in a 2009 Mac Pro

[MacVidCards]

Questions !!!!

Xsoniccrackersx,

I am really eager to do a 4870 X2

I am curious how you managed to get Dev id to work.

Your screen shot shows 9440 but the card is 9441.

Did you mod the dev id in the PC BIOS or is that from Mac BIOS?

Don't leave us hanging dude !!!!

 

[voyagerd]

Awesome, I definitely am going to do this when I get a Mac Pro. Hopefully there will be room for Arctic Cooling heatsinks like there is in my G5.

 

[Whiteyez]

Hi all.

I'm back with news of success!

Just got my 1 Gig XFX XXX Radeon HD 4870, Hooked it in, backed it up, flashed and it worked! + I am getting 5.0 GT/s !!!! Crossfiring 2 cards now, and I reworked my set up, I am now powering the cards from the last hard drive port. I've been playing F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin, Fallout 3 and Mirror's Edge, all max settings, no hiccups at all in crossfire. This is great for me, at least because now I have my blue ray drives power back. Everything has been satisfied power wise. I will run benchmarking after i finish my homework and post back

So confirmed, Dual 4870s in a 09 Mac Pro is Possible.

More great news! I managed to flash my Sapphire Radeon 4870 X2 Properly. I figured out how to add the efi to both the master and slave portions of the bios and flash it to the card! This is all great news for a gamer such as myself ! With all the school work and tests and finals coming up however, I will need to put a lot of this on hold and get that done (I've been goofing and messing around with this way to much).

Here is pictures below of my Stock Radeon and Flashed Radeon set up revised. I borrowed a friends digital cam this time also below are pics of the cards in OS X.

Set Up Pics (OLD): http://www.flickr.com/photos/20945013@N06/sets/72157616492420304/
Set Up Pics (Revised): http://www.flickr.com/photos/20945013@N06/sets/72157616493167174/

I will update this steadily as time passes. Do not worry, feel free to ask any questions you may have. Once I finish testing and work out the kinks I will post my home cooked X2 roms and instructions how to flash it properly.

Dude thats amazing! We are waiting more infos and instructions...

 

[designed]

This is great news, adding another 4870 HD might be a viable option sometime in the future for the moments I need some gaming punch. Also, good to see the power supply problem being solved.

I always thought Crossfire and SLI needed support from the motherboard chipset to work. I guess I was wrong, or does the MP have the support?

 

[Tallest Skil]

This is great news, adding another 4870 HD might be a viable option sometime in the future for the moments I need some gaming punch. Also, good to see the power supply problem being solved.

I always thought Crossfire and SLI needed support from the motherboard chipset to work. I guess I was wrong, or does the MP have the support?

CrossFire works on anything, but only in Windows. SLI does not work.

 

[Whiteyez]

Ok so if i putt one Sapphire Radeon 4870 X2 do i need to get extra power from the optical drive?

 

[JollyRogers]

Hi all.

More great news! I managed to flash my Sapphire Radeon 4870 X2 Properly. I figured out how to add the efi to both the master and slave portions of the bios and flash it to the card! This is all great news for a gamer such as myself ! With all the school work and tests and finals coming up however, I will need to put a lot of this on hold and get that done (I've been goofing and messing around with this way to much).

I will update this steadily as time passes. Do not worry, feel free to ask any questions you may have. Once I finish testing and work out the kinks I will post my home cooked X2 roms and instructions how to flash it properly.

Standing by patiently for any instructions and files. I was looking into this, using a x2 and extracting Rom 0 and Rom 1, then running pipomolo42's fixrom.py script on each one. Then flash rom 0 (master) and rom 1 (slave) and seeing what happens. If it didn't work, put it in kids PC. If it does work, I won't buy an Apple branded 4870.

My big question(s) would be, can you run the 4870 x2 stand alone in your MP in OSX successfully and can it do dual link DVI (I have a 2048x1152 monitor so this has to work)? How loud are the fans in OSX? Also, does it show up as a 4870 x2 properly in Windows? Power I have covered...

 

[MacVidCards]

4870 x2 here....no luck

So I got a Visiontek 4870 x2.

1. Using 4850 as EFI source....no go. (works on regular 4870 cards)

2. I used the pipolomo42 method to create ROMs for master & slave.....no go for OSX

3. I did the above and modded device ids to 9440......still no go.

So until Xsonic returns with some details/roms, etc, I would hold off buying.

Tonight or tomorrow I will get an answer on the 5.0GTS thing with a Diamond 4870 512 and 1Gig in a Nehalem.

 

[matthew.russo]

With these apple video card upgrade kits, do they provide the 6pin(f) to 6pin(m) cables?


eg. http://www.1pccorp.com/Images/CB_underpower/CB-6M-6F web.png

edit: the apple cable supplied use a different connector on the mb, the part no. is 922-7128

 

[MacVidCards]

Is it real? Or is it Photoshop?

Eager to find the elusive 5.0 GTs grail, I just dragged a couple flashed 4870s to a place I work.

They just got a Nehalem Octo 2.26.

I tried both an XFX 1 Gig (like Xsonic clims to have seen this on) and my trusty Diamond 512 meg.

Both cards still did the 2.5 GTs.

Giving Xsonic benefit of the doubt, perhaps he saw the 5.0 GTs number since he had an OEM 4870 in as well as the flashed ones. In any case, the 5.0 goal is going to be harder to reach than we had hoped. Time to bust out the soldering iron.

So, thus far, I have been unable to recreate EITHER of his claims. (5.0GTS speeds on 1 Gig XFX, and working 4870 x2 via Pipolomo method)

Hopefully Xsonic will reappear and provide some secret ingredient and make me look like a putz....meanwhile.....save your pennies for proven solutions.

 

[Whiteyez]

So many days and nothing yet from xsoniccrackersx, im starting to thinking that this is fake.

 

[seisend]

So many days and nothing yet from xsoniccrackersx, im starting to thinking that this is fake.

yes, or his mac pro exploded !

 

[MacVidCards]

time to call bull sheht

 

[pastrychef]

Let's hope, he's just been busy and hasn't had time to post exactly what he did to achieve the 5.0 GT/s and working X2...

 

[Whiteyez]

Busy? Im starting to thinking that he is dead..

 

[seisend]

Busy? Im starting to thinking that he is dead..

...or his mac pro exploded !

 

[MacVidCards]

????????

More than a week since his last post.

No responses to PMs, etc.

I just can't understand why someone would go to such trouble to create a hoax. The pix clearly show a Nehalem, and the 3@ 4870 cards he mentions.

The drag is I went out and bought a (used) 4870x2 that I can't return.

Why do such a thing?

 

[matthew.russo]

More than a week since his last post.

No responses to PMs, etc.

I just can't understand why someone would go to such trouble to create a hoax. The pix clearly show a Nehalem, and the 3@ 4870 cards he mentions.

The drag is I went out and bought a (used) 4870x2 that I can't return.

Why do such a thing?

That is really annoying. I think someone just wanted to claim the spotlight...and failed!

I would flash it back to the original rom and sell it on ebay so you get some of your losses back at least.

 

[CptBucky]

I tried using the Booster X3 on the 2009 Mac Pro but it's not doable, there are no holes for the PCI-E 6-pin power cables to slot through (unlike the 2008 MP).

At the moment the only way I can think of doing this is to sacrifice two HDD's and both optical drives and convert the Sata cables to molex, then convert the molex to the new card. Not really worth it though.

 

[matthew.russo]

I tried using the Booster X3 on the 2009 Mac Pro but it's not doable, there are no holes for the PCI-E 6-pin power cables to slot through (unlike the 2008 MP).

At the moment the only way I can think of doing this is to sacrifice two HDD's and both optical drives and convert the Sata cables to molex, then convert the molex to the new card. Not really worth it though.

Such a pitty, not the best solution but you could see if it is possible to cut a hole in the case where the drive bay is and where the hdds sit, it is drastic though. Otherwise sata and molex connectors.

 

[VirtualRain]

Such a pitty, not the best solution but you could see if it is possible to cut a hole in the case where the drive bay is and where the hdds sit, it is drastic though. Otherwise sata and molex connectors.

Honestly, I don't think the Booster is necessary anyway... I've read the stock power supply is a 980W beast... as I've said before... unless your systems is already maxed out (dual 2.93 cpu's, all ram slots full, all card slots full, all drive bays full) you should have plenty of head-room to work with using just the stock power supply.

 

[matthew.russo]

Honestly, I don't think the Booster is necessary anyway... I've read the stock power supply is a 980W beast... as I've said before... unless your systems is already maxed out (dual 2.93 cpu's, all ram slots full, all card slots full, all drive bays full) you should have plenty of head-room to work with using just the stock power supply.

It isn't really, A single card only pull approx 180 to 225 watts. 2 cards anywhere between 360 - 450 watts. Each slot can provice 70 watt. My only conern really was how many rails the PSU has to support..but it seems ok splitting the power from sata.

 

[TheStrudel]

Would it work if one split the power from the PCIe port? As in, with a PCIe Y-splitter? Curious to see whether the motherboard can handle that kind of draw or whether one would be at serious risk of burning something out.

 

[VirtualRain]

Would it work if one split the power from the PCIe port? As in, with a PCIe Y-splitter? Curious to see whether the motherboard can handle that kind of draw or whether one would be at serious risk of burning something out.

That was my original proposition, but I think it's much safer to provide power via one of the SATA connectors.

 

[CptBucky]

I also think the PSU could easiliy handle another 4870 in the 2009 MP as it's designed to carry up to four GT 120's and even a RAID card. The problem is, I have no idea how to access the PSU cable slots and I'm not even sure if it's possible to take out the PSU at all (the 2009 one anyway). Anyone know how to do that?