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Running dual 4870's in a 2009 Mac Pro

JollyRogers said:
I was the one who posted it and I also missed named it 4780. I have since renamed it and its sitting on my desktop. So here it is. REVF dump. I too am curious about this as I was hoping at some point to crossfire my OEM card. But alas, I spent 327 US $ for a hobbled card, at least I think I did. I don't want to spend the money for another PC 4870 right now....
Click to expand...

Thanks for that :)

I know that all to well, will give it a go when I get home tonight. Is it safe to use ATI WinFlash to do the job? Also how can I tell what Rev my current rom is?

EDIT: My cards currently have what looks the same as the RevF bios.

ATOMBIOSBK-ATI VER011.017.000.018.031479
 
I don't know if you've used them both in OS X or not, but is there any noticeable difference between them? Any reason at all to use rev. F as opposed to rev. C? I'm one of the people with the 1GB Sapphire card, wondering if it's possible to do more with it.
 
TheStrudel said:
I don't know if you've used them both in OS X or not, but is there any noticeable difference between them? Any reason at all to use rev. F as opposed to rev. C? I'm one of the people with the 1GB Sapphire card, wondering if it's possible to do more with it.
Click to expand...

To be honest nothing to noticeable under OS X, rev F seems a bit smoother but nothing that is really obvious.
 
Smoother...in terms of GUI? It's faster? Can you elaborate, or is it just a placebo effect?
 
TheStrudel said:
Smoother...in terms of GUI? It's faster? Can you elaborate, or is it just a placebo effect?
Click to expand...

Probably the "Safari feels snappier" effect. BIOS updates don't usually speed things up, that's what driver updates are for. BIOS updates tend to fix some bugs etc. Its obviously nothing major otherwise Apple would have issued an update themselves for it.
 
Apple disabled Crossfire.

The only way you are going to turn it back on is to find a PC ROM that combines well with EFI and runs the OEM card well enough to get DVI out of lower port. No amount of fiddling with simpler things is going to give you a magic solution.

Sad but true.
 
The Rominator said:
Apple disabled Crossfire.

The only way you are going to turn it back on is to find a PC ROM that combines well with EFI and runs the OEM card well enough to get DVI out of lower port. No amount of fiddling with simpler things is going to give you a magic solution.

Sad but true.
Click to expand...

That's it sadly.
 
matthew.russo said:
How hard would it be to make a hybrid ROM based on and for the apple card so that crossfire would work?

What would be needed to do so?
Click to expand...

I would suggest trying a ROM from a PC 4870 reference 512 board.

If one flashed to the OEM produced video on DVI port....might be place to start building a new EFI ROM using Pipolomo method
 
Having a Graphic Card Issue

Okay I received my ATI HD Radeon 4890 Card today. It is a Sapphire make and is the factory overclocked edition. I also have the stock apple 4870. I have the LED minidisplay port cinema display. I was hoping to crossfire between the two. Both cards are powered just fine. I am running Windows 7. Okay the first thing I did was put in the 4890 with the 4870 and got everything all plugged in. I could hear that both cards were working. I then used boot camp to boot into windows. I noticed that the drivers supplied were for XP and Vista so I went to AMD website and downloaded Cataylst Control Center and the display driver for windows 7. Everything installed just fine. I can't find the 4890 though in the control center, and I can't find a crossfire option. What is wrong here? I really want this to work epecially after spending some hard earned cash. During this process no cards were removed. Anyone have advice? Anything is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
Even in windows?! I assumed they just meant in OS X but now that I think about it that sounds kinda of stupid. Umm so you would need another card, flash it, and then crossfire would work in windows?
 
The Rominator said:
I would suggest trying a ROM from a PC 4870 reference 512 board.

If one flashed to the OEM produced video on DVI port....might be place to start building a new EFI ROM using Pipolomo method
Click to expand...

Do you know of any PC reference card based on the Wekiva RV770 B77101 Board?

The ones I have come across are for the Wekiva RV770 B50701 Board.
 
I see...

Thanks for the reference, just when I thought I had it all figured out. Hmmm, well at least it looks like there is a small gleaming light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Ferrari904 said:
Thanks for the reference, just when I thought I had it all figured out. Hmmm, well at least it looks like there is a small gleaming light at the end of the tunnel.
Click to expand...

It's a sheer pain in the backside. If I can get hold of a reference board firmware I will attempt to piece togethor a hybrid rom.
 
Sorry To tell you

To the best of my knowledge it is not a firmware issue if you own the Apple OEM card. Apple has physically disabled the crossfire even though there is an attachment for the crossfire bridge. If you want to do crossfire you'll have to get another pc bios based card, and then flash it so it runs in mac OS X.
 
I havent had a lot of time of recent to play around with this, but The Rominator tried some bios's that I created, they half work here and there..but the good news is that crossfire enabled, so it isnt a hardware issue holding it back.

If you wish to assist Rominator and myself in testing some bioses go to this post.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/7922245/

These three are the same
Diamond - 113-B50701-100
Gigabyte - 113-B50701-100
HIS - 113-B50701-100

Official Apple - 113-B77101-012
Asus-113-AB67800-162
ATI - 113-B50701-105
Palit - 113-AA48709575.24
Powercooler - 113-BA0701-X05
Sapphire - 113-AB68800-XXX

I am currently trying to get a bios to suite the B77101 board from ATI, so that I can use pipomolo's method to inject the rom.
 
Good News!

Sorry to bring back such an old thread. But the good news is too good not to post back on this.

Apple OEM ATI cards with the latest 9.11 catalyst drivers enable crossfire!

I have this working on an 08 Mac pro running Windows 7 x64.
 
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