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So, who has tried their 5870 in a 2008 or 2006 Mac Pro?
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huh? The mini display ports are useless on 2008 and older pros? Guess i have to cancel the adapter i ordered (mini dp to hdmi).
WTF is this, Apple?? The 4870 has a display port that works on 2008 and even 2006 Mac Pros, right? Even flashed PC 5870 have a their display port working on 2008 Mac Pros.
If it's true, that's just pathetic. PCs can support the EyeInfinity card (amongst others), with 6 mini display ports working.
Assuming the 5870/5770 does at least work in the '06 Pro, one could presumably leave their current card in as the secondary slot to simply to drive another monitor (or two)?
Yes it could be a driver issue. Possibly, the 2010 Mac Pros have more recent radeon drivers than those packed with the recent graphics update (in fact, I think they do). However, that wouldn't explain why 2009 Mac Pros (with the same drivers as the 2008 models) do work.
barefeats, do you know the reason why Mini DisplayPort doesn't work on a 2008 Mac Pro?
Mini DisplayPort, per se, DOES work in the 2008 Mac Pro. The Apple Radeon 4870 card has MDP and it works fine in the 2008 Mac Pro. (So does the Apple GeForce GT120 I believe.)
Why THESE particular cards, both with Mini DisplayPort, don't work, is the real question. I think I saw someone mention that it could be because of audio support for MDP being enabled in the 2010 Mac Pro. Does anyone know if this is a motherboard chipset specific thing?
Can PC radeonHD 5XXX output audio via the MDP? If they can, does this feature require specific motherboards?
According to AMD's site:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk.../Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5870-specifications.aspx
It support audio over HDMI. But no mention of specific motherboard support.
Probably not a stretch to infer that Apple enabled it for their 5870 card over MDP, since they added it to the newest MacBook Pro's.
Are HDMI and DisplayPort electrically compatible?
This MDP issue will probably work itself out once 10.6.5 is released, which will standardize Mac OS X across all the recently released machines.
BareFeats: I bet if you clone the 2010 Mac Pro's software image onto the 2006-2008 Mac Pros, the MDP will work. I can think of NO REASON why they wouldn't work, since once the card is recognized by the OS, drivers are the only thing that can affect hardware function.
Try this if you can and let us know. It would relieve a lot of tense prospective video card upgraders!
BareFeats: I bet if you clone the 2010 Mac Pro's software image onto the 2006-2008 Mac Pros, the MDP will work. I can think of NO REASON why they wouldn't work, since once the card is recognized by the OS, drivers are the only thing that can affect hardware function.
Try this if you can and let us know. It would relieve a lot of tense prospective video card upgraders!
What exactly does that mean - "negative function"? Some technical term OR just that they don't work?
mmmm. I read that the current 10.6.5 seed does NOT contain the radeonHD 5XXX drivers. But maybe the display port audio is managed by other extensions.
So is it now a fact, or just assumed, that the 5870 works in a 2006 1,1 Mac Pro?
What?! What about those of us planning to use a single 27" LED Cinema display? Are we screwed out of the 5870?
Technically no, you could always use the adaptor...
As others have mentioned, this is kind of funny because the drivers should handle the MDP. I have a feeling that if Apple doesn't take care of this, the usual suspects will.
Myself, I don't care, I don't plan on buying any MDP displays until I buy my new Mac Pro next year.
Exactly, we need actual proof that the 5870 can or cannot work on a MP 1,1. No more assuming.
Yeah but we need MDP for the audio to use the built in speakers in the LED Display, right?
No, audio is done over USB on the LED displays. I believe that's still true for the 27", otherwise the 27" wouldn't work with older Macs that don't do audio over MDP.
hahaha
A smart guy can programm dp/mdp to work independently from computer model, rest is marketing ********, which apple is full of.
I hope you're right, because the display site says that MDP carries the audio over the cable now.
Also, an adapter to convert MDP to DVI costs ~$150. This sucks :/
It's a bit of a concern going forward. If certain ports don't work now on 06-08 models and Apple's position is that they've never supported the card on those systems, could we get left high and dry with a future update? What's to stop the DVI port from working in the future?
Unless this is a driver issue and an image / swapped hard drive from the 10's is placed into an 06 - 08 model fixes the problem, it seems to infer that there is indeed some hardware config somewhere that's different enough to cause problems.
Maybe it's something to do with HDCP? Perhaps the video signal for the MDP's is routed through some extra circuitry not present on the earlier models? Isn't MDP meant to be HDCP compliant and DVI not?
Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about or whether what I just wrote makes any sense whatsoever....Just throwing it out there
Bloomin' Apple.....Just when we thought they were throwing us a bone....
Unless this is a driver issue and an image / swapped hard drive from the 10's is placed into an 06 - 08 model fixes the problem, it seems to infer that there is indeed some hardware config somewhere that's different enough to cause problems.
Maybe it's something to do with HDCP? Perhaps the video signal for the MDP's is routed through some extra circuitry not present on the earlier models? Isn't MDP meant to be HDCP compliant and DVI not?
Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about or whether what I just wrote makes any sense whatsoever....Just throwing it out there
Bloomin' Apple.....Just when we thought they were throwing us a bone....