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Upgrading old Mac Pro to 8800 GT graphics?
- Thread starter Fezzy
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So you wouldn't be upset if your one month old Mac Pro was at a dead end with regards to graphic card upgrades?
I've been a Mac user since 1987 when I started my Freshman year of college. I've been a UNIX user since then as well. I was thrilled with OS X as it finally allowed me to pesue both of my platforms of choice on a single machine. I even changed my company's Linux machines over to FreeBSD just so that my Mac UNIX use would more closely parallel my UNIX Unix work.
I do not threaten idly. I have a PC with a good video card in it and it is running the hacked OSX86. The video card is better than my Mac Pro, and WoW runs significantly better on that machine (everything maxed and fps still over 24), though it is less stable.
If the 8800 is not made available for the previous Mac Pros, then the Mac Pro I have will be my last Mac. This move by Apple is absolutely unacceptable and I will be first in line to join the class action lawsuit as I also was sold on th basis of upgradability (and the x1900 that simply does not work after a few months is not an 'upgrade').
I am FURIOUS at Apple.
I own 4 Xserves (well, my company), a MacPro, two Mac Books, an iMac, and a mini. Not one of them will be replaced with a Mac.
No, I would be more upset that I was an idiot and bought a Mac Pro a month ago.
Also, you people pretend as if Apple did it intentionally. Did you ever maybe think there is a good reason for it? And furthermore that they may be trying to do it but run into technical difficulties?
You didn't read the thread did you? It clearly states many times that
the EFI thats on older mac pros won't allow the new 8800 and the customers have gotten calls to recall the orders.
Its not an issue about PCI lanes, thats already covered.
It might be easy for you to plunk down $3000 dollars when but not for us. All we needed was a 230.00 gfx upgrade , in which apple charges 349.00 for the same card, but still we were willing.
the EFI thats on older mac pros won't allow the new 8800 and the customers have gotten calls to recall the orders.
Its not an issue about PCI lanes, thats already covered.
It might be easy for you to plunk down $3000 dollars when but not for us. All we needed was a 230.00 gfx upgrade , in which apple charges 349.00 for the same card, but still we were willing.
Please, do you think I would have bought a new Mac Pro a month before MacWorld unless it was absolutely necessary? I would have have waited, but my aging Power Mac died in November, and I needed a new computer to finish the semester's school work. I knew the Mac Pros would be updated shortly, but I was willing to take the performance hit because, based on my understanding, PCIe 1.1 and PCIe 2.0 are compatible.
If some technical issues were to blame, then they ought to have explained that to their users when they informed them that the cards were incompatible.
No. If I bought it, I needed it for what it was (and I did).
All this anger and spleen venting is completely over the top. Until we find out the facts about why and if, in reality (remember Apple said 32 GBs of memory was unsupported in the last Mac Pro, and yet it worked fine) it is supposedly incompatible and whether it was a concerted decision by Apple to make previous versions obsolete (not unheard of, granted) and piss off their customers, or a decision made purely on technical grounds for the advancement of the species, all this angst is stupid hot air.
I would suggest a bit of patience. The world will not end while we wait for practical conformation or explanation either way. In the meantime, use your computer in the same way you were happily using it last week.
Quite apart from the fact that if it's impossible, there are other possibilities. ATI has released retail cards for the last two incarnations of Pro Macs, no reason to assume they won't continue, seeing as the Mac market is increasing so rapidly.
It still stands that, 1: You do not know that your Mac Pro will be a dead end in terms of graphics. Unless you have seen the future, you can not make that claim. 2: This event does not mean Apple has no intention of creating a compatible card. 3: PCIe spec has nothing to do with this. The problem is the EFI (supposedly).
There is no reason there should be petitions and nasty emails and calling the reps that call to help you a bitch. You ought to be ashamed of this behavior. As it makes you look like materialistic babies.
Instead of sending "nasty grams," act like rational human beings and try to make conclusions about Apples behavior based on evidence. There is no reason to believe that this is purposeful. There is no reason to believe that Apple has no intentions of making a compatible card.
I find it sickening that reason has seemed to jumped out the window and you are acting like little children. It is just a video card.
And your claim that Apple should explain is preposterous. They have no obligation to tell you the problem or that there is a problem anymore than they have an obligation to supply you with updated graphics cards.
Sure it would be nice if they told. But they don't have to.
My x1900 is now in slot 2. It still has the artifacts ocassionally, bah. Anyway I use dual monitors, starting it with both plugged into one or the other works fine. I can even swap them at runtime and plug one monitor in each card.
The only game I have is Warcraft, it runs at 180 fps on the default settings, but thats without any of the nice things like AA, filtering etc. The 2600 is quite small and pathetic looking!, I dont expect too much from it.
Pixelmator works fine, opened some of my 6 megapixel photos and it has no problems.
It's quiet, i think the system fan is louder, a fair bit quieter that the x1900. I used to turn the fans way up using SMCFanControl to get the x1900 working better so I'm used to loud...
wow...
if true this is completely jacked up and will make me reconsider further purchases. We had to deal with this stupid ass x1900 being nearly 400 dollars for friggin two years ( not to mention two of the bastards burning up) and they never even gave us an intermediary card. Now they give us no upgrade path at all on a machine who's second to main selling point would be the upgradeability? are you kidding me? Lately I'm starting to feel that I'm being shafted by my favorite company on each new product i get from them. this is not good.
wow.
if true this is completely jacked up and will make me reconsider further purchases. We had to deal with this stupid ass x1900 being nearly 400 dollars for friggin two years ( not to mention two of the bastards burning up) and they never even gave us an intermediary card. Now they give us no upgrade path at all on a machine who's second to main selling point would be the upgradeability? are you kidding me? Lately I'm starting to feel that I'm being shafted by my favorite company on each new product i get from them. this is not good.
wow.
Granted, but this is a monolithic corporation that does not spin on a dime. Things happen in slow motion, patience, my friend.
Until Apple says there is no upgrade path that will be offered by them, everything you said in the bolded text has no merit. You are jumping to conclusions a matter of days after the release. I hope you can see the logical error in that and how it makes you look.
I am aware that this is not a PCIe issue. I was merely stating that because of the backward compatibility I felt comfortable buying a computer so close to MWSF. And, as it does stand, based on Apple's own statements, my computer is currently at a dead end in terms of graphics card upgrades.
I find it a little ridiculous that you say I should be ashamed of myself. I have not insulted any Apple employee, nor would my email be disrespectful. I'm an adult. I know that these situations are most easily resolved when complaints are raised tactfully. To suggest that I would do otherwise is laughable. And please, don't say that reason has jumped out the window, or ask people to respect Apple's employees when you yourself resort to calling strangers "idiots."
I simply feel that Apple owes its users a better explanation than a simple, "It won't work."
Thanks. I'm currently running a 7300 GT and X1900 in the same machine, it works in 99% of the Applications, except for certain Core Animation / Core Image apps. (I can't see the background in Time Machine, I can't see anything on the canvas in Pixelmator, can't see the canvas in iMovie.)
At the very least I know I can replace my 7300 GT with a HD 2600 if I need to.
timestamp
i hope you can see the logic in me telling you to get lost.
How long you been buying apple? cause in my 15 years of it I have RARELY EVER seen them continue with additional hardware support on a machine once a new generation is issued. So get off you high horse and quit telling people who have spent hard earned money on their very expensive machines that they are being irrational.
ALSO, how bloody rational is it that they are still raping us by having both these new cards priced lower than the one decent card we CAN buy? fracking x1900 is 400 freaking dollars but the powerhouse nVidia is 350?
You start talking logic now. Don't like our little mutual bitching room? Don't let the door hit you...
i hope you can see the logic in me telling you to get lost.
How long you been buying apple? cause in my 15 years of it I have RARELY EVER seen them continue with additional hardware support on a machine once a new generation is issued. So get off you high horse and quit telling people who have spent hard earned money on their very expensive machines that they are being irrational.
ALSO, how bloody rational is it that they are still raping us by having both these new cards priced lower than the one decent card we CAN buy? fracking x1900 is 400 freaking dollars but the powerhouse nVidia is 350?
You start talking logic now. Don't like our little mutual bitching room? Don't let the door hit you...
The logic is of course that Apple isn't a fan club, it's a corporation just like any other, and just like any other, they try to maximize their profits and hence increase their share value.
And incidentally, I've been buying Apple products for 19 years.
And here is quite easily the biggest problem so far with this whole ordeal, we could sure use some information here. Apple.........Apple..........(think Buler,Buler)
Oh my god we have in our midst an Apple apologist in who's eyes Apple can do no wrong.
Do you understand that PCI-E 2.0 cards are backward compatible with PCI-E 1.0 and 1.1? Do you see that ATi have managed to produce a card that works in both the "old" Mac Pro and the new one? (and is therefore possible)
There is no technical reason why the 8800GT should not work in the "old" Mac pro, period!
Now I will concede that maybe this is an unforeseen glitch on Apples part and that maybe, just maybe, they are frantically looking into it trying to find a fix for us "old" Mac Pro owners. If so even that, IMHO, is a disgrace. Apple should have tested these cards on existing Mac Pros a LONG time ago. Finding out the day after launch that they don't work is just plain unacceptable and if it were M$ who had done this you'd be jumping all over them.
Please, give it a rest and think about how YOU look when deriding the Mac Pro owners who are rightly upset about this.
Personally, I think everyone is being too quick to jump to conclusions. We just don't know what the permutations are, and until we do all of this is just hot air.
It seems Apple and some people here have a little dimension (occupies only a couple of percent of available space) of their own. Everything is backwards in that little dimension compared to the other, larger, dimension: operating systems work really well but nobody will sell you the hardware you want. Vendors tell you what you want instead of asking you.
This is so bizarre that I'm thinking there has to be a misunderstanding of some sort.
barefeats.com
Why would an older 4 core MacPro have a EFI32 ROM vs. the EFI64 ROM?? That makes absolutely no sense. The motherboard/chipset used is 64bit capable, the CPU is 64bit capable, OS X Tiger (10.4.x) was 64bit, yet the EFI is 32? Now, that boggles my mind -- I hope Apple start adding some resources to their MacPro hardware division, especially now they're cash rich at over $200/share.
Why would an older 4 core MacPro have a EFI32 ROM vs. the EFI64 ROM?? That makes absolutely no sense. The motherboard/chipset used is 64bit capable, the CPU is 64bit capable, OS X Tiger (10.4.x) was 64bit, yet the EFI is 32? Now, that boggles my mind -- I hope Apple start adding some resources to their MacPro hardware division, especially now they're cash rich at over $200/share.
Wow, things have really moved on since I've been asleep. I've signed the petition and emailed the link around, so thanks for kicking it off, Rob.
@timestamp and FieroNate: If you really can't understand why folk are so upset and that there is no technical reason for this, then you need to go away and research EFI and PCIe standards. This is not being done for technical reasons. It's being done out of disdain for their customers and greed. If there had been no telephone calls from the store, advising customers to cancel their orders, I might agree with you that we should wait before complaining.
There is an old saw that applies here: "It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease!" Let's keep squeaking, people.
Little dimension? That's an interesting phrase, but I think I understand what you're getting at. I see the exact opposite, for example the people complaining here obviously see this as an event of staggeringly enormous importance, and in the large scheme of things, it REALLY isn't.
Incidentally, I also would like to upgrade the graphics card on my Mac Pro, and was disappointed to learn of the possible incompatibility, but it's too early to rule everything out and wring your hands in grief!
Give it a rest! All will be revealed.
Has anyone else ordered the 2600 off of Apple? Maybe they have also got a call warning that it's not compatible with 06/07 Mac Pros? All the information we have in this (extensive) thread is based on peoples words and assumptions. This, however is a fact. The apparently incompatible 2600 works, so (although im no technical guy) the 8800 may also work. We should just, as many others have suggested to, calm down until the industrious Brits get their first batch's of cards in a few days.
incidentally, enjoy your upgraded Mac Pro, DrunkWally!
IF this card doesn't work for everyone with a Mac Pro, not only does Apple Inc. deserve to go down in flames, but I'll probably drive all the way to HQ to throw my Mac through Steve's window.