I just wish they'd let us know if they intend to support backwards compatibility. Apple being quiet despite all the commotion in all the forums is quite annoying. I'd be a little more settled with my Mac Pro I got 2 days after Christmas and was so excited about expanding it if Apple would at least say something about the matter.
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Upgrading old Mac Pro to 8800 GT graphics?
- Thread starter Fezzy
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That's really tough - I got mine 4 months ago and I thought I had it bad.
If it makes you feel any better, I was in the Apple shop the day the new MP's came out and the guy in the shop was telling me that a chap had picked up his fully duel quad core 'old' MP the day before! I'm sure it doesn't make you feel any better though!!
Should try returning it to the store. Just express your frustration to them. Tell them you will pay the restocking fee (if you are willing too), and get the 8 core. Might be worth a shot.
I was thinking the same thing until I realized, maybe they're just using PCIe 2.0 as a way to tell if you have a Mac Pro capable of using the current version of the card, much how they've set "requirements" for versions of Mac OS X in the past (Tiger requiring a Mac with built-in firewire, that sort of thing). Though it sure does sound like they're trying to tell us the card requires the 2.0 slot, a slap in the face being that we pretty much know that's not true. Surely they could just say "2008 Mac Pro" or something similar, so maybe my theory is wrong, but it makes sense to me.
I just want to hear something from Apple (or ATI or Nvidia) in this matter.
Keep in mind that the HD 2600 XT isn't a PCI-Express 2.0 card though.
I have to agree it is a slap in the face to more technical users that know 2.0 is still electrically backward compatible with 1.0/1.1.
I was thinking more in terms of them giving us an upgrade option to compete with the 8800GT probably not gonna happen but it's not impossible.
Well it looks like i'm the next to face the wrath of the apple discussion moderators. My posts have been deleted and i have to create a new discussions account. I didn't do anything wrong based on their terms of service. What ever, i'm a little p.o'd but i just hope this issue gets resolved weather we have to hack it or not.
EDIT: it just started working sorta. I don't know what the hell is going on. Nvm i guess.
EDIT: it just started working sorta. I don't know what the hell is going on. Nvm i guess.
I posted this in the past, And like I was told by my friend (he works inside Apple not one of the Genius dudes etc..) I will state this again. Apple will not and does not have the intention to provide support on the 1st Gen Mac Pro with the 8800GT installed.
I do not want to get anyone in trouble so I am not going to leave any details here. There are reasons why they are choosing this path. (and they are not technical in nature)
I do not want to get anyone in trouble so I am not going to leave any details here. There are reasons why they are choosing this path. (and they are not technical in nature)
Yeah, three reasons to be exact: $...$...$
They want you to buy a whole new machine to get the better graphics. Welcome to the face of GREED.
Nice one, Apple. I have a good mind to cancel my new Mac Pro and go Hack.
I suggest all of you first-gen Mac Pro owners who were wanting the 8800GT upgrade ability start flooding the Mac Pro feedback forms, and fire off some e-mails to Steve, and sign that iPetition floating around, and Digg the story about it.
There is NO technical reason for them to do this. None.
Start filling Steve's mailbox if thats true. I still have some faith & willing to wait a little longer, who knows. I hope its not true.
I swear if this is true I'm going to fill up my Mac full of gasoline, light it, and throw into the window of my nearest Apple store.
But I have high hopes of something getting worked out. Whether it be resolved by Apple, nVidia, or someone thats just really handy with computers I'm sure something will work out.
Another reason: supply
Apple doesn't want to cannibalize new system sales on delayed orders for existing Mac Pro owners. I really can't blame them for that. I'm bummed too since my 1900XT craps out under heavy load because of heat. They never really fixed that problem either.
There's a pattern I've seen when Apple releases new hardware. Those who buy within the first 90 days get screwed. They drop prices in the case of the iPhone and the 1900XT once the hysteria goes away.
The only thing we can do like timb said is wait until 1) 10.5.2 is released and the 8800GT drivers are available and 2) the demand for the 8800GT's drop off. When that happens, someone will hack a ROM for PC cards like the 1900XT or Apple will fix the problem. It takes Apple a long time to realize they've got a full blown scale revolt on their hands.
I would suggest not recommending the new MacPros to anyone. If they're willing to snub Blizzard and their 80+ 2006 MacPro's, too many Apple employees have been sucked into the irrational reality distortion field.
Apple doesn't want to cannibalize new system sales on delayed orders for existing Mac Pro owners. I really can't blame them for that. I'm bummed too since my 1900XT craps out under heavy load because of heat. They never really fixed that problem either.
There's a pattern I've seen when Apple releases new hardware. Those who buy within the first 90 days get screwed. They drop prices in the case of the iPhone and the 1900XT once the hysteria goes away.
The only thing we can do like timb said is wait until 1) 10.5.2 is released and the 8800GT drivers are available and 2) the demand for the 8800GT's drop off. When that happens, someone will hack a ROM for PC cards like the 1900XT or Apple will fix the problem. It takes Apple a long time to realize they've got a full blown scale revolt on their hands.
I would suggest not recommending the new MacPros to anyone. If they're willing to snub Blizzard and their 80+ 2006 MacPro's, too many Apple employees have been sucked into the irrational reality distortion field.
Well it looks like the updated the overview on the apple site for the 8800GT
Overview
For advanced graphics performance, choose the latest-generation NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 video memory. With a unified shader core and massive memory bandwidth, the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT brings advanced performance to graphics-intensive applications like motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. It features a PCI Express 2.0 interface for a high-bandwidth connection to the Mac Pro and two dual-link DVI ports for connecting up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays.
Compatibility:
Requires Mac Pro with PCI-Express 2.0
Includes a DVI to VGA connector for easy connection to VGA-based displays
Overview
For advanced graphics performance, choose the latest-generation NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 video memory. With a unified shader core and massive memory bandwidth, the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT brings advanced performance to graphics-intensive applications like motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. It features a PCI Express 2.0 interface for a high-bandwidth connection to the Mac Pro and two dual-link DVI ports for connecting up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays.
Compatibility:
Requires Mac Pro with PCI-Express 2.0
Includes a DVI to VGA connector for easy connection to VGA-based displays
They are not lying here, after all. It ISN'T compatible at the moment. They are probably just trying to save time by not having to cancel every order from an earlier Mac Pro owner. It doesn't necessarily have any bearing on what they might be doing to fix the issue.
Im sure thats all it is too. I can definitely see the need so they don't have to call people up, but again, should have had it working the first time.
I've cancelled my 8800GT order until we get some progress on the whole situation. I've decided that it's not worth paying £220 for it to potentially not work.
Couple that with the fact that it looks like we may be able to get a PC 8800GT working at some point means that Apple less and less deserve my money.
Oh and who else thinks the Macbook Air is nothing special?
Couple that with the fact that it looks like we may be able to get a PC 8800GT working at some point means that Apple less and less deserve my money.
Oh and who else thinks the Macbook Air is nothing special?
I'm keeping my order going. I'd like to have a play with rEFIt, booting off the 7300 and then bringing up the 8800, running in XP, running in Linux, etc.
Also, the Apple branded card should have the 128k ROM already on it, so I won't have to do any soldering if I have to flash or hack it.
As to the Air, it's a plaything for wankers who value form over function. It's ironic that, just as Apple is managing to shrug off the unwarranted criticism that they are all style and no substance, they release something that proves their critics right.
Would be interested in seeing if you get it working with OS X and how
I think you hit the nail right on the head there!
You were told by an Apple grunt who should not have said what he said as he had no more information than you did. And yes, I do use my computer to make a living. I edit high definition video on a MacBook Pro, quite effectively I might add. Apple has never officially said that your precious 8800GT would work on last year's tower. So they owe you nothing, you'll be LUCKY if they make it work.
The video card debate raging onward.....
My 1st. gen. Mac Pro with X1900XT video hasn't ever really "crapped out under heavy load". I think *once*, I managed to get it to overheat enough to start drawing random "garbage" pixels across my screen. After that, I installed one of those 3rd. party fan control applications, and configured it to turn up the default "slowest" speed of many of the Mac Pro cooling fans to a little bit higher speed. Now, overall temps. in the case are lower - and I haven't had the video issue again either.
Other people (see notes on www.xlr8yourmac.com) have had success putting better cooling fans on their X1900XT cards too. Granted, this solution costs you a little time and money, but it's a viable "fix" if it's giving you a lot of grief.
I don't see why I wouldn't recommend a new Mac Pro to someone interested in that type of system. The big "news" with it is, you're getting a whole new motherboard chipset and faster bus speed, and it takes correspondingly faster RAM. It's not like they're just selling you a "warmed over" 1st. gen. Mac Pro with better CPUs plopped onto it.
The video card "issue" is interesting to watch people fume over, because until Apple announced they even had an 8800GT option at all, people seemed mostly satisfied with their X1900XT cards. I sure never saw all the screaming about their multi-thousand dollar Mac Pro being "junk" and "obsolete", at least.... Rather, most people concluded that the biggest limitations to performance still lay with software that wasn't optimized to really use multiple processor cores/threads. The main reason people forked over the bucks for these "Pro" towers was often to reduce rendering times, and that's a CPU issue.... not a video card issue.
From everything I'm reading so far, it sounds like the 8800GT doesn't work in older Mac Pros simply because its BIOS is only EFI64 compliant, not EFI32 compliant. (The ATI X2600HD card, by comparison, has both EFI32 and EFI64 support in its BIOS chip.) This could very well be because the 8800GT has a lot more code in its BIOS and both versions simply didn't FIT in the thing at one time. That being the case, Apple would have to have nVidia build a seperate EFI32-only BIOS version of the same card to sell you for older Mac Pros. Maybe they'll do this? But surely, they wouldn't do this right now - when the card is in short supply and needs to first and foremost go in brand new systems for people.
My 1st. gen. Mac Pro with X1900XT video hasn't ever really "crapped out under heavy load". I think *once*, I managed to get it to overheat enough to start drawing random "garbage" pixels across my screen. After that, I installed one of those 3rd. party fan control applications, and configured it to turn up the default "slowest" speed of many of the Mac Pro cooling fans to a little bit higher speed. Now, overall temps. in the case are lower - and I haven't had the video issue again either.
Other people (see notes on www.xlr8yourmac.com) have had success putting better cooling fans on their X1900XT cards too. Granted, this solution costs you a little time and money, but it's a viable "fix" if it's giving you a lot of grief.
I don't see why I wouldn't recommend a new Mac Pro to someone interested in that type of system. The big "news" with it is, you're getting a whole new motherboard chipset and faster bus speed, and it takes correspondingly faster RAM. It's not like they're just selling you a "warmed over" 1st. gen. Mac Pro with better CPUs plopped onto it.
The video card "issue" is interesting to watch people fume over, because until Apple announced they even had an 8800GT option at all, people seemed mostly satisfied with their X1900XT cards. I sure never saw all the screaming about their multi-thousand dollar Mac Pro being "junk" and "obsolete", at least.... Rather, most people concluded that the biggest limitations to performance still lay with software that wasn't optimized to really use multiple processor cores/threads. The main reason people forked over the bucks for these "Pro" towers was often to reduce rendering times, and that's a CPU issue.... not a video card issue.
From everything I'm reading so far, it sounds like the 8800GT doesn't work in older Mac Pros simply because its BIOS is only EFI64 compliant, not EFI32 compliant. (The ATI X2600HD card, by comparison, has both EFI32 and EFI64 support in its BIOS chip.) This could very well be because the 8800GT has a lot more code in its BIOS and both versions simply didn't FIT in the thing at one time. That being the case, Apple would have to have nVidia build a seperate EFI32-only BIOS version of the same card to sell you for older Mac Pros. Maybe they'll do this? But surely, they wouldn't do this right now - when the card is in short supply and needs to first and foremost go in brand new systems for people.