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Upgrading old Mac Pro to 8800 GT graphics?

Lord Blackadder said:
With Apple keeping a tight reign on Mac expansion capabilities, don't ever expect to be able to get Mac versions of every GPU that comes on the market. The best we can hope for is 1 or 2 additional options and faster updates (and even that is a stretch).
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All I expect is that a card that should work in my Mac will work. It seems that previously the cards physically were not capable of working in older Macs. This isn't the case now. Apple doesn't need a version of every card on the market. But so long as Apple is releasing cards that are physically compatible with PCI Express 1.0, there's no reason they shouldn't work in any Mac Pro. When Apple releases a card and there are actual technical reasons that the card won't work, I won't complain. The pre-2008 and early 2008 Mac Pros just aren't different enough that there's any good reason for cards to work in one and not the other.
 
giantrobot said:
Hello? Nvidia makes an 8800 card for 2008 Mac Pros. There is no technical reason that it could not have been made backwards compatible. It apparently would have been extremely easy had Apple wanted this.

This is a horrible thing to do to your customers. Defending bad business practices will not help Apple recover its share value. Correcting them however will. Those of you who are shareholders should not be trying to cover this up or downplay it. You should be the ones trying to push Apple to fix this. You do not seem to understand how much this is damaging the brand.
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Have you read some of the earlier posts in this thread???
 
Spades said:
Apple doesn't need a version of every card on the market.
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Why not ? Every other workstation vendor offers the full line of Quadro and FireGL cards. It's all the same basic hardware inside now. I wish I had a dollar for every time I hear "Apple doesn't need to do this or Apple doesn't need to do that". Pride goeth before a fall.
 
Bubba Satori said:
Why not ? Every other workstation vendor offers the full line of Quadro and FireGL cards. It's all the same basic hardware inside now. I wish I had a dollar for every time I hear "Apple doesn't need to do this or Apple doesn't need to do that". Pride goeth before a fall.
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I agree, but I think that day is coming. I think Apple will offer the same basic setup, but once all cards go EFI I think Apple will have a compatibility list and firmware for more popular cards. Not necessarily all, but more than what they have now.
 
Brianna said:
I agree, but I think that day is coming. I think Apple will offer the same basic setup, but once all cards go EFI I think Apple will have a compatibility list and firmware for more popular cards. Not necessarily all, but more than what they have now.
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That would be great. Hopefully there will be a few more available when I get my Mac Pro in a few months. :apple:
 
I heard Fisher Price teamed up with Steve Jobs and Apple. They are going to build the next generation EFI 128 bit, 4 gpu graphics card. Can't wait :apple:

Supposed to really scream..............:eek:

Oh BTW...........Backward compatability from '73 Apple II to now, but no 2006-2007 1/2 Mac Pro's sorry, buy a new one :)
 
Bubba Satori said:
Why not ? Every other workstation vendor offers the full line of Quadro and FireGL cards. It's all the same basic hardware inside now. I wish I had a dollar for every time I hear "Apple doesn't need to do this or Apple doesn't need to do that". Pride goeth before a fall.
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What I mean is there doesn't need to be a Mac version of the 9600GT, the 9800GT, the 9800GTX, the 9800GX2...

What they've been doing is fine. One low end, one mid-range, and one high-end card.
 
bubez said:
Reading the latest message makes me hypothesize that some of you think that have an EFI32 won't allow to use the 64-bit capabilities of the Mac Pro's Xeons, while EFI64 allow.
Have you ever thought on how many -bit uses the old-fashioned BIOS?
According to the Wikipedia article on BIOS, it's compiled as 16-bit code, and in first system was used to communicate directly with peripherals. Later with evolved systems (32-bit or more), that part was assigned to drivers, but the BIOS remained always 16-bit.
Even now modern PCs that are equipped with XP64/Vista64/Any 64-bit OS have the same kind of BIOS, that is responsible only of booting, bootstrapping, clock and low level hardware-related system settings. And that OSes are able to run 64-bit code.
So, have an EFI32 doesn't mean that you can't run 64-bit executables, instead you can. For example, if you have Xcode locate its .app, get info, and deselect the "open in 32 bit mode" option, then launch it and check on activity viewer that it's really using 64-bit capabilities. Under the Kind column you'll see "Intel (64-bit) and under the Virtual memory column you should see an extremely large amount of memory available to the app.
I think that by the time Mac Pro 06 was launched the first implementation of EFI was EFI32, so apple used it also because not all of its systems were 64-bit. But the thing I can't understand is why Apple refuses to update the "old" Pros with an EFI64 code, which as stated in previous posts shouldn't be difficult an expensive.
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Noone ever said that you could not execute 64bit code on the "Old" Mac Pro all I said is since it's the 32bit EFI thats holding us back and the fact is that we purchased 64bit machines they should release an EFI64 update to make the current hardware work.
 
Spades said:
What I mean is there doesn't need to be a Mac version of the 9600GT, the 9800GT, the 9800GTX, the 9800GX2...
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I agree.

Spades said:
What they've been doing is fine. One low end, one mid-range, and one high-end card.
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Actually, what they offer now is a low-end (HD2600XT), high-end (8800GT) and workstation-class (Quadro) card...ideally they would add a true midrange card to the lineup and update the midrange and high-end cards more often...and ensure backwards compatibility with older Mac Pros, of course.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
I agree.
Actually, what they offer now is a low-end (HD2600XT), high-end (8800GT) and workstation-class (Quadro) card...ideally they would add a true midrange card to the lineup and update the midrange and high-end cards more often...and ensure backwards compatibility with older Mac Pros, of course.
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I fully agree with you, there is no need to have a gazilion cards, all we are asking is for a adequate refresh rate of the mid to high en cards for us to keep up and stay productive with our high price investment, specially the backward compatibility.

I know that right now (at least that is what I am hopping and believing if not I would drop apple products) their engineering must be faced with a dilema of deciding, to get the 8800 cards to mass, we need to have two cards, one EFI32 and one EFI64 (expensive) else we can update the EFI32 on older MacPros but then the X1900XT and 7300GT cards would not be usable. Not to mention the Q&A task at hand to promote this.. (also very expensive) Or lastly and least likely would be to receive SW with the 8800 cards that would flash it's EFI to either 32 or 64 bits upon boot. They can do this since they have pre EFI boot process to repair failed EFI upgrade but Q&A woudl be too long....

What I believe is that they might take an alternate route, keep us all on EFI32 for the time being, and get us a newer card with specs similar to or exceeding that of the current 8800s with bot EFI32 and EFI64 microcode in them. I also believe it is either ATI or NVIDIA that is taking too long with their Q&A to deliver the goods. Next month is critical for all of use, so let's hope that Apple delivers on broken (or pending) promises.

JM
 
I personally would happily fork out $600.00 - $800.00 for a quality card that would let me excel with pro apps for another year. Heck with my luck, if I'd get a new machine today, I would be typing in a thread like this next year. The quadro is just a little too much.
 
pastrychef said:
When a person says they are going to buy a 64-bit computer, which sane person thinks they are talking about the EFI???

The video cards only support 24-bit color, are you going to make that an issue, too?

Aren't you guys reaching just a bit far?
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I didn't think they were talking about the EFI. As my post clearly states, I am merely asking questions about the Mac Pros being 64-bit and how that ties into EFI. Why does every issue have to come down to some sort of confrontation with you, and your rabid defense of Apple? You are now seeking out conflict where none exists. You continue to post in this thread after you have made it abundantly clear that you disagree with what most people are saying, and you continue to post the same thing over and over and over. How sane is that? Isn't there a thread you are interested in, where you can contribute, discuss, and participate in a positive manner?
 
antzona said:
I didn't think they were talking about the EFI. As my post clearly states, I am merely asking questions about the Mac Pros being 64-bit and how that ties into EFI. Why does every issue have to come down to some sort of confrontation with you, and your rabid defense of Apple? You are now seeking out conflict where none exists. You continue to post in this thread after you have made it abundantly clear that you disagree with what most people are saying, and you continue to post the same thing over and over and over. How sane is that? Isn't there a thread you are interested in, where you can contribute, discuss, and participate in a positive manner?
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Yep. You're right. I'm out.
 
I agree with most of you guys about the 32bit and 64bit cards. The previous gen mac pros can do the 64-bit processing so I dont see a reason why apple couldnt make a 32bit 8800gt card or update the firmware for the mac pro to support 64-bit efi 8800gt cards.

But in a business sense I think for apple and its share holders would benefit from this move since each newer released mac pros are tied down to a couple/newer specific cards. Because by doing this it puts the mac pro in line with the rest of the products (imac,macbooks,macbook pros).

By in line I mean it makes the consumer/businesses to upgrade the entire mac pro because of the influence of the cards. This is true even with the iMac and MacBook pros. If the mbp had the ability to upgrade the GPU every year Im sure half the market will just by the cheaper solution and buy the new GPU instead of the whole new mbp.

Basically CPU upgrade is not too crucial yearly but GPU is.
 
So 55 pages in are we any closer to a solution or is that poor preverbal horse receiving a 'deadly' beating ?



I really would like to upgrade my graphics card from the x1900xt, but it's not looking like it's going to happen until I change my machine in a year or so.
 
MacRumorUser said:
So 55 pages in are we any closer to a solution or is that poor preverbal horse receiving a 'deadly' beating ?



I really would like to upgrade my graphics card from the x1900xt, but it's not looking like it's going to happen until I change my machine in a year or so.
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55 pages and 82,000 page views later.....still absolutely nothing from apple.
 
OMG old AGP PC boxes are getting more current and higher performing card options than older Mac Pros! Just read that the ATI 3850 has been released by Sapphire for AGP. The 3850 seems to smash the 2600XT so its definitly a decent midrange card.

I'm willing to bet we'll see an 8800GT AGP before one that goes in the older Mac Pro. How shad would that be :(
 
Holy @#$%$#@ !!!!

I belong to a private forum for graphics, and posted our dilemma to the other guys in the mac section. I basically complained about the lack of an upgrade to the 8800 gt, and asked for some input on how the guys with 8800gt's and new Mac pro's liked them....etc, etc...........One friend posted a link to look at. Just check out some of the number crunching they did with the top 4 mac cards......guess my X1900 isn't so bad after all...........

http://barefeats.com/harper10.html

What blows me away, is the number comparison to the almost $3k Quaddro, as compared to the x1900.......Wow
 
Brianna said:
I agree, but I think that day is coming. I think Apple will offer the same basic setup, but once all cards go EFI I think Apple will have a compatibility list and firmware for more popular cards. Not necessarily all, but more than what they have now.
Click to expand...
It may be a while before anyone starts producing EFI cards since Vista 64 only just got EFI support a week ago or so (and no EFI for Vista 32 or XP, ever). And likely, only UEFI 2.0 will be supported ("64-bit") and not the old EFI 1.1 ("32-bit") that 2006/2007 Mac Pros have. It'd be nice if they bumped us up to UEFI but it isn't going to happen. As soon as they finish selling a machine, they stop bothering with it unless it's something truly catastrophic.
 
Tired of waiting...

I'll give Apple two more months to fix this BS. If there's no fix by the end of May, I'm selling my Mac Pro and never buying the "most upgradeable" Mac ever again. I'm very disappointed in Mr. Jobs.
Where's Woz when you need him? :(
 
contoursvt said:
OMG old AGP PC boxes are getting more current and higher performing card options than older Mac Pros! Just read that the ATI 3850 has been released by Sapphire for AGP. The 3850 seems to smash the 2600XT so its definitly a decent midrange card.

I'm willing to bet we'll see an 8800GT AGP before one that goes in the older Mac Pro. How shad would that be :(
Click to expand...

Yes. I put a 3870 in my P4 and its a great card.
 
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