Well then if CPU is more important than upgrading to an nvidia 8800gt from an x1900 on the older mac pro, then it would not be necessary to upgrade gpu at all and necessary to upgrade to the much faster 8 cores harpertowns and while at getting a much faster CPU why dont you just upgrade to the new GPU while your at it? Wouldnt you agree?? So in a sense of professional level, it makes sense with what Apple has done.
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Upgrading old Mac Pro to 8800 GT graphics?
- Thread starter Fezzy
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Well then if CPU is more important than upgrading to an nvidia 8800gt from an x1900 on the older mac pro, then it would not be necessary to upgrade gpu at all and necessary to upgrade to the much faster 8 cores harpertowns and while at getting a much faster CPU why dont you just upgrade to the new GPU while your at it? Wouldnt you agree?? So in a sense of professional level, it makes sense with what Apple has done.
Even if the Mac Pro is "meant" for Pro apps, not releasing newer video cards so that people an use their Mac Pro's for entertainment on the side is kind of an artificial limitation on an otherwise fast machine... Kind of pointless not to do it, apparently lots of people want to use their Mac Pro's for gaming on the side, so why not give them what they want?
There's got to be a reason why Apple or Nvidia is doing this, in a sense of business or limitations. I know booting to windows and using any new cards seems to work fine so it is on Apple/Nvidia's end from limiting this. So when it all comes down to it, its the making/losing $$ in the end.
I'm not totally defending Apple but in a business aspect they are smart. I'm even selling my mac pro because I feel so robbed of not being able to upgrade to a new card next year. Honestly I cant wait to get rid of my mac pro on my sig and just collect my $$ back into the bank.
I'm not a professional so gaming on the windows side and being able to use the same gpu on osx is what I'm after as well. So I'm staying away from the mac pros, I do agree they are very nice but the upgradability crippled on the GPU side makes it defeats almost more than 50% of its purpose. I see CPU as 50% and GPU 50% of the machine.. I mean what else is there? Well besides Hdd's and RAM but those are just freebies to me.
But isn't that kind of approach going to piss off more customers than it's worth? I would imagine that Apple would want to keep whoever buys a Mac Pro happy. They are a hardcore user.
All I know is that I'm going to be upset when my Early '08 Mac Pro is unable to get the newest upgrade 2 years from now
But isn't that kind of approach going to piss off more customers than it's worth? I would imagine that Apple would want to keep whoever buys a Mac Pro happy. They are a hardcore user.
All I know is that I'm going to be upset when my Early '08 Mac Pro is unable to get the newest upgrade 2 years from now
But that's my point, most users of the Mac Pro even if they are hardcore or not, are going to be at a professional level. The big buyers of big businesses that can afford to upgrade yearly just to get the job done faster are the real sale as to just hardcore users/gamers (pretty much personal level).
Pretty much the professionals that use the mac pros probably didnt even buy the mac pros with their own money and the company just upgrades it for them yearly, so those users could care less if the nvidia 8800gt could go in or not on their older mac pros. I could see alot of people complaining because the mac pro that they bought with their own money are not upgradable but the reall $$ and sale that Apple makes are targetting the big businesses probably in hollywood and big studios.
This is why alot of people want the next Xmac, something that isnt as powerful as a xeon but something that can be upgradable/expandable as pc towers with core 2 duo extreme type CPUs.
I have a cousin that works in DIVX and when I go visit him in san diego (and he's not a hardcore user/gamer at all) but he always has 3-5 bad ass new thinkpads just sitting around that are just barely 6months- 3 years old but he just get new ones because his boss just buys him whatever new is out. He tells me that he's going to sell them and just pocket the money and just keep the newer models.
One time he was using his thinkpad that just came out 6 months ago and the ups guy dropped off a small box and he just opened it up and was like oh that's the new thinkpad that my boss ordered for me and just put it up on top of the counter and we just went out to go surfing and when we came back he just looked at it for a second and for the whole week I was there he never even touched it, except to check his email, lol.
I agree!!! I can see how it may hinder imac sales a tad, but I think there is definitely a market for a "baby mac pro". Apple just doesn't want people to realize, "hey, I probably don't need an octo-core xeon processor, I can get away with a high end core 2 duo". Granted, there are many people who fully utilize the power of their mac pro, but there are also many who don't need a workstation-class computer! Furthermore, if I was to spend 3k on a computer, I would at least want to be able to upgrade the graphics card one generation out!
Well i ordered a 9800GTX. So i really don't care anymore.
How does this resolve the problem? Does it work with MP 06-07?
JM
Hey I say if you bought the newer card to play in the windows side to get the best performance out of gaming, thats great!!
Confused? Doesn't come close !!!! The more I read this thread the more confused I become ...... Please help .....
I have a 2007 (March) 2.66 Mac pro with the bog standard 7300 GT video card. I want to upgrade the video card but can't find a straight answer to a good replacement.
Please suggest a video card (non gamer & non-Windows) that can be a direct replacement for my 7300 GT.
i.e. Pull out the 7300 GT and pop in a ????? (no extra wires etc.) PLEASE HELP ....
I have a 2007 (March) 2.66 Mac pro with the bog standard 7300 GT video card. I want to upgrade the video card but can't find a straight answer to a good replacement.
Please suggest a video card (non gamer & non-Windows) that can be a direct replacement for my 7300 GT.
i.e. Pull out the 7300 GT and pop in a ????? (no extra wires etc.) PLEASE HELP ....
Confused? Doesn't come close !!!! The more I read this thread the more confused I become ...... Please help .....
I have a 2007 (March) 2.66 Mac pro with the bog standard 7300 GT video card. I want to upgrade the video card but can't find a straight answer to a good replacement.
Please suggest a video card (non gamer & non-Windows) that can be a direct replacement for my 7300 GT.
i.e. Pull out the 7300 GT and pop in a ????? (no extra wires etc.) PLEASE HELP ....
Your only option is the ATI X1900 for your mac pro unless you want to opt for the $2850 Nvidia Quadro FX card.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I think I prefer the slightly cheaper option !!!!
Is the X1900 xt card a direct replacement? Out with the 7300 and in with the 1900
You can use both at the same time. The X1900XT goes in the big PCI socket and the 7300 in one of the remaining 3 sockets.
Only thing you need to know is that the X1900XT makes a lot of noise.
Is that true, I just swapped mine out and my old card is just gathering dust. Is there much of a performance gain for putting it back in?
theres no gain at all by having another card sit in another slot, especially if its not being used (ie; dual monitors). to make matters worse, your better off dumping the old card and sticking to the x1900 as there have been complications running two cards of different makes with different drivers.
Well I'm waiting till the end of the month. If I haven't seen a better solution by then I'll pick up an x1900 and be vary wary and cynical about my next potential apple computer purchase.
I looked over the nvidia forums and didn't find any reference to this issue. Anybody have an account there? Are they deleting posts on this subject too or is it just Apple?
I looked over the nvidia forums and didn't find any reference to this issue. Anybody have an account there? Are they deleting posts on this subject too or is it just Apple?
i think the next mac im gonna buy will be a normal PC with a much better motherboard that any mac has to offer and then install OS X my self. apple will be *very* lucky if it gets another penny from me.
ill be advising all my friends to do the same.
screw you steve jobs.
And at this point i don't care. We arn't going to get our way. Hopefully my computer can power my 1900 and the 9800 at the same time. Maybe i can disable one in windows.
In Windoz, you could disable the card you don't need in under a minute in Control Panel/Device Manger. Just right-click on the device and choose disable. It's a snap. Had to preform the same action for my Eye Tv (Elgato USB Tuner)
Can't use it in Windoz...............
Can't use it in Windoz...............
Does anyone else find it very ODD that theres not even a way to have any kind of other non-standard mac pro compliant card inserted into any slot while still having another (like the 7300 GT) to boot into OS X? Its almost as if its purposely done so that you CANT put in your own card.