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False advertising? I don't remember Apple saying anything about the 8800GT being able to work in older Mac Pros.

They have stated on the website that it will work with Mac Pro's. Which means it should work with anything called a Mac Pro sold by them, which includes the Mac Pro's sold last year.

If it only works on the new models then it is false advertising!
 
They have stated on the website that it will work with Mac Pro's. Which means it should work with anything called a Mac Pro sold by them, which includes the Mac Pro's sold last year.

That ironically is pretty much what the customer service rep said to me when I queried it with her and she looked at the product page.

Hence she said no problem returning it if it doesn't.
 
barefeats.com

"i to all. It's me, Rob-ART, at BareFeats.com.

I got the info on the EFI issue from Rob Barris at Blizzard (WoW). They wanted to upgrade all their Mac Pros with GeForce 8800s but were informed by Apple it would not work. They are very bummed.

Meanwhile, I've asked my contacts at ATI/AMD to look into this from their perspective since they have the new Mac Pros in house. In other words, is this an nVidia issue or does it affect ATI/AMD cards as well?

Meanwhile, I'm not canceling my order for the GeForce 8800 GT kit either just in case it can be addressed by a firmware patch or some such thing.
"


I'm not sure I buy this. . .if this in FACT true. . then the same would apply to the currently shipping ATI HD 2600 XT card. . .

Can someone take one of these cards and stick it in an old Mac Pro and see if it works?
 
We can either wait for someone here to actually get hold of a card and try it out or we get Apple to give us a proper confirmation.

If everyone gets onto Apple about it someone might be lucky enough to get thought to someone who's on the ball and who might be able to sort out a proper confirmation.

I've got a couple of calls in with apple at the moment and waiting for a response.
 
Lemme guess...in 2010 when USB 3 comes out, y'all are gonna be complaining that it doesn't work in the Mac Pros that were released this week. Or when FW1600 comes out, it's gonna be "Apple screwed us by not making FW800 forward compatible to FW1600, I'm switching back to Windows!"
There's a reason for those PCI-Express expansion slots. Just drop in USB 3.0 and FW1600 expansion cards and you're set.

Apple has decided to make the video card incompatible with previous Mac Pros when there shouldn't be any reason to do so.
 
False advertising? I don't remember Apple saying anything about the 8800GT being able to work in older Mac Pros. You guys can bitch and moan all you want, and yeah it sucks, Apple's not gonna change it for you. It's like a new BMW coming out with a feature that simply won't work in last year's model. It's been 18 months since the Mac Pro came out.

"Shafting". Wow you guys sound like the old Mac Pro has been forced to use an ATI Rage 16 or something. The old Mac Pros have a GREAT video card that ran Motion 3, and all my games beautifully when I owned one. Would it be nice to have the 8800GT in the old Mac Pros...sure, but I don't see how Apple promised you anything about it working or is "shafting" you as you so eloquently put it.



My comment is PERFECTLY relevant as it addresses the pointless bitching and moaning on this issue. I'm sorry it wasn't "YEAH, I AGREE WITH YOU 100%. LET'S MARCH ON CUPERTINO AND GIVE EM WHAT FOR!!!!"

Lemme guess...in 2010 when USB 3 comes out, y'all are gonna be complaining that it doesn't work in the Mac Pros that were released this week. Or when FW1600 comes out, it's gonna be "Apple screwed us by not making FW800 forward compatible to FW1600, I'm switching back to Windows!"

Ahh but I bet you USB 3 devices will still work on the old outdated Mac Pro as USB 2 devices so your point is useless. The machines were made to be upgradeable and if the X1900XT is the end of the line for video upgrades that is just unjustifiable. Hell I have an old dell and many old homebrews that support later video cards than my Mac Pro if that’s the case. Apple is sure to lose future sales if they continue along that path.
 
False advertising? I don't remember Apple saying anything about the 8800GT being able to work in older Mac Pros. You guys can bitch and moan all you want, and yeah it sucks, Apple's not gonna change it for you. ...
The apple clearly STATES that the card if for Macpro.

For : Macpro.

So I ordered it. It is coming in 12 days.
And I am not the only one,2 aquintices allso ordered.

At no point,at no time was there ANY indication that it requires the 08 Macpro nor Leopard. Do you need a bloody screencaps of the process? Wich I took to make sure I there will be some problems in the future..[/b]

So tell me please,you see apples modus operandi completely acceptable and lawfull?
Dude,have to say,I am happy that I dont live where you live!

On this side of the pond that action (remember,if the card does not work on 06-07 machines!) is unlawful and false marketing that the consumer protection groups will pounce on.
 
Lemme guess...in 2010 when USB 3 comes out, y'all are gonna be complaining that it doesn't work in the Mac Pros that were released this week. Or when FW1600 comes out, it's gonna be "Apple screwed us by not making FW800 forward compatible to FW1600, I'm switching back to Windows!"

Mate, you really are displaying appalling ignorance, in both senses of the word. When USB 3 comes out I'll buy a card just like I'm doing now.
 
Because most people using a Mac Pro right now who want an upgrade want a graphics upgrade and BluRay, not 4 more cores, so the incentive to buy a new Mac Pro is small if you can just get a modern graphics card to pop in your old one.

I doubt there are many people with mac pros willing to upgrade to a new machine at this point. 90% of MP buyers are likely coming from G5 (or earlier), or upgrading from an imac or mini.

If they sell a stand-alone 8800, they will have to release 10.4 support for it as well...which would be great because the new mac pro will probably not work on 10.4 and I'm not going to deal with 10.5 again until it is fixed.

Why would they have to have 10.4 support? It would be nice, but I don't see any reason they couldn't ship it 10.5 only as long as they make that clear to buyers.
 
Mate, you really are displaying appalling ignorance, in both senses of the word. When USB 3 comes out I'll buy a card just like I'm doing now.

Assuming they're still using PCI-e by then. I can't buy an ATI x1900 for a G5 now could I even though that card came out when the Mac Pro replaced the G5.

I'm not saying it's right that it's like this. It sucks, it really does. But no amounting of bitching and moaning is going to change it. But have fun doing it.
 
Unfortunately it seems the 'making it clear to the consumer' is what is causing all the upset and speculation at the moment on this thread.

Their website says the card should work in MP's. Once someone gets one of the cards that shipped standalone (not one swapped out of a new machine) and tries it out, we'll know.

And I was talking about 10.4 support.
 
From the link above!!

"All of these cards are only compatible with the family of computers with which they shipped."
 
Assuming they're still using PCI-e by then. I can't buy an ATI x1900 for a G5 now could I even though that card came out when the Mac Pro replaced the G5.

I'm not saying it's right that it's like this. It sucks, it really does. But no amounting of bitching and moaning is going to change it. But have fun doing it.

Bad argument there. Releasing a card incompatible with a slightly older revision computer is totally different to making a card compatible with a totally different underlying hardware platform.

Think of it this way:

Effort needed to make the 8800GT compatible with old Mac Pro:
zilch

Effort needed to make the 8800GT incompatible with old Mac Pro:
a lot

On the other hand

Effort needed to make the MP X1900XT compatible with old G5:
a lot

Effort needed to make the MP X1900XT incompatible with old G5:
quite easy

From the link above!!

"All of these cards are only compatible with the family of computers with which they shipped."

That is very bad wording. I expect my 8800GT to work with the Mac Pro family of systems, which includes last years model. I do understand if it doesn't work with the G5 family of systems.
 
Assuming they're still using PCI-e by then. I can't buy an ATI x1900 for a G5 now could I even though that card came out when the Mac Pro replaced the G5.

It seems like the problem here isn't that the card can't work, but that it could but apple may not provide support for it. Haven't people tried these cards in boot camp and they worked fine under XP? If that's the case, then apple just needs to provide driver or firmware support.

The card shipping from the UK site is a few days off, isn't it possible that they did the firmware for the newest macs first and they're still testing a different firmware version that will work in any MP? Kind of like how the OSX install dvd that ships with a machine only works with that machine, you need a generic OSX installer to install on other boxes?

I can see why cards that worked on G5 wouldn't transfer to intel since the technology is pretty different...but a version 2 of PCI shouldn't completely break compatibility with video cards, at least not cheap ones. I could see if someone shipped a crazy new high end video card that required 2.0, but this doesn't seem to be it.

On the PC side, does this card only work in PC's with the 2.0 version of PCI? I REALLY doubt that. And if it doesn't, that means it's just a driver issue on apple's side.
 
Can you elaborate a little more on your question?

The previous PowerPC based Power Macs used Open Firmware which made them incompatible with PC video cards in their day. The video cards themselves need to be compatible with the PowerPC logicboard and firmware.

The new Mac Pro (Early 2008) uses EFI just like the slightly older Mac Pro (2006-2007)

Just like the previous incompatibility, PowerPC video cards won't work on an Intel Mac.

milo said:
It seems like the problem here isn't that the card can't work, but that it could but apple may not provide support for it. Haven't people tried these cards in boot camp and they worked fine under XP? If that's the case, then apple just needs to provide driver or firmware support.
There have been several users here that have successfully used the 8800GTX on the Mac Pro in Windows.

milo said:
On the PC side, does this card only work in PC's with the 2.0 version of PCI? I REALLY doubt that. And if it doesn't, that means it's just a driver issue on apple's side.
PCI-Express 2.0 cards are backward compatible with 1.0/1.1.

I'm using a Radeon 3850 in my PC on PCI-Express 1.1 just fine. The Apple firmware is the issue here.
 
Bad argument there. Releasing a card incompatible with a slightly older revision computer is totally different to making a card compatible with a totally different underlying hardware platform.

Think of it this way:

Effort needed to make the 8800GT compatible with old Mac Pro:
zilch

Effort needed to make the 8800GT incompatible with old Mac Pro:
a lot

On the other hand

Effort needed to make the MP X1900XT compatible with old G5:
a lot

Effort needed to make the MP X1900XT incompatible with old G5:
quite easy

So Apple would go out of their way to make the 8800GT incompatible with older Mac Pros to piss off their user base and HOPE that they'll upgrade to a new $3000 machine for a $350 graphics card? Interesting....
 
I can see why cards that worked on G5 wouldn't transfer to intel since the technology is pretty different...but a version 2 of PCI shouldn't completely break compatibility with video cards, at least not cheap ones. I could see if someone shipped a crazy new high end video card that required 2.0, but this doesn't seem to be it.

On the PC side, does this card only work in PC's with the 2.0 version of PCI? I REALLY doubt that. And if it doesn't, that means it's just a driver issue on apple's side.

The problem is the firmware on the card, not the interface. The card is electrically compatible with PCI-E 1.0 but apple is making the firmware incompatible (if that is the case).
 
From the link above!!

"All of these cards are only compatible with the family of computers with which they shipped."

Yeah Looks like I'll be cancelling my order once this is confirmed.

I just sent a nasty gram to Steve. Not that it will do any good. . . but I feel better about it.
 
So Apple would go out of their way to make the 8800GT incompatible with older Mac Pros to piss off their user base and HOPE that they'll upgrade to a new $3000 machine for a $350 graphics card? Interesting....

That appears to be EXACTLY the case. . .

I'm getting madder and madder the more I think about this. . . grrrrrr
 
So Apple would go out of their way to make the 8800GT incompatible with older Mac Pros to piss off their user base and HOPE that they'll upgrade to a new $3000 machine for a $350 graphics card? Interesting....

Well we won't actually know for sure until it ships.
 
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