1,1 GPU upgrade with boot screen

[a02]

With all the GPU threads here I am just wondering what the fastest and most advantageous GPU upgrade for the Mac Pro 1,1 would be that has the EFI boot screen. The latest I am seeing is the 7950 but wondering if that is the best option. I do some work with Photoshop, as well as some gaming both on the Mac side as well as Bootcamp at 2560x1440. I am presently using a Radeon 4870.

 

[DougTheImpaler]

What are you running for an OS? Are you on Lion, or have you used SFOTT to get a later OS running? My understanding is that there are (really old) 7950 drivers for Lion, but nVidia on Lion is limited to Fermi and older (so GTX 500 series and older - no 600, 700, or 900 series cards supported)

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

From the 2006/2007 Mac Pro (1,1/2,1) and OS X Yosemite thread's first post:

• Best: Currently, the highest-performing graphics card that can provide boot screens in a 2006/2007 Mac Pro is a properly-Mac-flashed AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB/AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (~10-15% faster clocks from the AMD Radeon 7970). This does not include the 6GB version of the R9 280X which has issues when flashed for a Mac Pro. MacVidCards sells a fully Mac Pro-ready AMD R9 280X 3GB card and also offers flashing services for customer-supplied cards.
• Note that if for some reason you still need to boot OS X Lion or early Mountain Lion versions that all AMD Tahiti-based cards (7950/7970 and R9 280/280X) are only properly supported by OS X 10.8.3 or higher, although there are OS X 10.7.5-10.8.2 AMD Tahiti graphics card device driver kernel extensions that may work in a 2006/2007 Mac Pro when used with tiamo's boot loader.

There's also a Flashing R9 280X for boot screens/PCI System Information thread.

 

[a02]

I used a manual guide to install Yosemite, with a backup Lion installation just in case there are any problems with Yosemite. The R9 280 mentioned sounds good I just hope its not too much GPU power for the older CPUs in the 1,1.

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

a backup Lion installation just in case there are any problems with Yosemite

A properly-Mac-flashed R9 280X will only work in Lion with a 64-bit kernel, new 64-bit AMD Tahiti kexts, and tiamo's bootloader. If you're willing to do that, the R9 280X should be fine.

But if out-of-box Lion with a 32-bit kernel is your requirement, a real Apple OEM ATI Radeon 5780 is the fastest with boot screens. Flashed PC 5780s only show a boot screen via a VGA adapter on the lower DVI port.

There are 32-bit AMD Tahiti kexts (for a 7950/7970/R9 280/280X) that are meant to work with Lion, but I've never seen anyone able to get them to work.

 

[Ph.D.]

Why don't you look for a used genuine Apple 5770. It's a good card and will work great with your 1,1 without any issues or concerns. My guess would be $50, and that would be a nice upgrade for the money.

Photoshop barely uses the graphics card at all anyway (as a compute engine, that is) and bootcamp ought to be fine as well.