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AMD Radeon 7970 on Mac Pro 2009

CuamckuyKot

CuamckuyKot

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 21, 2009
34
0
Russia, Saint-Petersburg
Hi, guys!

I'm planning to buy AMD Radeon 7970 and have a couple of questions to it owners.
1250553476.jpg

1. If it necessary to get an additional power supply?
2. Is it loud?
3. Is it possible to flash it with R280x ROM?
4. Is it possible to flash it with EFI?
5. How powerful is this card?

Thanks.
 
1. Technically yes, it will draw more than 75W from a single boost line when running under full load. However, in reality, quite a few people just run the card with native power without any problem.

2. I don't have this card. However, AFAIK, it's the same reference cooler as my 7950. So, for the native fan profile under full load, yes, it's very loud. However, it can be fixed by modify the firmware (lower the voltage, make a custom fan profile, and re-apply high quality thermal paste, etc).

3. I don't know. And I personally won't suggest you to do this.

4. Yes, you can dump the ROM, add EFI by running the fixrom script. And than flash it back to your card.

5. You better check the benchmark website. It's hard to tell without knowing your current card, and your definition of "powerful".
 
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If you plan gaming with it you are gonna be dissapointed. The HD 7970 is the GTX 680s AMD competitor. The HD 7970 falls back at everything behind the GTX 680. You can play games on ultra with like 30 fps and thats it.
I would suggest you to get a GTX 680 or 770
 
It's likely very flashable, reasonably comparable to a single D700 (same GPU) in the 2013 Mac Pro. If that's powerful or not is in the eye of the beholder.
 
I'm planing to use it OpenCL capabilities with Final Cut Pro X, Motion, After Effects and Cinema 4D.

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Does anyone know how much scores it shows in Cinebench R15?
 
CuamckuyKot said:
I'm planing to use it OpenCL capabilities with Final Cut Pro X, Motion, After Effects and Cinema 4D.

----------

Does anyone know how much scores it shows in Cinebench R15?
Click to expand...

Cinema4d doesn't use OpenCL.
OpenGL performance will be crippled by slow single thread CPU performance.
 
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CuamckuyKot said:
What do you mean? I have X5650 with 24309 points in Geekbench 3.
Click to expand...

Cinema4d use all the available core only for rendering and few other tasks. Viewport OpenGL speed is just single threaded, therefore you should look for the fastest single thread CPU performance if you want to work fast on Cinema. Even if you put a 5000$ GPU inside your Mac, the OpenGL viewport performance will not rise significantly because the CPU can't feed the GPU fast enough.
 
CuamckuyKot said:
Hi, guys!

I'm planning to buy AMD Radeon 7970 and have a couple of questions to it owners.
Image
1. If it necessary to get an additional power supply?
2. Is it loud?
3. Is it possible to flash it with R280x ROM?
4. Is it possible to flash it with EFI?
5. How powerful is this card?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The Radeon 7970 is being offered by MVC HERE You can check this out. From the description, doesn't say you need additional external power supply.
 
I use mine primarily for FCPX, but also for some gaming. I got the 7970 from MVC quite a while ago, and have been very happy. I got the XFX version (two fans), which is quite a bit quieter than the original 5770 card, and MUCH faster.

Although I don't do much gaming, I can run Starcraft II on a 30" ACD (2400 * 1600) maxed out settings and get about 60 fps.

The MVC version does not require an external power supply, and for what it's worth, you just install it and go. It's trouble free and fairly fast. No doubt, there are faster cards out there, but I've been happy with mine.
 
The specs show it uses 250W which exceeds the 225W available from the PCI-E bus plus the 2x75W from the PCI-E power connectors. You'll be right on the ragged edge, but you'll probably be okay since you're running 75W CPUs and not 130W ones.
 
tpluth said:
The specs show it uses 250W which exceeds the 225W available from the PCI-E bus plus the 2x75W from the PCI-E power connectors. You'll be right on the ragged edge, but you'll probably be okay since you're running 75W CPUs and not 130W ones.
Click to expand...

The CPU's power consumption is virtually unrelated. The old Mac Pro has a very powerful PSU, but just no easy way to deliver those power to the graphic card.
 
My report.

Have bought HIS 7970 for $90. Used, of course.

Looks identically:

images


Then flash it under Windows with EFI Rom (downloaded on some forums).

Ta-da — bootscreen shows up. But only PCIe 1.1 — 2.5 GT/s.

Manually deleted small R17 transistor with a flat-head screwdriver.

As the result — PCIe 2.0 enabled and 5 GT/s transfer rate.

Test:

Cinebench R15 43fps. Poor, because OpenGL performance depends on single core performance. I've 2xX5660. They super as 12-core 24309, but low at 1-core 2327.

Heaven Extreme 1600x1900 — 774 points. Min 7.4 fps, max 71.1 fps.
Compare flashed Palit GTX680 4Gb — 908 points. 7.7 » 80.1 fps

Valley Extreme HD — 1393 points. 18.6 fps » 60.6 fps.
Compare flashed Palit GTX680 4Gb — 1481 points. 18.5 » 64.0 fps

Impression — great videocard. Of course, if don't need CUDA, but only Open CL.
 
i know this is an older thread but i was wanting to see if someone could post the romfix script thing. i tried the netkas script but i couldnt get it to work. wasnt sure if there was another script out there.
 
I got mine from MVC and it works very well. I asked him about the power consumption and he told me its a non-issue.

Mine is the single fan model and it's very quite, I can't here it at all and in fact it's quiter than my Apple model HD 5870.

Obviously if purchased from MVC, it's flashed / modified already. Just install and go.
 
krypticos said:
sadly this is the same script i have used from netkas and for what ever reason it doesnt work on my card.
Click to expand...

AFAIK, there is only one script.

Did you follow the exact procedure?

If you post your procedure / screen capture, May help to diagnosis why it doesn't work on your card.
 
h9826790 said:
AFAIK, there is only one script.

Did you follow the exact procedure?

If you post your procedure / screen capture, May help to diagnosis why it doesn't work on your card.
Click to expand...


i followed it to a T. i installed java and python like the netkas thread said. i changed the terminal string to have the information for my card and the rom file for my card and the script says it was successful but when i put the card back in my mac. i have a black screen even after i know its booted to desktop
 
im quite stupid lol. every time i flashed the card i tested it with the hdmi port not the second DVI port. when the brainfart i was having past. i flashed the card and tested the second dvi and it works perfectly.
 
I'm using a Power Color Reference design 7970.

I used a PC
MAC7970.ROM
ATI Tool

Everything works great. Boot screen x16 link etc...

I'm not gaming with the card, so it never really draw it's full power.
CS6 with Open CL works great.
 
CuamckuyKot said:
I'm planing to use it OpenCL capabilities with Final Cut Pro X, Motion, After Effects and Cinema 4D.

----------

Does anyone know how much scores it shows in Cinebench R15?
Click to expand...

Barefeats did some tests of dual AMD's for FCP-X and even lowly 5770 pair were useful.
With Windows a pair of AMD's can also "join forces" in gaming.
If you do go dual AMD's, and if serious about FCP-X then I would, probably going to need one of those extra 450W PSU designed just for GPU by adding 2 x 6-pin and 2 x 8-pin power leads.
 
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