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Apple Radeon 5770/5870 in pre-2010 Mac Pro's: What We Know So Far

I will never give up. I will never surrender.

As long as there is a link to it on the store, my heart is dead set on the 5870.
 
xispec said:
Maybe a good sign? MicroCenter website showing 7-21 business days to ship
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0345333

and for those who cant wait:
http://www.macpartsonline.com/661-5...0-video-card-1-gb-mac-pro-mid-2010-a1289.html

for 518.70 o_O!
Click to expand...

I too am holding out as long as I can! Really want to upgrade from the 2600...

Has anyone ordered from Mac Parts Online? Do we know if that video card is the same one Apple is selling (or not selling for that matter)?
 
Uh oh

Now the 5770 is showing 1-2 weeks shipping time, the 5870 is still unavailable. Guess I waited too long for either!
 
Just got this email from Macpartsonline, regarding if they really had the item in stock:

Hi,

We've sold about 10 pieces of these video cards and we ran out of stock. We will notify you as soon as it becomes available again.

Thanks,

MacPartsOnline.com Support Team
Click to expand...

it was in stock when I sent the email... now it's out of stock. So this means they are being released to certain retail channels!
 
Anyone know of a good place to sell Mac parts? Looking to get rid of the 8800GT I replaced with the 5770, and would like to avoid Ebay if possible.
 
Rainbird said:
It's a flashed PC card without a minidisplay port. It should work but for that price and no guarantee, why not wait for Apple's version.
Click to expand...

Its for a work computer and I have been put in charge with upgrading 2 of our Mac 1,1's.
My boss wants to get it all done now and If I wait on apple it seems like its going to be a while.

What about the 5770?
 
I bought a 5870 two weeks ago from Mac*Pro on eBay. Came with all the power cables, card was a nice looking 5870 with 2xDVI, HDMI, Displayport.

Aside from not having the boot screen for a few seconds, everything works perfectly with my 2xDVI, 1xDisplayport setup.

The cost of buying from eBay and living with the no-boot screen (which may be solved someday) was totally worth it for the better connection options. In fact, the extra cost is mitigated by the fact that I would have needed active Mini-displayport to DVI/DP if I wanted 3xmonitors.

Apple lost my money, and I'm very pleased with my new card. Mac Pro 2,1 here, went from x1900 xt to the 5870. Windows/Mac, all good.
 
Bob Kiwi said:
I bought a 5870 two weeks ago from Mac*Pro on eBay. Came with all the power cables, card was a nice looking 5870 with 2xDVI, HDMI, Displayport.

Aside from not having the boot screen for a few seconds, everything works perfectly with my 2xDVI, 1xDisplayport setup.

The cost of buying from eBay and living with the no-boot screen (which may be solved someday) was totally worth it for the better connection options. In fact, the extra cost is mitigated by the fact that I would have needed active Mini-displayport to DVI/DP if I wanted 3xmonitors.

Apple lost my money, and I'm very pleased with my new card. Mac Pro 2,1 here, went from x1900 xt to the 5870. Windows/Mac, all good.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the info on this one. I'm very tempted to do the same thing. One question: What about updates (drivers, etc.) in the future, or should I not worry about it?
 
5870 unavailable? Guess what, so is my money for Apple.

Bought a Sapphire Vapor-X HD5870 1GB PC card back in September for £295 on eBay.
Flashed it to Mac OS using ATIWinFlash in a Win 7 (32bit) build on my Mac Pro 2008. Up and running by 25th Sept.
Sold on my flashed Sapphire HD4870 Vapor-X 1GB PC card to a friend and got half the cost back.
WoW running like it's on glass and only the bootscreen missing.
I won't miss paying Apple £370 for a card that is still unavailable, possibly till Christmas....

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC743ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTg2OTU0NTI

Think I'll skip the 6xxx series and see what ATI come up with in the next generation. :D
 
Ricko101 said:
Hey thanks for the info on this one. I'm very tempted to do the same thing. One question: What about updates (drivers, etc.) in the future, or should I not worry about it?
Click to expand...

In Windows, I was running an old version of the 10.X drivers (the last version that was recommended for a x1900 XT). Had to upgrade to the 10.9 drivers but obviously in Windows that's no issue.

On the Mac side, no major upgrades have come out to see if things break. The card requires 10.6.4 with the Snow Leopard Graphics Update.

Mac*Pro did basically give me a 30day return, 90-day warranty as a backup. I anticipate when 10.6.5 comes out that I will have no problems, and any other updates will be smaller in scope.

The card is probably the reference ATI card and not doing any weird things, so it's probably safe. If it ever fails I'll certainly make a note.
 
Still a little confused on MP 1,1 and 5870/5770/4870

barefeats said:
Mac Pro 2008 GPUs: Radeon HD 5870 and 5770 versus Geforce 8800 and Radeon 2600

http://www.barefeats.com/wst10g6.html
Click to expand...

Any chance these tests were replicated for the Mac Pro 1,1?

I realize that folks are saying the memory and CPU essentially create a bottleneck that even a card like the 5870 can't overcome (well, that's sort of the definition of a bottleneck, I guess).

Mostly, I play WoW, so OpenGL and (by extension, no pun intended) GLL is more important to me than anything else. Based on the tests, seems like for the 2008 Mac Pros, the 5870 was well worth it, but I take it that may not be the case for the 2006 Mac Pro 1,1s.

Are there any metrics? I mean if the WoW Narache run had the 5870 at nominally close rates (like 120 for the 5870 v. 117 for the 4870 v. 114 for the 5770), then I'd just buy figure which of the 4870 or 5770 made more sense for me to get.

Oh, also, I play on a 30" ACD at 2560x1600 which is why I still wonder if that extra computing power on the 5870 might not still translate a bit since WoW on the Mac doesn't really seem to stress the processors too much. WoW only seems to use about 30% of the system's processing power. I suppose it could be the memory bus paths being the bottleneck, but I don't really have a method of testing that.

Love Rob and Bare Feats. Any info is GREATLY appreciated as this Mac Pro is 4 years old and other than a new Hard Drive, this is likely the only other upgrade I'll do to it to make this FANTASTIC computer be my viable workstation for nearly a decade.
 
Mackeyser said:
Any chance these tests were replicated for the Mac Pro 1,1?

I realize that folks are saying the memory and CPU essentially create a bottleneck that even a card like the 5870 can't overcome (well, that's sort of the definition of a bottleneck, I guess).

Mostly, I play WoW, so OpenGL and (by extension, no pun intended) GLL is more important to me than anything else. Based on the tests, seems like for the 2008 Mac Pros, the 5870 was well worth it, but I take it that may not be the case for the 2006 Mac Pro 1,1s.

Are there any metrics? I mean if the WoW Narache run had the 5870 at nominally close rates (like 120 for the 5870 v. 117 for the 4870 v. 114 for the 5770), then I'd just buy figure which of the 4870 or 5770 made more sense for me to get.

Oh, also, I play on a 30" ACD at 2560x1600 which is why I still wonder if that extra computing power on the 5870 might not still translate a bit since WoW on the Mac doesn't really seem to stress the processors too much. WoW only seems to use about 30% of the system's processing power. I suppose it could be the memory bus paths being the bottleneck, but I don't really have a method of testing that.

Love Rob and Bare Feats. Any info is GREATLY appreciated as this Mac Pro is 4 years old and other than a new Hard Drive, this is likely the only other upgrade I'll do to it to make this FANTASTIC computer be my viable workstation for nearly a decade.
Click to expand...

No way to fully test the benchmarks for WoW with 4.0.1 yet because the current ATI drivers don't allow some of the ultra graphics settings that WoW can do now. Have to wait for 10.6.5 to come out for that, and I think running ultra details is going to be the best way to differentiate the performance between the two cards.

Plus you should wait until more people have it in their hands so there is a bigger sample size of people running it with a Mac Pro 1,1

Based on the stuff seen on Bare Feats and such it seems like the difference between the 5770 and the 5870 will be minor for older Mac Pros. Time will tell.
 
Well, between 10.6.5, greater GLL optimization on Blizzard's backend and maybe even Apple dumping Java dev and Sun picking it up (meaning not being behind anymore), it really makes me wonder if with some of the optimizations and code improvements that ARE coming (I forgot to mention improved multi-threading in the OS, itself, and multicore awareness by the Blizz Mac client), whether the 5870 may be worth it in the long run.

I realize that the tests now may be inconclusive. I guess the question I'm asking (and experienced testers can sometimes answer this) is "do the tests point to the 5870 in the Mac Pro 1,1 being able to take advantage of the coming code improvements at a proportionally better rate than the 5770/4870. If so, than the 5870 will do a better job of extending the life of my machine and may easily justify it's extra cost. If not, then likely not.

I bought my 1,1 in Sept. 2006 with the X1900 XT 512MB card with the 30" ACD and both the display and machine have been about flawless. Clearly the X1900 upgrade was WAY worth it over the stock nVidia 7300. The machine still rocks (though I do need to upgrade my Boot HD to a 1TB WD Black Caviar drive and I should both add RAM and have it properly matched, which I hope to do in 2011 *crosses fingers*) and I figure with just one beastly video card upgrade, this machine will be solid for at least another 4 years. That will put my TCO at a VERY respectable level for a workstation I originally bought as the anchor for an edit bay.

I'm just freaking out a little bit because I have a little bit of money in my hands right now and with 4 kids... that will vanish soon if I don't make a decision and buy something.

Edit: Two things. Firstly, are you running WoW with GLL or OpenGL. Because if you're running OpenGL, Ultra won't work, you have to use GLL. You can enable that with the console command

/set gxApi "GLL"

You can tell you're running GLL because in Windowed mode, you'll see red, yellow and green buttons whereas with OpenGL in windowed mode, you'll see red, grey and green.

You may have known this already, but for other WoW players who didn't, that's a heads up.

Secondly, Blizz knows they've got some GLL issues like with Sunshafts and Liquid Detail, especially that are causing framerate problems, even in the latest and greatest Mac hardware.

I may be talking myself into the 5870 because my experience as a multimedia engineer suggests that better hardware, even bottlenecked in some instances, tends to age better with software improvements than lesser hardware that isn't bottlenecked. Why? Because the subsystem in question isn't always gonna be choking and there will be some things that the 5870 will continue to do better and will do proportionally better over time. Well, should. Should's a better word. Should do better. Damn, I miss having my own lab and being able to run my own tests...

I'm not so worried about Cataclysm and 4.0.3a in December, but rather 4.3 and November 2012... Running 10.7.x and WoW 4.3.x with a much better optimized GLL backend which setup will do better? See what I'm getting at? I'm not just looking at today.
 
5770 running fine

Got one yesterday (Apple store in Mississauga, greater Toronto area, Canada has a buch of them on location).
Running 30" ACD on DVI and 23" on regular MDP to DVI - mac pro 1.1 boot version: MP11.005C.B08 - so far no issues, but I think my 150W ACD power adaptor is about to crap out. Getting some weird flickering sporadically, especially when my room gets colder (weird), been getting that since the day I got the display but with the 5770 it seems a bit more profound.

Stuff works under Windows 7 64 bit as well.

adrian
 
Mackeyser said:
Well, between 10.6.5, greater GLL optimization on Blizzard's backend and maybe even Apple dumping Java dev and Sun picking it up (meaning not being behind anymore), it really makes me wonder if with some of the optimizations and code improvements that ARE coming (I forgot to mention improved multi-threading in the OS, itself, and multicore awareness by the Blizz Mac client), whether the 5870 may be worth it in the long run.

I realize that the tests now may be inconclusive. I guess the question I'm asking (and experienced testers can sometimes answer this) is "do the tests point to the 5870 in the Mac Pro 1,1 being able to take advantage of the coming code improvements at a proportionally better rate than the 5770/4870. If so, than the 5870 will do a better job of extending the life of my machine and may easily justify it's extra cost. If not, then likely not.

I bought my 1,1 in Sept. 2006 with the X1900 XT 512MB card with the 30" ACD and both the display and machine have been about flawless. Clearly the X1900 upgrade was WAY worth it over the stock nVidia 7300. The machine still rocks (though I do need to upgrade my Boot HD to a 1TB WD Black Caviar drive and I should both add RAM and have it properly matched, which I hope to do in 2011 *crosses fingers*) and I figure with just one beastly video card upgrade, this machine will be solid for at least another 4 years. That will put my TCO at a VERY respectable level for a workstation I originally bought as the anchor for an edit bay.

I'm just freaking out a little bit because I have a little bit of money in my hands right now and with 4 kids... that will vanish soon if I don't make a decision and buy something.

Edit: Two things. Firstly, are you running WoW with GLL or OpenGL. Because if you're running OpenGL, Ultra won't work, you have to use GLL. You can enable that with the console command

/set gxApi "GLL"

You can tell you're running GLL because in Windowed mode, you'll see red, yellow and green buttons whereas with OpenGL in windowed mode, you'll see red, grey and green.

You may have known this already, but for other WoW players who didn't, that's a heads up.

Secondly, Blizz knows they've got some GLL issues like with Sunshafts and Liquid Detail, especially that are causing framerate problems, even in the latest and greatest Mac hardware.

I may be talking myself into the 5870 because my experience as a multimedia engineer suggests that better hardware, even bottlenecked in some instances, tends to age better with software improvements than lesser hardware that isn't bottlenecked. Why? Because the subsystem in question isn't always gonna be choking and there will be some things that the 5870 will continue to do better and will do proportionally better over time. Well, should. Should's a better word. Should do better. Damn, I miss having my own lab and being able to run my own tests...

I'm not so worried about Cataclysm and 4.0.3a in December, but rather 4.3 and November 2012... Running 10.7.x and WoW 4.3.x with a much better optimized GLL backend which setup will do better? See what I'm getting at? I'm not just looking at today.
Click to expand...

Yes I am running GLL, in the game the graphics slider won't let me go past "Fair" and when I do custom settings, some of them (particularly with shadows and water) won't let me set Ultra. The tooltip says "Requires OS X 10.6.5" so I figure that the current ATI driver just doesn't support that stuff and it will be supported in 10.6.5, this is a pretty common issue for OS X and ATI cards at the moment.
 
Cindori said:
6800 series releasing tomorrow and Apple aren't shipping 5870 yet. Laugh or cry?
Click to expand...

I'd hold off until the 6900 series is released, which are the actual faster, step-up cards (as opposed to a confusing renumbering).

But hey, we had a couple months of a Mac Pro shipping with current graphics hardware.

It's more than we've had in the past.
 
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