Dual Graphics Cards

[Smack2k]

What do I need to do to run both the older NVIDIA PCI-E Card that came with my Mac Pro 1,1 (upgraded to 2,1 via firmware updates / etc) as well as the GTX 660Ti I have in it?

Planning on making it a dual booting Windows 7 / El Capitan machine. I have the Windows 7 ISO ready to install on the Mac, but not sure how to boot to it without the preboot screens. With the 660Ti installed, i dont get the preboot screens and with the older NVIDIA card installed, the graphics are crap when in OSX El Capitan....

Can I do this?

 

[ActionableMango]

What do I need to do to run both the older NVIDIA PCI-E Card that came with my Mac Pro 1,1 (upgraded to 2,1 via firmware updates / etc) as well as the GTX 660Ti I have in it?

Planning on making it a dual booting Windows 7 / El Capitan machine. I have the Windows 7 ISO ready to install on the Mac, but not sure how to boot to it without the preboot screens. With the 660Ti installed, i dont get the preboot screens and with the older NVIDIA card installed, the graphics are crap when in OSX El Capitan....

Can I do this?

If you're talking about a GT120 or a 8800GT as the older card, then running them together is problematic due to driver issues. You can switch operating system without boot screen, basically set the default boot drive to MacOS and then use BootChamp to switch to Windows. Simply reboot to go back to Mac OS.

But personally I like having boot screens. If I were in your shoes, I'd sell both cards and get a new single card that is faster and has 32-bit Mac EFI so you can get boot screens. I think 5770 and 5870 are the last cards you can do that with supported operating systems on Mac 1,1-2,1. If you are running newer, unsupported MacOS versions I think you can do 7950 and R9 280 as well, but I'm not too sure about that.

 

[pat500000]

If you're talking about a GT120 or a 8800GT as the older card, then running them together is problematic due to driver issues. You can switch operating system without boot screen, basically set the default boot drive to MacOS and then use BootChamp to switch to Windows. Simply reboot to go back to Mac OS.

But personally I like having boot screens. If I were in your shoes, I'd sell both cards and get a new single card that is faster and has 32-bit Mac EFI so you can get boot screens. I think 5770 and 5870 are the last cards you can do that with supported operating systems on Mac 1,1-2,1. If you are running newer, unsupported MacOS versions I think you can do 7950 and R9 280 as well, but I'm not too sure about that.

Would it be problem if rx 580 is combined with gt 120 as boot?

 

[ActionableMango]

Would it be problem if rx 580 is combined with gt 120 as boot?

Doesn't matter since a 580 isn't going to work on MacOS on a 1,1 anyway.

 

[pat500000]

Doesn't matter since a 580 isn't going to work on MacOS on a 1,1 anyway.

My bad let me clearify what i was talking about...i meant in 5,1. My bad.

 

[ActionableMango]

My bad let me clearify what i was talking about...i meant in 5,1. My bad.

I have no personal experience with it, but others on this forum mention there are problems when mixing AMD and Nvidia. I don't know what the problems are. You could start a new thread and ask specifically about that combo to see what people say.

 

[h9826790]

Would it be problem if rx 580 is combined with gt 120 as boot?

This combination should work in macOS but not Windows.

Windows will install the Nvidia driver for GT120, and AMD driver for RX580. And basically you can't have both drivers in Windows at the same time.

The work around I can think of will be.

1) Only install the GT120
2) Install Windows
3) Manually "update" the GT120's driver to "Microsoft general VGA adaptor"
4) remove Nvidia driver
6) shutdown
7) install the RX580
8) Boot to Windows again
9) install the latest AMD driver

As long as you can keep the GT120 as the generic VGA adaptor. It should has no conflict with the RX580. However, the downside is that the GT120 will lost the power management functions, and state at high power setting (even no demand), which will make the GPU stay at about 70C. It's still way below the max rated 105C, but quite a bit higher than the normal 50-60C range.