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Gaming

AkuskaUK

AkuskaUK

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 18, 2011
376
177
Shanklin, Isle Of Wight
Right...

This has most probably been answered before but i can't for the life of me find it in the search bar.

What is the best gaming card for a '09 2.26Ghz 8Core Mac Pro? I currently have a 8800GT 512, and ild like to run BF3 at decent settings.

Any recommendations? I may upgrade my Mac Pro IF a new one is released.

I NEED a genuine APPLE graphics card so no flashed cards please. I will be running BF3 under bootcamp on Windows 7 Pro edition.

My setup currently has 8GB of 1066 ram.

Thank you in advance.
 
See Sig. I'm running dual 5770s in CrossFire in BootCamp

I downloaded the new 12.1 Catalyst Driver set the 148 MB file.

No Blue screen of death. Restarted Mac just to make sure. It seems that the Catalyst now gives use the able to use Crossfire.


Open BF3 checked video settings. I’m using “Auto”, no High or Ultra. Game play has definitely improved.
 
Apple 5870 is most powerful official card.

IMO hold ones horses until the next Mac Pro comes out which should hopefully utilise a 7970.
 
Get a 6870... Use quickboot on osx side and you won't need to hold down option key to select the bootcamp drive. The 6870 have very close performance to a 5870 for a quarter of the price. It will work out of the box but you will not see boot screen, dvd player won't work, and steam won't work on osx side unless you flash it.
 
If you can wait, I really feel 6000 or 7000 series Apple cards will be here soon.

If you cannot wait, you will really be overpaying. The two official Apple options suitable for gaming are the 5770 and 5870. Assuming you have a 1080P monitor and BF3 is set to high, you'll get about 30 and 60 FPS respectively with those two cards. However, these two cards are priced as if they were the latest and greatest when in reality they are two generations old now.
 
5870 or GTX570

Apple will sell you a HD5870 for lots of money and little hassle.
Alternatively you could go Team Green and get a PC edition GTX570 if you add the right drivers to Lion.
 
Gpzjock makes a good point that I forgot about. Although the GTX is not an Apple card, Nividia has now officially provided driver support for Lion. So it's not a hack, although you still won't get a boot screen.
 
BigJohno said:
It will work out of the box but you will not see boot screen, dvd player won't work, and steam won't work on osx side unless you flash it.
Click to expand...

I have an unflashed PC Sapphire 6870 in a Mac Pro 3.1 running 10.6.8 and DVD player works fine as does Steam in OS X, I only have one game Portal so maybe there are some other games affected. The black screen on booting makes it awkward to alt-boot to Windows as you have to guess when the boot screen is there and use the arrow keys to select where you remember bootcamp to be. So now I use the System Preference to select Bootcamp and in Windows use the Bootcamp icon in the tray to boot back to Mac OS X when I want to.

I have heard that BF3 is pretty resource heavy on graphics cards and some people had said a 2GB card was useful.
 
KPTChristopher said:
I have an unflashed PC Sapphire 6870 in a Mac Pro 3.1 running 10.6.8 and DVD player works fine as does Steam in OS X, I only have one game Portal so maybe there are some other games affected. The black screen on booting makes it awkward to alt-boot to Windows as you have to guess when the boot screen is there and use the arrow keys to select where you remember bootcamp to be. So now I use the System Preference to select Bootcamp and in Windows use the Bootcamp icon in the tray to boot back to Mac OS X when I want to.

I have heard that BF3 is pretty resource heavy on graphics cards and some people had said a 2GB card was useful.
Click to expand...

Use Quickboot... http://download.cnet.com/QuickBoot/3000-2094_4-166509.html
 
BigJohno said:
Get a 6870... Use quickboot on osx side and you won't need to hold down option key to select the bootcamp drive...
Click to expand...
Thank you so much! I didn't know about this little app! I'm switching pretty often, this has made it a breeze.
 
BigJohno said:
Get a 6870... Use quickboot on osx side and you won't need to hold down option key to select the bootcamp drive. The 6870 have very close performance to a 5870 for a quarter of the price. It will work out of the box but you will not see boot screen, dvd player won't work, and steam won't work on osx side unless you flash it.
Click to expand...

Oh, dear Cxxxt don't go posting this !!!

You'll have the "If it doesn't have 100% support from Apple Inc we don't want to hear about it" clowns in here. Somehow, if Apple Inc. doesn't give support, it shouldn't be mentioned.

Bozo? Clarabell?
 
MacVidCards said:
You'll have the "If it doesn't have 100% support from Apple Inc we don't want to hear about it" clowns in here. Somehow, if Apple Inc. doesn't give support, it shouldn't be mentioned.
Click to expand...
/sigh

Why do you keep on doing this? He is clearly stating that the card is not supported but likely will get the job done for what the OP is asking about: GAMING. For the life of me I cannot figure out what your angle is.
 
TheDoc said:
/sigh

Why do you keep on doing this? He is clearly stating that the card is not supported but likely will get the job done for what the OP is asking about: GAMING. For the life of me I cannot figure out what your angle is.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure MacVidCards sells non OEM cards on eBay. Any reminder that some non-Apple cards don't work 100% or aren't supported (which is ok for gaming) wouldn't be helpful for his business.
 
MacVidCards said:
Oh, dear Cxxxt don't go posting this !!!

You'll have the "If it doesn't have 100% support from Apple Inc we don't want to hear about it" clowns in here. Somehow, if Apple Inc. doesn't give support, it shouldn't be mentioned.

Bozo? Clarabell?
Click to expand...

DId I do something wrong?
 
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