HD6850 and Mac Pro 1,1 (non-flashed GPU issues?)

[owbp]

I've have 2007 Mac Pro 1,1 for which i bought a Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 to use with some light FCPX editing and few games. I know that PC Radeon card won't get me boot screens and rarely be recognized correctly, but i couldn't find anywhere is flashing important for sheer functionality of the card?

When i bought it I've tested it for few hours in Borderlands 2 and Arkham City just because i know that if GPU has problems they will show up in games. All went ok with maxed or nearly maxed out settings on 1080p. It showed no bugs, screen flashes or graphical glitches.

Then i tried to run some Benchmarks and ran into a few problems.
Luxmark and Cinebench seemed fine


And so did the Unigine Valley


Though I'm not sure if the results are OK?

But i ran into a problem with GFXbench GL and CompuBench CL. The first didn't want to run (nothing was supported) and later one just loaded bench screens (YT video)



Also, yesterday i had a problem with ugly pixelation in OS X 10.10.5 and red, green and yellow pixels on blacks parts of the videos (Quicktime, VLC, FCPX). It sorted itself after reboot.

So are these bugs related to non flashed card and will they go away after the flashing or is flashing done only for boot screen purposes?
Ive read here that HD7950 can have some glitches if stock PC card is used, but i cannot find info on these bugs I'm having troubles with.

Thanks in advance for any info on this!
Ljuba

P.S. I aslo have 1080p Youtube playback stops and (few seconds) freezes, just like i had with my Hackintosh (with GeForce GT220) but I've never experienced these problems with stock GT 7300.

Edit: I just wanted to add, if it is related in any way, that I'm using molex adapter from DVD at the moment to power my card. Still waiting for mini 6pin adapter to arrive.

 

[haralds]

I've have 2007 Mac Pro 1,1 for which i bought a Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 to use with some light FCPX editing and few games. I know that PC Radeon card won't get me boot screens and rarely be recognized correctly, but i couldn't find anywhere is flashing important for sheer functionality of the card?
...
Also, yesterday i had a problem with ugly pixelation in OS X 10.10.5 and red, green and yellow pixels on blacks parts of the videos (Quicktime, VLC, FCPX). It sorted itself after reboot.

The Radeon drivers for 10.6.5 are too old for this card.

 

[owbp]

The Radeon drivers for 10.6.5 are too old for this card.

Why 10.6.5?
I am dual booting 10.7.5 and 10.10.5, but 10.7.5 is used for Pro Tools only so no need to fix anything there.

 

[owbp]

Also, yesterday i had a problem with ugly pixelation in OS X 10.10.5 and red, green and yellow pixels on blacks parts of the videos (Quicktime, VLC, FCPX). It sorted itself after reboot.

It seems to happened after few monitor sleep/wake cycles... Not sure though. Had it again yesterday.

 

[mrkapqa]

It seems to happened after few monitor sleep/wake cycles... Not sure though. Had it again yesterday.

hello, would you recommend this card?
i am considering buying one (unflashed) after bricking a 5770 (hopefully only momentarily) in the flashing.
my use case is running a triple partition ssd with snow leopard, lion, mavericks or yosemite on a 1.1/2.1 cMP. Thank you!

 

[owbp]

hello, would you recommend this card?
i am considering buying one (unflashed) after bricking a 5770 (hopefully only momentarily) in the flashing.
my use case is running a triple partition ssd with snow leopard, lion, mavericks or yosemite on a 1.1/2.1 cMP. Thank you!

You don't really need flashed HD68XX card because EFI rom is from iMac, so only 64bit EFI will see it as native Apple GPU.
The're ok cards, but underpowered compared to HD5770 and HD5870 (and they can be flashed for cMP1,1/2,1).

So i would probably go with 5770/5870 if i wan't only one card for cMP, or maybe add a HD7950 to 7300GT and flash it, so you can have beast in Mavericks and Yosemite and native nvidia 7300 for older OS'.

I'm in the same boat as you right now, as i got my old 1,1 back with stock 7300GT and i don't know which way to go...
Should i buy one GPU for everything (5870) or take the best one for this mac (7950) and then swap if i need to do something in Snow Leopard...

P.S. Flashed HD7950 will also show screen and info in all systems supported by 1,1 (from Tiger to El Capitan) but in systems earlier than 10.8 you won't have any accleleration and it will be choppy as hell.

Take a look here for bricked AMD GPU - http://netkas.org/?p=1182
https://www.280676.com/how-to-save-your-ati-5770-gpu-after-a-bad-bios-flash/
I've done unbricking to the HD6850 a hundred times until i found out that EFI is 64bit only...

 

[mrkapqa]

Hello owbp,

i actually have an 5770 that i used the last couple months (unflashed) for MacPro and it has served me quite well (stock design, i guess). but i wanted more active ports (it seemed only 1 dvi active, except in bootcamp where also dp would show screen) and flashed it (first time try , i guess) and now it is no more active and i am hoping to revive it with a windows pc that has powerful enough psu (at the local computer shop) with the correct atiflash (intelligent enough i was to save the original rom).

the r9 280 should be like hd7950 - i have a nearly new one - but after i found that it would not boot into 10.7.5 (unlike for macpro 3.1 - 5.1 , with the appropriate driver package from sapphire) i decided to sell it and i am now hoping for the 6850;

if i don't manage to revive the 5770 i will probably go for a 5870 apple design; i think i had ordered from aftermarket already once a flashed 5870 , but that one was really loud (too loud for my ears) so i gave it back; in this respect the 5770 seems very much friendlier.

i have seen on ebay mp1.1 with 7950 and snow leopard screen, so i was hoping that the r9 280 would boot somehow in lion with an active screen; apparently only with 64bit efi; so i don't know how this man achieved bootscreen with snow leopard and 7950; maybe that was a special flash or the 7950 behaves differently than the r9 280?

so at the moment i am fed up with the "higher" cards, although i have to admit that the 7950/r9 280 seems pretty silent and powerful (tested it also on a macpro 5.1).

my route is 1 card only if possible, and it should work possibly from snow leopard or atleast lion to elcapitan. i have tried also a 6450 hd (unflashed) aka r5 230 which is working out of the box with 2 ports active hdmi + dvi , but no bootscreen, and quite slower than the 5770. the 6850 seems a good middleplayer, but again, if it is too loud, i won't use it.
[doublepost=1544983066][/doublepost]

Take a look here for bricked AMD GPU - http://netkas.org/?p=1182
https://www.280676.com/how-to-save-your-ati-5770-gpu-after-a-bad-bios-flash/
I've done unbricking to the HD6850 a hundred times until i found out that EFI is 64bit only...

Thank you , i have seen this post, it seems quite difficult to me; if i need help, i may contact you?
-- maybe the 5770 flash went bad because i flashed with a rom that is 64bit only, too? , but then it should atleast show up in windows, which it doesn't -- i used only WinAtiflash --
[doublepost=1544983260][/doublepost]after using the MP5,1 (1cpu) i have to say that Mavericks/Yosemite/ElCap run quite well on the MP1.1/2.1 (2cpu), but i prefer to stay "lower" as i do mostly browsing and that seems much quicker on Lion and especially Snow Leopard.

 

[mrkapqa]

Here are some Testresults from the R9 280 on my MP2.1 running and ElCapitan 10.11.0 (possibly missing the correct drivers for the R9 280)

[doublepost=1544999316][/doublepost]

 

[andrew nz]

You don't really need flashed HD68XX card because EFI rom is from iMac, so only 64bit EFI will see it as native Apple GPU.
The're ok cards, but underpowered compared to HD5770 and HD5870 (and they can be flashed for cMP1,1/2,1).

So i would probably go with 5770/5870 if i wan't only one card for cMP, or maybe add a HD7950 to 7300GT and flash it, so you can have beast in Mavericks and Yosemite and native nvidia 7300 for older OS'.

I'm in the same boat as you right now, as i got my old 1,1 back with stock 7300GT and i don't know which way to go...
Should i buy one GPU for everything (5870) or take the best one for this mac (7950) and then swap if i need to do something in Snow Leopard...

P.S. Flashed HD7950 will also show screen and info in all systems supported by 1,1 (from Tiger to El Capitan) but in systems earlier than 10.8 you won't have any accleleration and it will be choppy as hell.

Take a look here for bricked AMD GPU - http://netkas.org/?p=1182
https://www.280676.com/how-to-save-your-ati-5770-gpu-after-a-bad-bios-flash/
I've done unbricking to the HD6850 a hundred times until i found out that EFI is 64bit only...

Hello.

I have a similar situation.

I want to replace the 7300gt with a radeon equivalent and use it for boot screen with lion Yosemite and windows 10 and not nesessarily flash it.

what radeon is close to 7300gt and would work?
Or reluctantly where an i find flash instruction for these antique vid cards

 

[owbp]

i have seen on ebay mp1.1 with 7950 and snow leopard screen, so i was hoping that the r9 280 would boot somehow in lion with an active screen; apparently only with 64bit efi; so i don't know how this man achieved bootscreen with snow leopard and 7950; maybe that was a special flash or the 7950 behaves differently than the r9 280?

After flashing GPU you can boot into any OS X that your Mac supports (or any OS that you can boot into after patching).
So, for instance, you could flash HD7970/R9280X and then use it to boot and work in OS X Tiger, but it will run on software acceleration, so no drivers and choppy animations.
There is no special flash for 7950, it just give you EFI screen no matter what OS you're in.
Same, you can use 7300GT to boot into El Capitan. You'll have monitor output but nothing else.

if i need help, i may contact you?

Feel free to do so.

maybe the 5770 flash went bad because i flashed with a rom that is 64bit only, too?

No, 5770 is both 32 and 64 bit EFI, you just didn't flash it properly.

I want to replace the 7300gt with a radeon equivalent and use it for boot screen with lion Yosemite and windows 10 and not nesessarily flash it.

what radeon is close to 7300gt and would work?

You could use any gpu you like, OS X isn't like Win, it will use both drivers, AMD and Nvidia.
The only problem i've found when i had 7300GT and HD7950 in my MacPro1,1 with later OS' (that don't support 7300GT) is that Mac will not go to sleep.

 

[mrkapqa]

I've done unbricking to the HD6850 a hundred times until i found out that EFI is 64bit only...

Hello , may i know how you did this?

I tried with the 5770 some 1-2 hours according to trick with link above, but it did always complain "adapter not found". Probably the shortcircuit was not being recognized properly. I tried with 3 different materials (normal paperclip, speaker cable, solder). The guy from the link seems to have used copper wire, that i did not have at my disposal.


PS. i hope to not have damaged the card by using the paperclip on the 4+5 pins

 

[owbp]

I hope your GPU is still ok.

Hello , may i know how you did this?

I've soldered two wires to the pins and then was able to short them or take them apart while Mac was running (because you have to boot with those pin shorted, and then flash it when they are apart). It doesn't have to be a copper wire, just any wire that will conduct electricity. It is, however, smart to use insulated wire so you don't touch with it other components on PCB.

Found a picture, but this is 6850 by Sapphire

 

[mrkapqa]

Thank you, that was helpful picture, will ask if someone may help with this as i do not have necessary skill and equipment yet.
Actually i am getting a 6850 as a replacement for the 5770 soon; from what i understood, it is no good to try to flash it with ZEUS for a MP1.1/2.1 to get EFI bootscreen .. so i will leave the card as it is, hopefully being able to drive with it 2 displays at the same time (in extended display mode)

 

[andrew nz]

After flashing GPU you can boot into any OS X that your Mac supports (or any OS that you can boot into after patching).
So, for instance, you could flash HD7970/R9280X and then use it to boot and work in OS X Tiger, but it will run on software acceleration, so no drivers and choppy animations.
There is no special flash for 7950, it just give you EFI screen no matter what OS you're in.
Same, you can use 7300GT to boot into El Capitan. You'll have monitor output but nothing else.

Feel free to do so.

No, 5770 is both 32 and 64 bit EFI, you just didn't flash it properly.

You could use any gpu you like, OS X isn't like Win, it will use both drivers, AMD and Nvidia.
The only problem i've found when i had 7300GT and HD7950 in my MacPro1,1 with later OS' (that don't support 7300GT) is that Mac will not go to sleep.

I undestand that not every card may be used in mac pro 1.1; however which radeon would fit my requirements and not require flashing?