MP 1,1-5,1 Is It Possible To Get A Third Power Connector IN My Mid 2012 MacPro?

[JerryJ]

I have a 2012 Mac Pro with High Sierra running ProTools. I need to upgrade to Mojave or Catalina to upgrade my ProTools version to work with it's new hardware. Apple said I can upgrade if I replace my current video card with a Sapphire HD 7950 card, which I have done. However, the Sapphire requires TWO power connectors to function. My Mac Pro only has two cable plugs, and one of them is powering my ProTools HDX card. My question: Is there a way to get a THIRD power port in my 2012 Mac Pro to power both the Video card and the PT HDX card? Is there an easy solution, or am I totally screwed? Any help will be much appreciated!

 

[JedNZ]

Have you checked out the Pixlas Mod method?

Pixlas 4.1 Mac Pro mod

I'm creating a thread for my 4.1-->5.1 mod to keep everything in one place. I will document my upgrade to X5690, PCIe SSD (Apple SSUBX) and PSU mod to allow for two modern gfx cards using only the internal PSU. I have gotten my Mac Pro now (2x 2.26GHz) 4.1 from 2009. It had one Nvidia 120GT...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[KeesMacPro]

I have a 2012 Mac Pro with High Sierra running ProTools. I need to upgrade to Mojave or Catalina to upgrade my ProTools version to work with it's new hardware. Apple said I can upgrade if I replace my current video card with a Sapphire HD 7950 card, which I have done. However, the Sapphire requires TWO power connectors to function. My Mac Pro only has two cable plugs, and one of them is powering my ProTools HDX card. My question: Is there a way to get a THIRD power port in my 2012 Mac Pro to power both the Video card and the PT HDX card? Is there an easy solution, or am I totally screwed? Any help will be much appreciated!

In case the Pixlas Mod looks too complicated IMO there's another possibility.
The HDX card is rated for max. 40W , according to Avid.
You could power the GPU with 2 cables from the LogicBoard and power the PCIe HDX card with a SATA power to 6/8pin cable from one of the SATA bays.
The SATA connector is rated for ~ 50W , so should work fine.
I suppose the power rating for the HDX is total so divided between the PCIe slot and the 6/8pin.
Obviously in this case you'll lose 1 SATA bay....

BTW: Personally I would recommend to install Mojave (natively) , it's known as one of the most stable OS.

 

[14UG]

+1 for using a SATA port. And just in case you have all 4 drive bays occupied you can use one of the optical bay ports… so long as you’ve not added anything in the lower optical bay you will have a free, dangling SATA 2.0 cable there which you can pull power from.

 

[macguru9999]

I have a 2012 Mac Pro with High Sierra running ProTools. I need to upgrade to Mojave or Catalina to upgrade my ProTools version to work with it's new hardware. Apple said I can upgrade if I replace my current video card with a Sapphire HD 7950 card, which I have done. However, the Sapphire requires TWO power connectors to function. My Mac Pro only has two cable plugs, and one of them is powering my ProTools HDX card. My question: Is there a way to get a THIRD power port in my 2012 Mac Pro to power both the Video card and the PT HDX card? Is there an easy solution, or am I totally screwed? Any help will be much appreciated!

If you get a flashed Radeon RX480 , it only uses ONE 6 pin port for power, and performance is so close to the rx580 that i cannot tell the difference (except that its quieter !)