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Is there a list / thread with all tested GFX card upgrades for Mac Pro 5,1?

R

RobertSix

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 21, 2012
56
1
I currently have a standard 5770 that came with my 5,1 (mid 2010).

I'm looking at upgrading, but one of my slots is also used by a PCIe SSD 6g drive. I'm guessing because of this I cannot put a second PCI GFX card in - is that correct?

Whatever the case, is there a list or thread you know of that lists all the tested or flashed cards that work in Osx and fit in this mac?

Cheers,
Rob
 
My apologies if this has been asked before or done to death. I admit I feel useless with the search function here.
 
Well, one of the stickies right at the top of this forum gives you some good info on the NVIDIA side.
 
RobertSix said:
I currently have a standard 5770 that came with my 5,1 (mid 2010).

I'm looking at upgrading, but one of my slots is also used by a PCIe SSD 6g drive. I'm guessing because of this I cannot put a second PCI GFX card in - is that correct?

Whatever the case, is there a list or thread you know of that lists all the tested or flashed cards that work in Osx and fit in this mac?

Cheers,
Rob
Click to expand...

Hello Rob,

Mac Pro 2010 has 4 full-length PCI Express *PCIe 2.0 expansion slots, two are x16 and two are x4.

The top two slots, are x4 slots, they are the ones that are close to HDD 4 cage. Depending on your PCIe SSD SATA 3.0 Card bandwidth, you can move it to these slots. Please let us know the brand/spec of the PCIe Card. Below is an example;



Now, you can either add another video card and use both x16 slots, or replace the existing 5570 one with a new card. You can select from AMD 7900 series and NVIDIA GTX 500, GTX 600 or newer GTX 700 Series.

I would strongly recommend to replace the 5570, so that you will still have slots available for future upgrades (maybe USB 3.0 card, Raid Card and so on).

Any questions, please feel free to ask;)
 
Thanks Macman. I followed some links and found macvidcards on ebay which gave me some idea of the cards that can work! Thanks for that.

Thanks for that riggles. I'm just a bit superstitious about nvidia after some past life experiences with them so I don't feel they are an option for me.

I did also stumble across this page -> http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/92952-list-confirmed-radeon-hd-7xxx-series-10-8-3-a.html

Kennyman, thanks for explaining that and offering your advice.

The PCIe SSD is an accelsior (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID)

I actually have the SSD up near the HDD - have I understood correctly that I may have muppeted this by putting it in a slower PCI slot? (4x is slower than 16x?). Until now I thought they were all created equal!

I am leaning towards the AMD 7900 series, perhaps a 7970 or 7950.

Are you saying there is no point having the 5770 in there at the same time, or is it just physically impossible? By the look of it it doesn't look possible.


Many thanks,
Rob
 
Last edited:
The PCIe SSD is an accelsior (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID)

I actually have the SSD up near the HDD - have I understood correctly that I may have muppeted this by putting it in a slower PCI slot? (4x is slower than 16x?). Until now I thought they were all created equal!

No, it is fine where it is. Your card interface is PCIe 2.0 x 2 (it is fine on PCIe 2.0 x 4 slot), enough bandwidth.

I am leaning towards the AMD 7900 series, perhaps a 7970 or 7950.

Are you saying there is no point having the 5770 in there at the same time, or is it just physically impossible? By the look of it it doesn't look possible.

No, it is possible to keep both, you would need extra power to power up the second card. Look around for the extra GPU power in the 5.25 DVD bay. There are many post on the forum about this.
 
kennyman said:
The PCIe SSD is an accelsior

No, it is fine where it is. Your card interface is PCIe 2.0 x 2 (it is fine on PCIe 2.0 x 4 slot), enough bandwidth.

No, it is possible to keep both, you would need extra power to power up the second card. Look around for the extra GPU power in the 5.25 DVD bay. There are many post on the forum about this.
Click to expand...

Ahh that is good to know! I will see if I can spot those power points in the bay.

I thought each GFX card took up the space of 2 slots.

So just to confirm, I could have 1 PCIe ssd, and 2 Gfx cards all running at the same time?
 
Although this has all been covered in the forums, it is good to see it condensed down into a simple thread. Most of the threads related to GFX cards are now extremely long. After spending numerous hours perusing them, I'm going to be getting a 7970.

I did not realize, however, that I could leave my 5770 in place (I also have a 5,1). Is there any advantage to doing so, or will it just be a deadweight with the 7970 in there?
 
pertusis1 said:
Although this has all been covered in the forums, it is good to see it condensed down into a simple thread. Most of the threads related to GFX cards are now extremely long. After spending numerous hours perusing them, I'm going to be getting a 7970.

I did not realize, however, that I could leave my 5770 in place (I also have a 5,1). Is there any advantage to doing so, or will it just be a deadweight with the 7970 in there?
Click to expand...

It is really up to you. If you use apps that required dual GPUs (like FCP, OpenCL rendering and so on). You can keep it, just remember you would require extra power for the card.
 
RobertSix said:
I currently have a standard 5770 that came with my 5,1 (mid 2010).

I'm looking at upgrading, but one of my slots is also used by a PCIe SSD 6g drive. I'm guessing because of this I cannot put a second PCI GFX card in - is that correct?

Whatever the case, is there a list or thread you know of that lists all the tested or flashed cards that work in Osx and fit in this mac?

Cheers,
Rob
Click to expand...

As to GTX cards, I've run the following GTX cards in my MP 2007s and 2009, and except for OCL issue with Mavericks with the 780 Ti and newer Titans (which should be resolved by OSX 10.9.2 slated to drop next month and Nvidia's new web drivers which should also drop next month), they all run fine (just no boot screen w/o mods): 480, 580, 590, 680, 690. So I would expect all lesser numbered cards in each series, as well as the 700 series (with the 780 Ti caveat above) to work fine.

PS - Even the 295 works, just doesn't handle CUDA 5.5 or higher.
 
Tutor said:
As to GTX cards, I've run the following GTX cards in my MP 2007s and 2009, and except for OCL issue with Mavericks with the 780 Ti and newer Titans (which should be resolved by OSX 10.9.2 slated to drop next month and Nvidia's new web drivers which should also drop next month), they all run fine (just no boot screen w/o mods): 480, 580, 590, 680, 690. So I would expect all lesser numbered cards in each series, as well as the 700 series (with the 780 Ti caveat above) to work fine.

PS - Even the 295 works, just doesn't handle CUDA 5.5 or higher.
Click to expand...

That is great to hear. Thanks for chiming in Tutor.
 
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