Mac Pro 1,1 10.9.2 (Tiamo) Graphic Card Suggestions

[Hennesie2000]

Thanks Hennesie! Upon further review it seems as though I would be better off making the jump to a GeForce GTX 960 which sells new for around $200 and I haven't browsed eBay as yet. I expect one more bump on the graphics card would is the only remaining upgrade to make aside from a larger SSD. I have 10GB of RAM already and don't expect I come close to need more and I'm not one to leave apps open I'm not running and I utilize this tower mostly for surfing and streaming music/videos to my Apple TV.

I welcome any thoughts to the contrary, however.

-Saint

Seeing as this is a 10.9.2 thread, you should know that you must be running Yosemite to use a Maxwell based Nvidia card. Those would be the 750/750ti/960/970/980/TitanX. You must also have the Nvidia web drivers installed as the card is not natively supported by OS X. I run a GTX 970 in my hackintosh and it works great though.

 

[saint322]

Seeing as this is a 10.9.2 thread, you should know that you must be running Yosemite to use and Maxwell based Nvidia card. Those would be the 750/750ti/960/970/980/TitanX. You must also have the Nvidia web drivers installed as the card is not natively supported by OS X. I run a GTX 970 in my hackintosh and it works great though.

Agreed. My mind hasn't fully caught up with my current OS version as I just last week bumped my mac from Mavericks to Yosemite as it decided to self-update and I didn't have script that would remedy the boot.efi installed. It was at that point I decided that if I was going to have to manually go through the process I would go ahead and update everything to finish with the *supposed* last update of Yosemite.

Meanwhile, my GTX 560 will run the 10.7.5 partition safety-drive I have but I do think I want to make one last graphics card upgrade (fully appreciating maxwell cards won't support earlier OSes). Lastly, I don't get why so many posters are so concerned about the boot screen. I am all for a card that gives me the best performance after the 15-seconds of blackness until my SSD boots. I'm simply thrilled to be running the current OS on a near-decade old mac that only required me to buy a better graphics card.

-Saint

 

[Fl0r!an]

Lastly, I don't get why so many posters are so concerned about the boot screen. I am all for a card that gives me the best performance after the 15-seconds of blackness until my SSD boots.

It's not about seeing the OS X loading bar moving forward, nobody cares about that (okay, some people might care, I don't). Having a proper EFI on your card will

• give you basic video support if no driver is available (very important on Maxwell cards)
• allow you to choose boot volumes (bootcamp)
• help you if there's a problem (e.g. OS won't come up and you have to enter single user mode)

Sure, for most of this you could keep an old EFI card, but especially in a MacPro1,1 you won't be compromising anything by choosing a flashable card in the first place thus getting a all-in-one solution for free. Maxwell only makes sense if you choose at least a GTX 970 or above, AMD is better value for money for anything below that. However a GTX 970 would be ridiculously CPU limited by the ancient MacPro, there's no point putting such a card in there.

 

[saint322]

Fl0r!an - Okay, I take your point on that...it just isn't an issue in my personal situation. I just pop out my SSD, put it in an external case, and connect that USB to my current gen MacBook Air to tinker. That does make sense if you don't have a secondary computer. I was somewhat surprised when my computer auto-updated (I didn't have the auto-update script applied)...it rebooted and then defaulted to my backup 10.7.5 drive which, as you point out, if I had a maxwell card...it wouldn't have done anything.

Thanks for the explanation.

Happy Friday!

-Saint

 

[haralds]

I know there are entire threads about NVIDIA graphic cards (PC), but I wanted to hear from MacPro1,1 or 2,1 (2006-2008) owners who recently patched their boot.efi with Tiamo's solution and are running 10.9.2 and use an upgraded Graphics Card. Unfortunately my box still has the stock NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 9 MB and lack of OS support makes the flickering unbearable (particularly with Mail.app and Safari.app)

Could some kind soul post which (cheap) card to get, preferably because they have it working in their rig already?

This is not for gaming or graphics intensive stuff, just Mavericks Desktop and your occasional full screen video.

Thanks

Edit: This is the official list by Apple I believe
Edit: Similar post on MacRumors
Edit: List of working cards in MacPro1,1

• ATI Radeon HD 7950 (flashed)
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition
• ATI Radeon 5770 Mac Edition
• NVIDIA GTX 660
• NVIDIA 8800 GT Mac

UPDATE: I got a NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 2048 MB (unflashed) and it works fine
UPDATE: it worked in Mavericks (tiamo), and it works in Yosemite (pike)

It really depends on what you want to accomplish.
My experience has mainly been with ATi cards on 2,1, 3,1 and 5,1.

Flashing a generic versus Apple original card really depends on your wallet, risk aversion, time availability, and the age of the card. The price difference for older cards is not that great, the very latest are not available as Apple branded.

On the 1,1, if you still want to boot Tiger, you need the trusty ATI HD 4870, which at one time was a built to order high end. I have it in my 2,1 running Yosemite and it works just fine with decent speed.

I think, the HD 5770 or 5870 are good choices, since they are supported by Snow Leopard and Lion out of the box.

On my 5,1, I upgraded to a modified Gigabyte Radeon 7970OC with 3GB. The idea is that it is great for gaming. You need at least Lion with a patched driver, Mavericks support it out of the box with the latest upgrade. I should note that the game performance difference on Mac is not significant in frame rates in comparison to the 5870 - the Open GL drivers are not that optimized. It is likely to do better with Metal. If you use BootCamp, you can use the standard Catalyst drivers with a more significant improvement over the Apple 5870.

The 5770 and 5870 run pretty cool and require less power than the 4870. Based on a number of reviews, the Gigabyte 7970OC is the least power hungry of its model due to its cooling design. It requires less power than the AMD version running at slower speed! Some folks report problems with PSU overload with other 7970 cards (like Sapphire, which might well turn out to be a defective card.) I have not run into any problems even when running benchmarks for 10-15 minutes. This card is quiet and cool.

I have no experience with NVidia outside my MacBook Pro.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

Add another one

Picked up a GIGABYTE GV-N650OC-2GI GeForce GTX 650 and it works just fine, make sure you have the PCIe power cable. All 2 GB of VRAM is recognized by CUDA at least.

Going to let it chew on some CUDA for a while as well.. I can already tell it's running CUDA stuff at least four times faster than the 8800 GT. Might go back to the store and get a reconditioned EVGA GTX 660 and see how that goes.

Will do Ungine Heaven and other tests later..

Some quick observations: was using the second gen 8800 GT before this (the long slim shady, not the fatter 1st gen) and the screen still felt slow and steppy, especially over Apple Remote Desktop. The newer 8800 card doesn't do EFI boot screen.

The Gigabyte card is whisper quiet even at startup and it hasn't done much to increase any temps as far as I can see. It's also much smoother than the 8800 was both live and over ARD.

The new card ships with port covers for all ports, and even the PCIe slot has a cover. Very nice for the price ($129), although it's not like I'm going to carry it around or store it a lot.

Sorry to reply to your old post here, but how does this card compare to the 5770? I recently got a flashed Radeon 5770, and while it DOES feature that newer, smaller-profile fan, it seems to make a vibrating/motor noise that adds a lot to the noise of this machine. In fact, I am convinced that my 1,1 Mac Pro is already louder than most people's 1,1 Mac Pros--so this GPU makes things twice as bad. I looked on eBay and saw that this card is cheaper than my 5770 was, and my 5770 was darn cheap in comparison to the Mac versions.

Does the Ti model NOT work in these Macs? I got a few of those in the search results...

Assuming, though, that I picked up any old PC version of this card, would it work in my Mac Pro...? Out-of-the-box?

-Thanks

 

[Hennesie2000]

Sorry to reply to your old post here, but how does this card compare to the 5770? I recently got a flashed Radeon 5770, and while it DOES feature that newer, smaller-profile fan, it seems to make a vibrating/motor noise that adds a lot to the noise of this machine. In fact, I am convinced that my 1,1 Mac Pro is already louder than most people's 1,1 Mac Pros--so this GPU makes things twice as bad. I looked on eBay and saw that this card is cheaper than my 5770 was, and my 5770 was darn cheap in comparison to the Mac versions.

Does the Ti model NOT work in these Macs? I got a few of those in the search results...

Assuming, though, that I picked up any old PC version of this card, would it work in my Mac Pro...? Out-of-the-box?

-Thanks

Most all 6xx cards will work out of box with OS X. I have a GT 610 in a hackintosh and it works great. Paid $30 for it brand new. The only thing any PC Card will lack is the boot screen but you probably already know that.

 

[Fl0r!an]

Sorry to reply to your old post here, but how does this card compare to the 5770? I recently got a flashed Radeon 5770, and while it DOES feature that newer, smaller-profile fan, it seems to make a vibrating/motor noise that adds a lot to the noise of this machine.

GT 650 and HD 5770 are approx. on the same performance level.
I'd just try to get a replacement fan for your HD 5770, would be the cheapest option...

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

GT 650 and HD 5770 are approx. on the same performance level.
I'd just try to get a replacement fan for your HD 5770, would be the cheapest option...

I don't think the fan is an issue - the card just naturally seems loud, and its cheap, plastic enclosure (in addition) results in vibrations.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

Most all 6xx cards will work out of box with OS X. I have a GT 610 in a hackintosh and it works great. Paid $30 for it brand new. The only thing any PC Card will lack is the boot screen but you probably already know that.

1,1 Mac Pros are a little bit more finicky, though. I'm wondering if a card like it would work in this machine and have all of the memory recognized, etc.

 

[Hennesie2000]

1,1 Mac Pros are a little bit more finicky, though. I'm wondering if a card like it would work in this machine and have all of the memory recognized, etc.

The default drivers in OS X natively support the card so there shouldn't be an issue. Every PC Card I put in my Mac Pro always just worked.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

GT 650 and HD 5770 are approx. on the same performance level.
I'd just try to get a replacement fan for your HD 5770, would be the cheapest option...

What about the 650 Ti? It would be worth-it to have a card that performs just as well yet is quieter.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

The default drivers in OS X natively support the card so there shouldn't be an issue. Every PC Card I put in my Mac Pro always just worked.

But do you have a 1,1/2,1 Mac Pro? Those are a bit more finicky, apparently. For example, (I would believe that) one would have an easier time finding a working card for their 3,1+ Mac Pro.

 

[Hennesie2000]

But do you have a 1,1/2,1 Mac Pro? Those are a bit more finicky, apparently. For example, (I would believe that) one would have an easier time finding a working card for their 3,1+ Mac Pro.

I have (had) a Mac Pro 1,1 flashed to a 2,1. I ran a GTX 285 and a GTX 570 in it that were both PC Cards. Never once had an issue. The only PC Card I had issues with was a GTX 295 which is a dual GPU that is basically two GTX 260s on one board in SLI. OS X didn't really like that one. My Mac Pro is no longer running because the main board died other wise I would be happy to try my GT 610 in it.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

I have (had) a Mac Pro 1,1 flashed to a 2,1. I ran a GTX 285 and a GTX 570 in it that were both PC Cards. Never once had an issue. The only PC Card I had issues with was a GTX 295 which is a dual GPU that is basically two GTX 260s on one board in SLI. OS X didn't really like that one. My Mac Pro is no longer running because the main board died other wise I would be happy to try my GT 610 in it.

Okay, thanks for the info. Do you know if you can get boot screens with a VGA adapter? Or is there no hope for a boot screen. My 5770 doesn't display a boot screen unless you have the DVI adapted to VGA.

 

[Sko]

I just replaced a Radeon 4870 with a Radeon 6850 on my 1,1. While technically very close on paper, I experience a huge difference in real life performance.
The 6850 delivers a more consistent output, only slightly faster than the 4870, but without the occasional drops, supporting OpenGL 4.1 seems to help a lot. And it's 50W less power.
I'm pretty sure this is the final graphics card my 1,1 will see before being retired.

Dead cheap, 45€ with shipping - used (No boot screen - I couldn't care less)

 

[Hennesie2000]

Okay, thanks for the info. Do you know if you can get boot screens with a VGA adapter? Or is there no hope for a boot screen. My 5770 doesn't display a boot screen unless you have the DVI adapted to VGA.

Honestly don't know. I haven't had a display or GPU with VGA in years.

 

[Fl0r!an]

@PMG4: This VGA bootscreen stuff only applies to cards with mismatched EFI. Cards without EFI will never show a bootscreen, because the Macs EFI isn't able to utilize the vBIOS on the card.

@Sko: 6850 should be easily flashable for bootscreens.

 

[Sko]

6850 should be easily flashable for bootscreens.

It is flashed with netkas' ROM, but as there is no 32bit EFI for it, no bootscreen on the early cMPs.

 

[MacVidCards]

Florian wasn't around in the days we did 6870.

It is based on a 64 bit iMac rom, so no joy for 1,1 and 2,1

Which is why all the effort on 7xxx has been a joy for them.

 

[666sheep]

It is flashed with netkas' ROM, but as there is no 32bit EFI for it, no bootscreen on the early cMPs.

There is 32-bit EFI for 6870 and 6850 (since a few years), but currently without botscreens. I have no time ATM to refine it using Fl0r!an's discoveries, but sooner or later I'll do that.

 

[Fl0r!an]

Whoops, I've missed it was about 1,1.

I've already tried at lot of things to enable bootscreens with EBC 6870 ROMs, but to no avail so far.

 

[Sko]

@666Sheep @Fl0r!an I wasn't aware that there is a 32bit EFI! Sounds promising. I'll work through the linked thread, thank you.

Edit: Found the 6850_EBC and flashed right away. System Information now shows the card properly in the PCI section. Thanks again!

 

[harvspecial]

Hey everyone! I just want to thank everyone on the awesome information. I got a 1,1 mac pro near mint from my job for free! I just ordered 32GB of 667 MHz ram. I'm getting a 256-512 ssd and the x5355 processors this week! but I need help with the video card!

I'm looking at the evga gt 640 (dual dvi and one mini hdmi port). its the best value at around $75 on ebay with 2GB ram.

I'm aware you don't get a boot screen but how do you get into recovery without the boot screen?

Does anyone know if you can flash the efi boot onto the card? If so, instructions?

 

[Hennesie2000]

Hey everyone! I just want to thank everyone on the awesome information. I got a 1,1 mac pro near mint from my job for free! I just ordered 32GB of 667 MHz ram. I'm getting a 256-512 ssd and the x5355 processors this week! but I need help with the video card!

I'm looking at the evga gt 640 (dual dvi and one mini hdmi port). its the best value at around $75 on ebay with 2GB ram.

I'm aware you don't get a boot screen but how do you get into recovery without the boot screen?

Does anyone know if you can flash the efi boot onto the card? If so, instructions?

Hold command+r to boot into recovery mode.

There is no benefit to flash the card. You won't get a boot screen either way.