Mac Pro 1.1 - GT630 - Lion 10.7.4

[Kristian Thomse]

Hi everyone,

I have spent hours reading through the posts about GPU upgrades for Mac Pro 1.1's.
For all the information shared I thank all the authors!

I would like to know (what remains an unanswered question for me inspite of fairly profound reading):
Will a Geforce GT630 DDR3 card work with Lion 10.7.4 and the Nvidia drivers, on a Mac Pro 1.1?

Based on my reading I know that several Fermi cards are supported in 10.7.4, counting the GT440 and GT430.
The Geforce GT630 DDR3 is supposed to be a rebranded GT440 - but is it compatible due to being a Fermi card?
Or does it somehow have specs that are different from those of the GT440/GT430 - that will make it impossible or difficult to make it work with Lion 10.7.4, on my Mac Pro 1.1? Device ID / Differences regarding hardware...?

How is this relevant?: More and more, GT440 and GT430 cards are becoming unavailable due to stockouts.

I would like to thank everybody in advance for their time reflecting about this post.

What i know about this subject already, from clever minds on Netkas and Macrumors, is that:
The Kepler drivers for 10.7.5 are 64bit drivers that do not load on a 32bit kernel. Therefore, although you can force the installation of the driver software on a Mac Pro 1.1, the drivers are not going to work properly.
- A question regarding this is whether the 10.7.4 Fermi drivers are suitable for the GT630 DDR3 card (Fermi chip), or the card will require 10.7.5 Kepler drivers as a result of being a 6 series card - thus making the GT630 unsuitable for a Mac Pro 1.1 with OS X Lion?

Best regards
Kristian Thomsen

 

[Kristian Thomse]

This subject has been brilliantly dealt with by Asgorath, MacVidCards, and Rominator in the thread labeled:

"Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards".

I will return with results of carrying out a confirming test on a GT630 myself, within the nearest future.

//Kristian

 

[Kristian Thomse]

Great Test Results

I have carried out a test of installing an Nvidia Geforce GT630 in my Mac Pro 1.1.
Before plugging the card in, I installed the Nvidia drivers for 10.7.4 Lion. Booting up the system with the new card in the machine worked like a charm. My 27" and my 23" display both lid up as Lion loaded to the desktop.

In system profiler the card reads as an "NVIDIA Chip Model 256 MB".
To test the performance of the newly installed card, I launched Unreal Tournament 2004. With every graphic setting on the very highest everything runs lightning fast and flawless. When operating the OS everything seems very fast as well.

My old card is the passively cooled 7300GT. This i have kept in the machine. The GT630 is installed in lane 1, and the 7300GT has been moved to lane 4. The first time Lion boots with both cards installed, the user is allowed to alter the allocation of bandwidth for each lane.

I've got Windows 7 installed on the machine as well, with Boot Camp.
In Windows everything is working like a charm too! Both cards in the machine, both recognized, both outputting full resolutions properly. And games executed by the GT630 seem to run amazingly well. As examples I tested Sniper Elite V2 and F.E.A.R. 3. Both games run smoothly at an HD resolution of 1280x720 with details on high.

To summ up:
The GT630 in my Mac Pro 1.1 runs very well in both 10.7.4 Lion and Windows 7 (64 bit ultimate).
With both the original 7300GT and the new card in the machine, both cards are recognized and fully functional, under both operating systems.

The exact card i bought and installed is: ASUS GT630-2GD3 - 2GB
Product number 90-C1CSE1-S0UAN0BZ

What is furthermore worth mentioning: The 7300GT outputs the grey Apple boot screen (installed in lane 4, with the GT630 in lane 1).

Feel free to ask questions.
Best regards
Kristian Thomsen

 

[rpseguin]

Mac Pro 2,1 & 1,1 + OS/X 10.8.x + Which Nvidia card?

Thanks for the info.
Since this post is old, I thought I'd bump and ask some additional questions.

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 and I'd like to get them to run at least 10.7.x, but preferably 10.8.x and I want to know which inexpensive (<= $130) graphics card I should choose that does 4K UltraHD and is relatively quiet and can be run by the Mac Pro power supply.
I have a Seiki 39" 4K UltraHD (3840x2160) TV that I am intending to use as a monitor.

From my digging around, it looks like the Nvidia GT630 should do 4K UltraHD, but I am open to a more powerful card.

Suggestions?
Is going to 10.8.x worth it?
Has anybody managed to get the 10.8.x install to work from a single hard drive instead of requiring a small aux boot drive separate from the OS/X drive? If so, I would be happy to dedicate a big SSD to it.

I have carried out a test of installing an Nvidia Geforce GT630 in my Mac Pro 1.1.
Before plugging the card in, I installed the Nvidia drivers for 10.7.4 Lion. Booting up the system with the new card in the machine worked like a charm. My 27" and my 23" display both lid up as Lion loaded to the desktop.

In system profiler the card reads as an "NVIDIA Chip Model 256 MB".
To test the performance of the newly installed card, I launched Unreal Tournament 2004. With every graphic setting on the very highest everything runs lightning fast and flawless. When operating the OS everything seems very fast as well.

My old card is the passively cooled 7300GT. This i have kept in the machine. The GT630 is installed in lane 1, and the 7300GT has been moved to lane 4. The first time Lion boots with both cards installed, the user is allowed to alter the allocation of bandwidth for each lane.

I've got Windows 7 installed on the machine as well, with Boot Camp.
In Windows everything is working like a charm too! Both cards in the machine, both recognized, both outputting full resolutions properly. And games executed by the GT630 seem to run amazingly well. As examples I tested Sniper Elite V2 and F.E.A.R. 3. Both games run smoothly at an HD resolution of 1280x720 with details on high.

To summ up:
The GT630 in my Mac Pro 1.1 runs very well in both 10.7.4 Lion and Windows 7 (64 bit ultimate).
With both the original 7300GT and the new card in the machine, both cards are recognized and fully functional, under both operating systems.

The exact card i bought and installed is: ASUS GT630-2GD3 - 2GB
Product number 90-C1CSE1-S0UAN0BZ

What is furthermore worth mentioning: The 7300GT outputs the grey Apple boot screen (installed in lane 4, with the GT630 in lane 1).

Feel free to ask questions.
Best regards
Kristian Thomsen