MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 3,1 with Nvidia GeForce 8800GT....Nvidia K600 or AMD FirePro W2100?

[DouglasCarroll]

Hi everyone,

I've rescued a Mac Pro 3,1 that was heading for the recycle yard and was looking for cheap upgrades for it. It already has an Nvidia Geforce 8800GT in it that works fine, but I also have come across a couple of other video cards that I was wondering if they would work? They are an Nvidia Quadro K600 and an AMD FirePro W2100. Both are from old Windows machines, but if either would work in my 3,1 and be more powerful I'd like to try them. I can't really fine either of these listed in the lists online for supported card options for Mac Pros so I was hoping someone here could give me their 2 cents on the subject. Also, if either of them would work I'd like to do the easiest option without having to flash anything, etc if possible. Also, does anyone know how these two cards compare in power to the Geforce 8800GT?

Thanks for any help, I appreciate it!!

 

[Borowski]

Best choice would be K600, because it has GDDR-memory and metal-support. To my knowledge, the W2100 has no driver support in OSX, but feel free to try it.
8800GT is much older (G92-gpu was introduced in 2007, while K600/W2100 was from 2013 up) and many cards overheated due to single slot heatsink.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Hi everyone,

So I also just acquired a Quadro K2000 as an option.

Anyone have any advice on this GPU vs my existing Geforce 8800GT?

I see the Quadro has a lot more video ram VS the Geforce but I'm not sure about the graphics performance between the two.

Thanks!

 

[Borowski]

Advice for what?

K2000 has the same gpu and memory-type as the K600 and supports metal-API. But all gpus are old and compared to actual gpus slowly. "Best" choice will be K2000, it has 2GB memory and is cheap.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Thanks for the info.

Advice on if the K2000 vs Geforce 8800gt performance is going to be any better.

I cannot find any info anywhere where someone reports their fps, etc with a K2000 in a MacPro. I was hoping someone somewhere had written/blogged/youtubed a “K2000 in myMacPro”

 

[Macschrauber]

I use a lot of k2000 in my builds. Performance wise these are about 30% of a GTX680.

I noted a Heaven Score of 495 on a 23 inch Cinema Display in Standard setting.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate the info!

Incidentally, which version of the Mac OS X are you using with the K2000?

I "think" I read that the Kepler cards work from El Capitan up to Mojave? I'm also trying to figure out the fastest version I should use on my old Mac Pro 3,1 so I'll probably stick with the oldest that is reasonably fast.

I'm planning on running benchmarks on the installed Geforce 8800GT and then again on the K2000 so I can get a good comparison between the two.

Thanks again!!

 

[Macschrauber]

they work from 10.8.3 to Big Sur, same as GTX680

for Monterey they need patching in older drivers. It's a matter of taste if you want to do this.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

That's great info, thanks for the help!

At my work there is a lot of old PC's that get recycled so I'm always digging through them trying to "upgrade my MacPro for free" with whatever I can pull out of them. So far the Quadro K2000 seems to be the newest fastest card I've found so I'm looking forward to installing it. I'm still not sure which OS to settle on though so I appreciate the info!

 

[DouglasCarroll]

So I have an answer finally! I had time to run a time demo using the Engine Valley Benchmark to compare the graphics cards with each other. So in Mac OS El Capitain the Quadro K2000 was quite an upgrade to the Geforce 8800GT with a much higher frame rate and also 2048 MB of ram versus the 512 MB of the Geforce.

Not too bad for a free video card that was heading for the recycle bin and was pulled out of an old PC!

See attached photos for benchmark results....not sure why they are sideways here....