Your best option would be one of these:
SAPPHIRE Pulse Radeon RX 580 8G GDDR5 Dual HDMI/DVI-D/Dual DP Graphics Card - Black
I'd also highly recommend upgrading your CPUs to X5677 or X5690 models. It's a VERY easy swap and you'll see a significant improvement. (Assuming you have a 2010/2012 5,1 Mac Pro and not a 2009 model.)
Can't a 2009 upgrade to the x5690? :O
Yep, as Silencio said, flash your 2009 4,1 to a 5,1 using the tool talked about in these forums and you can indeed.Can't a 2009 upgrade to the x5690? :O
Yep, as Silencio said, flash your 2009 4,1 to a 5,1 using the tool talked about in these forums and you can indeed.
I read on this page:
http://www.144hzmonitors.com/best-graphics-card/
...that the RX 560 can work without the power cables. Would this be true for the Mac Pro?
You could not find that answer in the ±100 other topics? Wow.
Long time reader, first time poster.. having recently acquired a Mac Pro 2010 (5.1) myself, I'm interested in a potential graphics card upgrade. I've trawled through these forums and others for hours and hours and there doesn't seem to be a straight-forward, consistent answer throughout the past 12-24 months.
It seems that support for Nvidia graphics cards waivers between the two ends of the extreme between "Yes, it works, all Nvidia cards work with driver support", then those who have it working yet have driver issues that are "glitchy", to the other end, where some who can't get it working at all.
In summary from all the reading - as at August 2017, it seems that unless you get a flashed card, it's risky to get an Nvidia card (there is no real guarantee of driver/ongoing support). It may work, it may not work. If it works, there's a high possibility of driver issues, and there's no knowing if future OSX updates will cause further issues.
For a modern/advanced graphics card, my understanding is that Radeon RX 580 is probably one of the safer options (since iMac uses "Radeon Pro" which is effective Radeon RX 570/580 series).
I'll probably go down the RX 580 route.. I see too many threads of 1060/1070/1080 users having driver issues even to this day.
Yes I went with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4G because I read that Gigabyte was the best brand to go with because of it being closest to the reference card. Whatever that means I dunno but it all works.Thanks eyeangle - no particular rush; will wait a couple more weeks to see how Vega affects pricing etc. Did you end up with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4G? Any particular reason you ended up with your particular one (i.e. brand being close to reference card?)
YepAwesome. So it just works out of the box with the exception of boot screen?
I read on this page:
http://www.144hzmonitors.com/best-graphics-card/
...that the RX 560 can work without the power cables. Would this be true for the Mac Pro?
Just do not get the XFX version, it does not work in the Mac Pro, it uses a custom BIOS causing a KP upon boot. Definitely go with Gigabyte or Sapphire, those two brands are verified to work on Mac Pro's.Awesome. So it just works out of the box with the exception of boot screen?
From personal experience the nvidia cards are great. Drivers are stable and installation is easy.
Great to hear you've had a good experience, which particular brand/model of GTX 1080 have you been using? Seems that OS X is better with some brands than others.
I recall a few other threads cautioning against 'high powered' video cards since it was a big unknown how much power is actually being provided - though I haven't seen any issues with users experiencing too much power draw etc
haha! i did exactly that, opened the door to see my 560 fans idol. They are most of the time unless I'm playing a heavy duty game or running Valley Unigine to test them.
I'd think twice about that. I have a 1080 FE I use in Windows on a cMP and that works perfectly.Much fun reading the posts here. Getting me a 1070 FE for my 5,1.