Mac Pro - GeForce 7900GTX works in Boot Camp

[wizz0bang]

Ars technica has a good article on the MacPro which sheds some light on the lack of crossfire using this motherboard:

Unfortunately, the lack of ability to have two 16-lane slots going at the same time rules out x16 Crossfire and SLI configurations. This is a limitation of the Intel 5000X chipset, which can only support 28 total PCI Express lanes. Assuming Crossfire or SLI video cards become available for the Mac Pro, there is no reason why it wouldn't be able to handle an x8 Crossfire or SLI configuration.

See the page here:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macpro.ars/4

Perhaps the default PCIe configuration of 16x1x4x4 is what was limiting the user on this forum from running crossfire under Windows? Perhaps if he changes it to 8x8x4x4 it will work (two 8 lanes in crossfire) for his two 7300 cards.

 

[tobyg]

Ars technica has a good article on the MacPro which sheds some light on the lack of crossfire using this motherboard:



See the page here:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macpro.ars/4

Perhaps the default PCIe configuration of 16x1x4x4 is what was limiting the user on this forum from running crossfire under Windows? Perhaps if he changes it to 8x8x4x4 it will work (two 8 lanes in crossfire) for his two 7300 cards.

First of all, 7300's would use SLI and not crossfire.

And second, I tried them in the slots configured as 16x1x4x4 and also 8x8x4x4, so basically both of my 7300's were at 8x. Still couldn't get SLI to work. I'm guessing it is just not compatible with this chipset. That's ok, I am just going to run my 7800 GTX in Windows.

 

[wizz0bang]

First of all, 7300's would use SLI and not crossfire.

Pardon me for the slip up.

 

[isgoed]

Well in the past, the only way around it was to remove the 64k chip and solder on a new chip. Not easy to do.

SOMETIMES you could find a manufacturer that used a 128k rom chip on a PC card. Rarely that happened, but it did.

The 128k rom is probably not something anyone 'did' specifically just to screw everyone, but it's something that is required in order to fit the firmware on the card in order to work in an Apple system. 128k roms were used on ATI and Nvidia cards. New video cards for PC's (as you can see, my XFX 7300 GT is a pretty new card) do not necessarily need 128k roms either, so they still have 64k roms.

Well instead of trying that, maybe you could try something much more obvious and simpler: A macpro with two stock Apple geForce 7300GT's. Maybe they would work in SLI under windows. Or since you are doing windows anyhow, why not make it really interesting and get hold of a 2nd 7800 GTX and try that in SLI with that other 7800 of yours!

 

[Fadl]

First of all, 7300's would use SLI and not crossfire.

And second, I tried them in the slots configured as 16x1x4x4 and also 8x8x4x4, so basically both of my 7300's were at 8x. Still couldn't get SLI to work. I'm guessing it is just not compatible with this chipset. That's ok, I am just going to run my 7800 GTX in Windows.

For SLI with an Intel based board you need a special driver(cracked).

There are some floating around in the internet. Here is one: http://steffbard.com/drv/85.96_mod.exe

Maybe it will support the intel 5000x. Maybe not.

 

[sdshannon]

First of all, 7300's would use SLI and not crossfire.

And second, I tried them in the slots configured as 16x1x4x4 and also 8x8x4x4, so basically both of my 7300's were at 8x. Still couldn't get SLI to work. I'm guessing it is just not compatible with this chipset. That's ok, I am just going to run my 7800 GTX in Windows.

i don't remember if you said your 7800 GTX is from a PMac Quad or if its retail "PC" version? Or is the PMac version a GT not a GTX. Thanks, oh and thanks for all the research and testing and all that jazz you have been hooking us up with!!!

 

[tobyg]

Well instead of trying that, maybe you could try something much more obvious and simpler: A macpro with two stock Apple geForce 7300GT's. Maybe they would work in SLI under windows. Or since you are doing windows anyhow, why not make it really interesting and get hold of a 2nd 7800 GTX and try that in SLI with that other 7800 of yours!

Well, the XFX 7300 GT and Apple 7300 GT DO work in SLI mode on my AMD 3400+ system with a nForce4 SLI chipset. So it's not a matter of the cards not working together in SLI, they do. It must be that, as the drivers told me, the motherboard in the macpro just doesn't support SLI. We knew that was probably true, but I did read on one site that its possible the 5000x chipset would support Crossfire and SLI. But I tried, and it doesn't work.

So to that point, there is no reason to get another 7800 GTX to try SLI in the Mac Pro.

 

[tobyg]

For SLI with an Intel based board you need a special driver(cracked).

There are some floating around in the internet. Here is one: http://steffbard.com/drv/85.96_mod.exe

Maybe it will support the intel 5000x. Maybe not.

Interesting. I will try this in a few moments.

Edit: Your link doesn't work. Know of another place to get this driver?

 

[Fadl]

Interesting. I will try this in a few moments.

Edit: Your link doesn't work. Know of another place to get this driver?

Give me your email and I will send it to you.

 

[tobyg]

Well this hacked driver does allow SLI to work. However, I am getting similar bluescreens in XP when I enable SLI and then go back into the properties of the video card. This time I just enabled SLI and then started 3dmark2006. It's running right now and I can see it's faster, but even 2 7300 GT's isn't a match for the 7800 GTX.

So, it is possible (with hacked old nvidia drivers) to run SLI on this board. Not sure how supported or well this would run long term, being hacked drivers, but they do work.

 

[Kingsly]

You're the first report of someone successfully getting Boot Camp to let them load Windows. Did Apple release a new version that I don't know about?

BootCamp works fine for me.

My guess is the latest BootCamp release contained the necessary drivers for MacPro hardware...

Not that that has anything to do with the OP.

 

[tobyg]

Ok here is another interesting finding.

7800 GTX in slot 1
7300 GT in slot 2

Official Nvidia drivers only seem to see the adapter in the first slot (slot 1 in this case, but if I were using slot 3 and 4, it would see the card in slot 3 first). Windows doesn't even see the 7300 GT.

Now, with the hacked SLI drivers, I am actually able to enable the 7300 GT and do multiple monitors (extend my desktop), 7800 GTX and 7300 GT both driving their own monitor. Not very useful overall I guess, as you can just drive multiple monitors off of the 7800 GTX or 7300 GT alone, but I thought it was interesting.

Of course, I'm talking about running under XP, not OSX. OSX is still a bad host to the 7800 GTX and won't even say hi to it. Just kinda shrugs it off and thinks it's 'all that' and too good to talk to my 7800 GTX.

 

[JNaut]

I tried that too... 7900GTX in slot 1 and 7300 in slot 2 with the normal nvidia Windows drivers. It works great! When I want to switch back to Mac OS, I just have to plug the monitor back into the 7300 and all is well.

So now I have the 7900GTX working in Windows with network drivers and sound. All we need is some SATA drivers that don't suck and we're good to go.

 

[JNaut]

I just got through running some benchmarks on the Mac Pro w/7900GTX via 3dmark06. I think those who bought a Mac Pro for part- or full-time Windows gaming are going to be very, very happy.

I won't bore everyone with all the details, but here are the best parts (compared to my old gaming PC):

3DMark Score (3DMarks)
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 6560
Athlon XP 2.4GHz 5054

CPU Score (Marks)
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 3829
Athlon XP 2.4GHz 960

 

[aiongiant]

I just got through running some benchmarks on the Mac Pro w/7900GTX via 3dmark06. I think those who bought a Mac Pro for part- or full-time Windows gaming are going to be very, very happy.

I won't bore everyone with all the details, but here are the best parts (compared to my old gaming PC):

3DMark Score (3DMarks)
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 6560
Athlon XP 2.4GHz 5054

CPU Score (Marks)
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 3829
Athlon XP 2.4GHz 960

sweeet thats definetly good news!!!
anyone know of anyone that has tried a 7950GX2 on the MacPro?

man can't wait to get my MacPro!

 

[G5guy]

Well this hacked driver does allow SLI to work. However, I am getting similar bluescreens in XP when I enable SLI and then go back into the properties of the video card. This time I just enabled SLI and then started 3dmark2006. It's running right now and I can see it's faster, but even 2 7300 GT's isn't a match for the 7800 GTX.

So, it is possible (with hacked old nvidia drivers) to run SLI on this board. Not sure how supported or well this would run long term, being hacked drivers, but they do work.

So what was the difference in SLI mode? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[hadleydb]

I just got through running some benchmarks on the Mac Pro w/7900GTX via 3dmark06. I think those who bought a Mac Pro for part- or full-time Windows gaming are going to be very, very happy.

I won't bore everyone with all the details, but here are the best parts (compared to my old gaming PC):

3DMark Score (3DMarks)
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 6560
Athlon XP 2.4GHz 5054

CPU Score (Marks)
Mac Pro 2.66GHz 3829
Athlon XP 2.4GHz 960

Too cool! I can't wait to order mine now. I have a 7900GTX just waiting to put into a system. My current gaming rig gets 6500 in 3Dmark05, so I couldn't imagine getting a score of 6560 in 06! That is just too awesome!

Thanks for the info!

 

[purelithium]

I don't know... that's not much faster than my AMD X2 3800+ system with a 7900GT that's overclocked from the factory...

Hmm... makes me not really want one right away now. I think I'll still sell my AMD and get an Xbox 360 for games, use MacBook for everything else.

 

[purelithium]

Too cool! I can't wait to order mine now. I have a 7900GTX just waiting to put into a system. My current gaming rig gets 6500 in 3Dmark05, so I couldn't imagine getting a score of 6560 in 06! That is just too awesome!

Thanks for the info!

I can't see anywhere that he says he used '06...

 

[aiongiant]

I can't see anywhere that he says he used '06...

he 06 scoring system is much differnt from the 05... so getting a 6000 score means hes using 06...05 it will be in like the 20,000+ range or whatever i can't recall whats a normal score for 05 anymore hehe but you get the point

I don't know... that's not much faster than my AMD X2 3800+ system with a 7900GT that's overclocked from the factory...

Hmm... makes me not really want one right away now. I think I'll still sell my AMD and get an Xbox 360 for games, use MacBook for everything else.

does 3d mark even support multi cpu platforms?
i think the bad sata driver support affects alot of the score?

 

[JNaut]

he 06 scoring system is much differnt from the 05... so getting a 6000 score means hes using 06...05 it will be in like the 20,000+ range or whatever i can't recall whats a normal score for 05 anymore hehe but you get the point



does 3d mark even support multi cpu platforms?
i think the bad sata driver support affects alot of the score?

I was using 06, but I can run the 05 test if you want to compare...

I don't think the SATA performance would affect the score. It just takes a long time to load between tests.

 

[CyberDoberman]

I was using 06, but I can run the 05 test if you want to compare...

I don't think the SATA performance would affect the score. It just takes a long time to load between tests.

As a point of reference, in Quake 4, at 1280x1024 with ALL GOODIES turn on, HIGH QUALITY (not Ultra), and 4x AA, on my 2.66 Mac Pro w/ CRAPOLA 7300GT CARD, I'm seeing about 40-60fps in most areas, with about 20-30 fps in areas of INTENSE fighting.

Not tooooo bad, I guess. Really shows off the power of the processors, though. (Oh, this is in Windows. I actually wiped OS X off the computer, only running XP on it at the moment... )... Will be FREAKING AWESOME when I get a better video card, more ram, and the hard disk working correctly.

Only problem running Windows XP so far on the Mac Pro is...

HARD DISK SPEED IS HORRIBLE. AVERAGING 2.5-3.5 MB/S MAXIMUM transfer rates on the HDD.

Oooooooops. I'm sure a bootcamp fix will solve that... ugh... growing pains.

 

[gekko513]

(Oh, this is in Windows. I actually wiped OS X off the computer, only running XP on it at the moment... )

Vandalism...

 

[odedia]

I got this answers from an apple engineer who works on the Mac Pro project. Hope it answers some of our queries about the heat sink issue of the ram and the popular video card question. Though the conclusion dims our hope about running any PC graphics card in OS X. However, i think that any standard pc 7300 GT, X1900 XT, quadro 4500 will work since drivers for this 3 cards are already in the mac pro. Using card of other models might not be possible unless some genius comes up with a way. Enjoy reading, its long but worth ur time! Bold words are his answers.

Ask him what for the love of god is happening with the macbook pros and the heat they release.

 

[chiamon]

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