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Mac Pro mid 2012 max resolution?

R

ronnidc

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 5, 2015
6
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Hi everybody,

I own a Mac Pro mid 2012 (the last silver tower Apple made)
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP652?locale=en_US

The specs says that the max resolution is 2560x1600. That makes sense because there where no larger screens available at the time.

But now I am thinking of buying this new monitor which delivers an Ultra Clear 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) Resolution.
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-Computer-Monitor-3840x2160-Truevision/dp/B00UBCVY02

Does anybody know for a fact if I'll be able to use a monitor like this with my Mac Pro mid 2012 ?

Ronni
 
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4K 30Hz should not be a problem. Even the 5770 can output 3840x2160 @30, but this spec may not be good enough for work. Without 60Hz output, the mouse pointer movement won't be smooth, 30Hz also increase the input lag which makes you harder to control the mouse precisely.

But I am not sure if there is any OSX version requirement, AFAIK it works in 10.10 and 10.11.
 
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My graphic card is the ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB

I would definitely prefer a 60Hz output! Will I then need to upgrade to a better/newer card?

What card would you then recommend?
(I use my Mac to work professionally with web development and also do a little photo editing and family video editing for fun).
 
ronnidc said:
My graphic card is the ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB

I would definitely prefer a 60Hz output! Will I then need to upgrade to a better/newer card?

What card would you then recommend?
(I use my Mac to work professionally with web development and also do a little photo editing and family video editing for fun).
Click to expand...


I recommend AMD 7950, buy a PC version and flash it yourself.
 
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ronnidc said:
That sound interesting! I have not done that before. Can you explain the process or perhaps give me a link to a guide? Will it work just fine with Mac OS X, and not just with Windows thru BootCamp?

Is this the card?
http://products.amd.com/en-us/search/Desktop-Graphics/AMD-Radeon™-HD-7000-Series/AMD-Radeon™-HD-7900/AMD-Radeon™-HD-7950/20
Click to expand...

I can provide you with the guide I made some months ago.
Here it is.

Today I got my first 4K monitor as I've wrote over there some hour ago and now I'm troubleshooting the issues I have with 4K display.

Unfortunately you need Windows to flash the card. I've installed Windows 10 on my Mac Pro without BootCamp, only used some drivers from BootCamp package.
 
VAGDesign said:
I can provide you with the guide I made some months ago.
Here it is. ......
Click to expand...

Thank you for your suggestion @VAGDesign. I'm not quit sure if I'm up for it though. I think there are to big a chance for failure for my temper.

When I search for Mac compatible (plug and play) video cards I can only find two. A very expensive one http://www3.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-k5000-for-mac and another one http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sapphire/100352MAC/.

Would the Sapphire 7950 be a good alternative to the AMD 7950?

Does there still exist any other compatible cards for the Mac Pro mid 2012?
 
Sapphire 7950 is the same as AMD 7950. Only the bios rom changes. If you flash it yourself it's the same result.
You can get a Gigabyte 7950 PC version what has a BIOS switch and if you screw up the BIOS on position 2 that is writable, you can simply switch to position 1 and you're good as new.
Imagine I've done it (with several mistakes) on a card that don't have this switch. Do some research, you can do it!

Good luck and don't rush ;) be patient.
 
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As long as you only write to one of the ROM (not both), flash a reference 7950 is almost 100% safe. That's my real experience. Make / find a proper image file may take some time (if you never do it before), but the flash part is very very simple and safe.
 
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ronnidc said:
Thank you for your suggestion @VAGDesign. I'm not quit sure if I'm up for it though. I think there are to big a chance for failure for my temper.
Click to expand...

I recently flashed a 7950 myself, it's incredibly simple to do. I was hesitant at first and thought I would postpone doing it for a while, in the end I installed the card and flashed it an hour later.

Best advice, as @VAGDesign says, "don't rush ;) be patient."
 
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if you want to know what rez you can output google your graphics card and find the specks on the official ati/nvidia site to get max resolution.
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/desktop/5000/5870#
mentions you max at 2560x1600
so if you want to keep your card and want high resolution you can look at 1440p or 1600p displays which are a tad cheaper and tend to have less problems at the mo 4K is still a bit prone to problems.

is there still compatibility problems with some 4K displays?
iv read about some people having problems with them dont know if thats still a thing.

i you buy a ati card make shore it has a DP port (do they all have DP now?)
 
I took the chance and bought the 40" UHD screen. The resolution is fine but as expected and mentioned in this tread the output is reduced to 30Hz, instead of the 60Hz I got with my 2560x1440 screen.

So I will need to upgrade my Graphic card.

philips40.jpeg
 
Yes, our Maxwell cards are only Mac Pro cards with 4K 60hz boot screen . Apple could update the 6,1 to do so but engineers all very busy with "Hello Kitty" emojis for iOS 9.2.

You can put better , more modern GPUs in cMP then are possible in nMP. (For now)
 
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