MacPro upgrade

[ivicyrusivi]

Hi all!

I have a MacPro (early 2009) with the following specs:
2.66 QC xeon
3gb 1066 ddr3 ecc
Nvidia GeForce GT 120 512mb
Raid card

I wanted to give it a fairly big upgrade (ram and perhaps a new gfx card)

Ram:
I understand I need to get DDR3 1066MHz (ecc preferably) chips. When I look on say crucial it only recommends 3x4gb chips, and doesn't even mention 8gb chips.

I've found a offtek 16gb kit (2x8gb - part:FTIN3T8GRYGG/2) for a fairly decent price (~£115) and was wondering if these are compatible (same specs, but thought I'd double check with you lot )

Specs:
240 pin dimm
DDR 3-8500 (pc3-1066)
ECC

Anyone got any experience with offtek? Or know why similar chips aren't listed on crucial? Or any ideas of a better deal, or maybe single 16gb chip?


Any insite would be appreciated

Cheers!

 

[CaptainChunk]

1. It's usually best to stick with RAM that has Apple-recommended specs. OWC sells compatible 2x8GB ECC kits for $137.99 US, but I'm not sure what costs would be involved with international shipping. You can actually go up to 48GB in a quad-core machine, but it requires using registered 16GB DIMMs of matching part numbers (OWC also sells the correct ones) that can't be mixed/matched with other densities.

2. For graphics cards, your three official (turn-key) choices are:

• Apple-branded ATI Radeon 5770
• Apple-branded ATI Radeon 5870
• PNY NVIDIA Quadro 4000 (Mac version)

Depending on what version of OS X you are running, many PC Radeon 6870s and NVIDIA cards will work without much trouble, but you won't get an Apple boot screen and you'll be limited to 2.5 GT/s link speed, due to the lack of EFI firmware. Macvidcards offers a pretty good selection of EFI-modified NVIDIA cards that will give boot screens and full 5 GT/s link speeds on their eBay store.

 

[ivicyrusivi]

Thanks for the reply!

Ahh so if i go the 16gb chip route ill need to go the registered route... something like this ok?
Crucial 16GB Memory Module PC3-8500 1066MHz DDR3 Registered ECC CL7 240-pin

I'm running 10.8, but i think an EFI gfx card is a must for me. However, if i dont go the EFI route - whilst the mac boots, will it automatically utilise the original card for that stage? If it does, i could just hook it up with an alternate source on my screen!

Thanks again