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New Graphics Card For 2008 Mac Pro

R

rainbear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 15, 2016
4
0
Hello Everyone,

I am looking to purchase a new graphics card for my mac pro within the 200 - 400 dollar range.

With my current setup right now I am using my mac for video and photo editing (Premiere, Photoshop and Lightroom) Which has turned out to work nice and smooth.

I've recently bought a game and it just played horribly. With the new graphics card... It would have to handle a game or two.

What would you recommend for me? I greatly appreciate your feedback and thank you in advance.

Mac Pro (Early 2008)
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
12 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
240 SSD
6TB HD
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB

Thanks!
 
Actually I wouldn't recommend those AMD cards. They'll perform like crap unless you do some modifications to the system (which you can't as long as SIP is activated).
Are boot screens needed?
 
I agree with Fl0r!an, if you don't need a boot screen I would go with the GTX 680 but I have a GTX 960 in my 3,1 and I leave my 2600XT plugged into my secondary monitor to get a boot screen. The 960 works great, plays all games at medium to high @60+ FPS in Windows
 
The GTX680 can be easily flashed for free to give a boot screen.

BTW I am amazed that you find Premiere Pro, Photoshop & Lightroom to be 'nice and smooth' with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT. If you do upgrade to a good modern CUDA card like the GTX680 you will find that use in these applications will be much nicer & far smoother.
 
Yeah those applications work just great for me. I've been running my business for 2 years on them. Haha.

Are there any benefits to having a boot screen? I'm assuming none haha.

When you say your games are running great at 60fps in Windows. Are you actually using Windows 10?

I'll be playing a game called rust.

I'm going with your recommendation here.

Great price!

Thanks guys, I appreciate your time!
 
Great choice! I personally went with this one because of the higher frame buffer. You should be getting anywhere from 50-70 FPS on RUST on medium and maybe high, I play games like Euro truck sim, and CS:GO on Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit. To get a boot screen, I just leave in my 2600XT. I do this because my Bootcamp drivers don't work. Make sure you get this cable to power the card.
 
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rainbear said:
Are there any benefits to having a boot screen? I'm assuming none haha.
Click to expand...
You'll get to know the benefits of having a EFI card the first time you're stuck in a black screen reboot loop because the Web Drivers have been messed up. ;)
 
So I've purchased the gtx 960. Plugged it in. Plugged in the power cable.

I turn on the computer and nothing comes on. Them after a while the computer shuts itself off...

What's the problem? I'm running the newest version of osx
 
rainbear said:
So I've purchased the gtx 960. Plugged it in. Plugged in the power cable.

I turn on the computer and nothing comes on. Them after a while the computer shuts itself off...

What's the problem? I'm running the newest version of osx
Click to expand...

Did you install the Nvidia drivers? If not there quite easy to find on google. Also make sure you have it in the correct Pcie slot.
 
alechy said:
Did you install the Nvidia drivers? If not there quite easy to find on google. Also make sure you have it in the correct Pcie slot.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming it's the same Pcie slot that my stock card was in?
 
I have a quick question to add to this discussion. So I am looking to do the same thing with almost the same setup. If i get the 960 card, i know it says it can do 4K will the mac be able to handle that without any issue. I am worried about heat and ability to run at 4K. One other thing. I know everyone says use one of the 6 pin to 6 pin cables, but some cards come with a 6 pin double to a 8 pin. Can that be used?

Thanks
 
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pastrychef said:
Personally, I'd have gone with a GTX 680 for the native support of OS X. The fact that it's easily flashed for boot screen is another huge advantage.
Click to expand...
This is the choice that I made. The only downside is that it's all but impossible to find a new GTX680 for sale so while a used GTX680 is cheap it is used & has no warranty.
 
I agree with Pastrychef and Nigelbb 100%. Although for flashing, just don't get a weird variant.

I got a PC GTX680 and flashed it. Used it for a couple of years. Sold it on Ebay for more than I bought it for, because people pay more for flashed cards. Best upgrade value ever.
 
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ActionableMango said:
I agree with Pastrychef and Nigelbb 100%. Although for flashing just don't get a weird variant.

I got a PC GTX680 and flashed it. Used it for a couple of years. Sold it on Ebay for more than I bought it for, because people pay more for flashed cards. Best upgrade value ever.
Click to expand...
I have flashed a couple of EVGA cards that look identical to the reference design with a single fan. One was an overclocked FTW variant (which presumably now runs at stock speed). Flashing the GTX680 was super easy after I had overcome the hurdle of getting Windows running with Bootcamp on my Mac Pro as I have no Windows machines apart from an old Dell laptop. The £100 premium for a flashed versus unflashed GTX680 is such that I briefly considered going into the business but then decided against it on recalling the stories that Macvidcards describes with regarding the stupidity of some of his customers & the resulting nightmare support issues.
 
nigelbb said:
I have flashed a couple of EVGA cards that look identical to the reference design with a single fan. One was an overclocked FTW variant (which presumably now runs at stock speed). Flashing the GTX680 was super easy after I had overcome the hurdle of getting Windows running with Bootcamp on my Mac Pro as I have no Windows machines apart from an old Dell laptop. The £100 premium for a flashed versus unflashed GTX680 is such that I briefly considered going into the business but then decided against it on recalling the stories that Macvidcards describes with regarding the stupidity of some of his customers & the resulting nightmare support issues.
Click to expand...

I had a FTW edition also. You can restore the FTW clock timings with Kepler Tweaker. Benchmarks showed improvements, but my eyeballs didn't. Still, it was nice to have it on the factory clocks it was designed to have.

I also briefly tried the faster Signature clocks, because why not, but strangely enough that actually slowed it down.

If you are interested, here are the clock values to change in Kepler Tweaker:

Reference GTX 680
Base: 1006
Boost: 1058
Memory: 3004

eVGA FTW
Base: 1058
Boost: 1113
Memory: 3104

I've been told that doing this in Kepler BIOS Tweaker only changes the BIOS side and not the EFI side. But I observed that the improvement occurs in both Windows and OS X, as confirmed by measuring results.
 
rainbear said:
I'm assuming it's the same Pcie slot that my stock card was in?
Click to expand...

Did you finally get the 960 working? How do you like it. I am looking at the same card myself. Did you flash it or just wait for the home screen to come on?
 
Hi Guys, I have a Mac Pro 2.1 running Yosemite (thanks to this site) my problem is when I play a vid or access BBC Iplayer to watch the graphic card fan ramps up or maybe other fans as well and drowns out the sound of the vid.

Would upgrading my graphics card sort that out and if so can anyone recommend one off Ebay ? I have a ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB card in at present.

Thanks

Keith
 
Thanks for the info, I am trying to source one, but its a little out of my price range at the minute, only got £100 to £150 at present.
 
KeithJohn said:
Thanks for the info, I am trying to source one, but its a little out of my price range at the minute, only got £100 to £150 at present.
Click to expand...
The absolute cheapest option is a used GTX570. However a used GTX680 will be within your budget & has similar performance but can be easily flashed by you to give an Apple boot screen & will run quieter & cooler plus run up to four monitors.
 
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