Nvidia 7950GTX in Macpro?

[damado]

They already tried it, and it works, but you have to switch displays to! So they are working around it now. They have copied the EFI files of the 7300 rom and put that in a pc 7800. Guess what, it boots into Os X as well! But you still don't have the appropriate drivers to get all the power out of it plus at the downside of the MacPro, you are missing the extra power that you'll need to give to the high-end graphics card. You can however take it from the second DVD drive with a hack/mod. The guys at strangedogs are working on it!!

Won't this work? http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186&products_id=2910

Looking at some mac pro mobo pics, it looks like it's the right one.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

They already tried it, and it works, but you have to switch displays to! So they are working around it now. They have copied the EFI files of the 7300 rom and put that in a pc 7800. Guess what, it boots into Os X as well! But you still don't have the appropriate drivers to get all the power out of it plus at the downside of the MacPro, you are missing the extra power that you'll need to give to the high-end graphics card. You can however take it from the second DVD drive with a hack/mod. The guys at strangedogs are working on it!!

This is *fantastic* news. They should try to get hold of the quadro rom and flash the 7800 with that. I'd much rather have a 7800 in there than the ATI card.

 

[I'mAMac]

ATI fanboy eh? SLI is meant for ultra high resolution as in Apple and Dell 30" screens with a huge number of pixels to push. At lower resolutions a single card can easily compete with two. There's nothing wrong with the 1900xt, its just that a 7950 GX2 >> 1900xt but then you have to bear in mind that 7950 GX2 costs >> 1900xt.

Not an ATI fanboy, I just think at this point in time ATI has the better card and better technology, next time it may be nvidia.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Not an ATI fanboy, I just think at this point in time ATI has the better card and better technology, next time it may be nvidia.

That's fair enough. I like the idea of having an nVidia card in there that you could always pair with another one later in the day. SLI is far more mature than crossfire and with the right drivers works on the Mac Pros (in Windows).

 

[I'mAMac]

That's fair enough. I like the idea of having an nVidia card in there that you could always pair with another one later in the day. SLI is far more mature than crossfire and with the right drivers works on the Mac Pros (in Windows).

Yeah SLI is better than crossfire when they get that right then it will be pretty much even and just depends on what's better at the time.

 

[sirnh]

Won't this work? http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186&products_id=2910

Looking at some mac pro mobo pics, it looks like it's the right one.

Thanks for pointing that out. I ordered a couple of them myself. I will let you know if they are compatible. I have a spare PC Quadro 4500 with no way to power it. I have been waiting for something like this. I also have an open firmware version of the same card. I am hoping that one of the two can be UGA flashed.

 

[mlambert890]

Not sure who "barefeats" are as I tend to ignore the Mac "enthusiast" sites despite having been multi-platform forever, but plenty of people are running PC PCIe cards on the Mac Pro already, and its just getting started. Just search any of the PC enthusiast site forums and you will see it.

Apple may have enjoyed stranglehold control over their platform when they stuck with a PowerPC based machine that only ran their OS, but now that they have let the genie out of the bottle and released an Intel based machine that can boot XP, the game is over.

This is a sacrifice they will have to make for some increased marketshare for their hardware. The PC world is like the Borg. Utterly relentless. The Mac Pro is a *very* nice piece of kit. It's going to get hacked apart until it can be properly compared to a comparable PC running Windows XP and Linux with the same parts. Enjoy the ride! I know that Ill probably be upgrading my old tired G4 dual to a Mac Pro 3Ghz. This will be the first real investment in Apple hardware I've made in a long time.

The first thing I'll be doing is dropping my X1900XTX into it (Ill hand it down from my AMD FX62 system which will be moving to a DX10 vid card around the time I get the Mac) and installing Windows 2003 Enterprise.

 

[slughead]

Thanks for pointing that out. I ordered a couple of them myself. I will let you know if they are compatible. I have a spare PC Quadro 4500 with no way to power it. I have been waiting for something like this. I also have an open firmware version of the same card. I am hoping that one of the two can be UGA flashed.

If it uses a MOLEX connector, try using a regular PC power supply. Simply take the green wire on the motherboard connector and ground it out (jam a paper clip in the plug and connected to a black one). This will turn the power supply on.

Do this, connect it to the card, leave the case open, and THEN turn the mac pro on--in that order.

 

[superorc]

Do this, connect it to the card, leave the case open, and THEN turn the mac pro on--in that order.

I did something like that at first then ran a power connector from the spare optical drive power connector to my 7800 GT. Now I'm just still stuck with having to switch the DVI connector when I reboot to get my 7800GT working in OS X.

 

[hondaboy945]

Can someone clarify. The Quadro FX 4500 works just fine palying games, Maya,3DSM, Solidworks,etc. It is expensive but it does work. If you are a game designer I see this as a plus. Design the game, play the game. But that is why I want clarification.

 

[aiongiant]

so beenawhile since anyone has tried a 7950GX2 on Mac Pro
any new updates?
i still plan to get this card very soon.. and don't wan tto buy it only to have it not work with the mac pro and be unreturnable

as far as i gathered theres ppl on the net that claim ttha 7950 works in windows but screwes up OSX causes a kernal panic or something

so is there a work around it? or maybe possible to turn off that slot?

thanks