Nvidia GTX 970 in a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1

[SuperKerem]

Hi guys. I am planning to use a Quad Core 2006 Mac Pro with a Nvidia GTX 970 to create a great gaming machine. I'm guessing the Quad Xeons will be powerful enough to not hold back the graphics! My question is, is it possible to install the card and have enough power to run it? Will I need any cables connecting to the PSU? I have seen a video of the card working fine in a 2009 Mac Pro with the redesigned internals. Will it be able to run OS X Yosemite with a modified boot.efi?

Also, afterwards, will this machine be able to run GTA 5 (or any other modern game) on max settings using Bootcamp? I know for a fact that the GPU would be more than capable enough, it can run GTA 5 at 4k with a perfectly useable FPS!

Finally, if I do decide to do this, I realise that the graphics card will cost more than the whole Mac Pro. :O

http://blog.greggant.com/post/101760367864/installing-a-geforce-gtx760-geforce-gtx770-into-2008-mac

 

[Pressure]

The problem will be those 9 year old processors, if anything, and not the graphic card.

A lot have happened in 9 years in the world of processors. The newest MacBook is probably faster overall, despite being limited to 6 Watt

 

[Synchro3]

I'm guessing the Quad Xeons will be powerful enough to not hold back the graphics!

I think the Mac Pro 1,1 will significantly hold back the GTX 970.

Single Core performance only around 1100: http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

Get a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1.

 

[SuperKerem]

I think the Mac Pro 1,1 will significantly hold back the GTX 970.

Single Core performance only around 1100: http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

Get a Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1.

I would love to get a newer Mac Pro, but doing so would prevent me from spending nearly as much on the GPU, which is what matters the most!

----------

What about an 8 core Xeon 3GHz with a GTX 960 instead? (costs about half the price of the 970)

I'm guessing that would balance out the GPU and CPU capabilities since it is a lower end card.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1740775/

 

[Synchro3]

What about an 8 core Xeon 3GHz with a GTX 960 instead? (costs about half the price of the 970)

I'm guessing that would balance out the GPU and CPU capabilities since it is a lower end card.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1740775/

Single Core performance around 1'400, still slow. Most games require good single core performance.

 

[spoonie1972]

Sorry for reviving this post from the dead...
Will a non-flashed PC GTX960 4gb, or a GTX970 work in a Pikified 2006 running El Cap?

Thanks all.

 

[owbp]

Will a non-flashed PC GTX960 4gb, or a GTX970 work in a Pikified 2006 running El Cap?

Yes, it's only important that GPU is supported buy OS X and Maxwell is since 10.10 (Nvidia Web Drivers are a must).

 

[spoonie1972]

Yes, it's only important that GPU is supported buy OS X and Maxwell is since 10.10 (Nvidia Web Drivers are a must).

So i assume that 10xx cards will be a 'probably never' option for El Capitan users, esp. on a 1,1 or 2,1 machine?

Is there a newer AMD card that works with more than 4GB ram? I see that PC 7950 cards are supposed to be good out of the box - same with the R9 280x?

My goal is to build a machine that works well with AE.

Apologies for all the questions, most of the cards I'm looking at will be used, so I only get one shot to do it right.

 

[owbp]

So i assume that 10xx cards will be a 'probably never' option for El Capitan users, esp. on a 1,1 or 2,1 machine?

Well, Pascal will never work with OS below 10.12.4.
If cMP1,1/2,1 ever reaches Sierra than that will the be the best nVidia GPU for that cMP.

Is there a newer AMD card that works with more than 4GB ram? I see that PC 7950 cards are supposed to be good out of the box - same with the R9 280x?

I'm not sure about AMDs. R9 380 4GB should work in Yosemite and up, but i don't know how driver support is in El Capitan.
HD7950 (same GPU as R9 280) and HD7970 (same as R9 280X) are most powerful GPUs for Mac Pro 1,1/2,1 that can be flashed to give you boot screens and that will behave as official Apple cards.
Having owned both in cMP1,1 i would recommend HD7950/R9280 as a choice since they have lower TDP, lower temperatures and therefor longer life expectancy (i've burned through two R9 280Xs in last couple of years).
And i don't think you'll be able to tell the difference in performance between the two in cMP1,1 - at least i didn't, because you have bottlenecks on many places.

My goal is to build a machine that works well with AE.

If you're gonna use CC 2015-2017, OpenCL compute is greatly improved by Adobe so Nvidia isn't a must like it was years ago.
I'm a bigger fan of Nvidia cards, but for 1,1/2,1 (and few last versions of macOS for that matter) AMD is a safer bet.

 

[spoonie1972]

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks. I ended up going with a GTX780Ti, as the pricepoint used was superb.
I'm already noticing a massive speedup in Blender, i'm sure I'll notice the AE advantages over the GTX570 I was running up until this point.

 

[VanneDC]

Single Core performance around 1'400, still slow. Most games require good single core performance.

i think your selling the old workhorse a tad bit slow..

Mac Pro (8-core)
Single-Core Score Multi-Core Score
1853 / 9225
Geekbench 4.1.3 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)
Result Information
User VanneDC
Upload Date October 16 2017 06:51 AM
Views 1
System Information
System Information
Operating System Mac OS X 10.10.5 (Build 14F27)
Model Mac Pro (8-core)
Motherboard Apple Inc. Mac-F4208DC8 PVT
Memory 32768 MB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Northbridge
Southbridge
BIOS Apple Computer, Inc. MP21.88Z.007F.B06.0707021348
Processor Information
Name Intel Xeon X5365
Topology 2 Processors, 8 Cores
Identifier GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11
Base Frequency 3.00 GHz

I've just built 2 of these boxes for my kids, both with GTX570's in them and they seriously hoot. not sure about GTA5, but they do Minecraft as good as any new computer.