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Radeon 6870 confirmed working in Mac Pro 1,1
- Thread starter green86
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My Mac Pro 1,1 is working fine with an XFX Radeon 6870 now, thanks to this thread. No problems with Final Cut Pro X. I found this thread on flashing the card, but looks like it won't work on my (pre-2008) Mac Pro. Anyone know if there's a way to get the boot screen with Mac Pro 1,1 and 6870 card? The ATY_init is just for making certain apps working--not for providing boot screen, is that right?
That's right. As of today, you would need a second graphic card plugged into another PCIe slot to display the boot screen on pre-2008 MP's. Ideally one that does not need external power, such as the 7300GT that came originally installed.
Thanks for the reply. I still have the 7300 that came installed, and I think there are open PCIe slots...so I can have both installed without conflicts?
Yes - actually I'm running this configuration myself. Once you move the 7300 to the uppermost slot and install the 6870, upon next system start the PCIe slot configuration utility will come up and you can assign a maximum of 8 lanes to the 7300. There will be a warning that the 7300 is not running at full speed, but you can safely ignore that.
A few newbie questions regarding using a PC graphics card in my Mac Pro
I just purchased a Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) for my Mac Pro 3,1 (early 2008). I am unable to get it up and running because I cannot buy the special (Apple 922-8945 Graphic Booster Power Cable) at any local computer dealers. I am about to order a cable from an online reseller and I am wondering if I need two of these special cables?
I have seen some YouTube videos and I have seen some pictures in some threads that show people connecting two power cables from the card to the motherboard but I am a little skeptical. The card only came with one power cord for connecting it to a standard PC box, why would the Mac require two?
Can I use the power cable from my DVD drive to run the video card. If so, what cables/adapters are required and how many cables would I plug into the video card, one or two?
Also, I read that this card did not require any modification/flashing to get it to work on OSX 10.6.8 or 10.7.3. Can someone please confirm if this is accurate? If flashing is optional, what would I gain by flashing the card and where do I go to download the latest software for flashing it.
I just purchased a Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) for my Mac Pro 3,1 (early 2008). I am unable to get it up and running because I cannot buy the special (Apple 922-8945 Graphic Booster Power Cable) at any local computer dealers. I am about to order a cable from an online reseller and I am wondering if I need two of these special cables?
I have seen some YouTube videos and I have seen some pictures in some threads that show people connecting two power cables from the card to the motherboard but I am a little skeptical. The card only came with one power cord for connecting it to a standard PC box, why would the Mac require two?
Can I use the power cable from my DVD drive to run the video card. If so, what cables/adapters are required and how many cables would I plug into the video card, one or two?
Also, I read that this card did not require any modification/flashing to get it to work on OSX 10.6.8 or 10.7.3. Can someone please confirm if this is accurate? If flashing is optional, what would I gain by flashing the card and where do I go to download the latest software for flashing it.
See post #76. Yes, you need 2 cables, and it's very unlikely that you'll find them at any computer or electronics store. There's a link earlier in this thread where you can buy them online. I hooked a 6870 card up to my MP with one cable, and although the fan worked, nothing else did. I don't know why two cables are needed, but the 6870 cards (mine at least) has two sockets for cables.
I don't know about using the DVD cable.
Yes, it's accurate--for me anyway. I didn't do any flashing, all I did was replace the card and connect two power cables. The only limitation is that you won't see a bootup screen--your display will be black until the computer is fully booted. Earlier in the thread I think is a link to where you can get the software for flashing.
All correct...
Just verifying that I have this same card running in my 2008 Mac Pro and all of the info, below, is exactly what I found too.
I will say, though ... if you *really* want to pick up power cables locally? One option you might have is to buy a couple pairs of 6-pin PCI-Express power extension cables, cut the female ends off of them, and splice two of the remaining male ends together to make each one of your video card power cables you need.
These types of cables may be difficult to find locally too, but I know my local Micro Center store had them in stock for $6.99 each. At that price, you can buy a pair of them for no more (maybe even less) than what I remember the mail order places charging for the correct Mac video card power cable.
Just verifying that I have this same card running in my 2008 Mac Pro and all of the info, below, is exactly what I found too.
I will say, though ... if you *really* want to pick up power cables locally? One option you might have is to buy a couple pairs of 6-pin PCI-Express power extension cables, cut the female ends off of them, and splice two of the remaining male ends together to make each one of your video card power cables you need.
These types of cables may be difficult to find locally too, but I know my local Micro Center store had them in stock for $6.99 each. At that price, you can buy a pair of them for no more (maybe even less) than what I remember the mail order places charging for the correct Mac video card power cable.
I have a Micro Center just up the street from me. They have this 6-pin PCI power extension cable in stock. They don't have a great picture of it. Can anyone confirm if this is the cable that I need?
I have read that some people are using the power from their unused DVD drive bay. If I use this instead of the motherboard power connections do I still need to run two of them into the card. If yes, am I able to take the unused DVD power cable, put a splitter on it, and then run the two cables into the card?
Sorry for the newbie questions, I have never hooked one of these up before and I don't have good understanding on how the power/voltages, etc. work and I don't want to damage my computer. I can't afford to buy a new one right now if I mess something up.
I have read that some people are using the power from their unused DVD drive bay. If I use this instead of the motherboard power connections do I still need to run two of them into the card. If yes, am I able to take the unused DVD power cable, put a splitter on it, and then run the two cables into the card?
Sorry for the newbie questions, I have never hooked one of these up before and I don't have good understanding on how the power/voltages, etc. work and I don't want to damage my computer. I can't afford to buy a new one right now if I mess something up.
Radeon 6870 buying advice for Photoshop and Maya?
I currently have two ATI Radeon HD 2600's connected to three 27" displays in my Mac Pro 3.1 (early 2008). One of my 2600 just died and I am trying to replace it. Hopefully with a single card that is faster and that can run all three displays.
I am not doing any gaming. I am using Photoshop, Maya, Cinema 4D and FCP.
Will the Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) be much faster than my current ATI Radeon HD 2600 with these apps?
I also came across the AMD Radeon HD 6870 2GB at New Egg for $220. I assume more memory is better but I have had a hard time finding out what the performance differences are between all of the different models of the 6870. Can someone please tell me if this card would be better for the apps that I am using than the Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD)?
I probably should have asked these questions before buying a card.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
I currently have two ATI Radeon HD 2600's connected to three 27" displays in my Mac Pro 3.1 (early 2008). One of my 2600 just died and I am trying to replace it. Hopefully with a single card that is faster and that can run all three displays.
I am not doing any gaming. I am using Photoshop, Maya, Cinema 4D and FCP.
Will the Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) be much faster than my current ATI Radeon HD 2600 with these apps?
I also came across the AMD Radeon HD 6870 2GB at New Egg for $220. I assume more memory is better but I have had a hard time finding out what the performance differences are between all of the different models of the 6870. Can someone please tell me if this card would be better for the apps that I am using than the Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD)?
I probably should have asked these questions before buying a card.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Yep...
That's the cable I was referring to.
I really don't think you want to mess around with trying to tap power for the video card off the power connector intended for the second DVD drive. It's possible that will work, but the reason these video cards use two power connections to the motherboard is because they draw so much wattage when doing a lot of 3D rendering. They split the load across both sets of power connections so not too much is drawn through one set of power wires.
Not only that, but you might want to use that power connector for another drive someday. I know some people installed a mounting bracket in there and installed an SSD drive, for example, making it the boot drive -- and allowing you to still have as many as 4 SATA hard drives in the normal trays of the Mac Pro.
That's the cable I was referring to.
I really don't think you want to mess around with trying to tap power for the video card off the power connector intended for the second DVD drive. It's possible that will work, but the reason these video cards use two power connections to the motherboard is because they draw so much wattage when doing a lot of 3D rendering. They split the load across both sets of power connections so not too much is drawn through one set of power wires.
Not only that, but you might want to use that power connector for another drive someday. I know some people installed a mounting bracket in there and installed an SSD drive, for example, making it the boot drive -- and allowing you to still have as many as 4 SATA hard drives in the normal trays of the Mac Pro.
I have a Micro Center just up the street from me. They have this 6-pin PCI power extension cable in stock. They don't have a great picture of it. Can anyone confirm if this is the cable that I need?
I have read that some people are using the power from their unused DVD drive bay. If I use this instead of the motherboard power connections do I still need to run two of them into the card. If yes, am I able to take the unused DVD power cable, put a splitter on it, and then run the two cables into the card?
Sorry for the newbie questions, I have never hooked one of these up before and I don't have good understanding on how the power/voltages, etc. work and I don't want to damage my computer. I can't afford to buy a new one right now if I mess something up.
re: replacing HD 2600's
Yeah... the HD 6870 is a *far* faster card than the HD 2600, so I can't imagine why you wouldn't see a performance improvement across the board.
I've never run more than 2 simultaneous displays though, so I can't say for sure about running 3 at once from one card. I know it's supposed to be an option, but whether or not that starts to slow the card down, I can't say?
Possibly you can even run 2 displays off the 6870 and keep the one good 2600 installed in another slot, running the 3rd. display, and that might be optimal? I'm just not even sure if that's a supported configuration.
Yeah... the HD 6870 is a *far* faster card than the HD 2600, so I can't imagine why you wouldn't see a performance improvement across the board.
I've never run more than 2 simultaneous displays though, so I can't say for sure about running 3 at once from one card. I know it's supposed to be an option, but whether or not that starts to slow the card down, I can't say?
Possibly you can even run 2 displays off the 6870 and keep the one good 2600 installed in another slot, running the 3rd. display, and that might be optimal? I'm just not even sure if that's a supported configuration.
I currently have two ATI Radeon HD 2600's connected to three 27" displays in my Mac Pro 3.1 (early 2008). One of my 2600 just died and I am trying to replace it. Hopefully with a single card that is faster and that can run all three displays.
I am not doing any gaming. I am using Photoshop, Maya, Cinema 4D and FCP.
Will the Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) be much faster than my current ATI Radeon HD 2600 with these apps?
I also came across the AMD Radeon HD 6870 2GB at New Egg for $220. I assume more memory is better but I have had a hard time finding out what the performance differences are between all of the different models of the 6870. Can someone please tell me if this card would be better for the apps that I am using than the Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD)?
I probably should have asked these questions before buying a card.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Sorry, I must be missing something. Are you suggesting that I can splice two of those cables together so it has the exact same connector on both ends?
In this photo of the official Apple video card booster cable ( maybe it's just the scale and one is closer to the the camera) but the ends appear to be different.
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re: splicing cables
Yeah, isn't that what my original post said?
The cable from Micro Center I referenced is a 6-pin male to female cable, intended to simply act as an extension cable to plug another 6-pin power cable into it. The male end of it is the same connector that's found on both sides of the original Apple video card power cable though. So you could use 2 of them to make what you need, as long as you're comfortable with cutting the female ends off of both cables and soldering all of the wires together.
(If you don't want to solder, you could even use those 3m crimp connectors with a crimping tool to connect the wires together. I just know from doing car stereo installations, soldering is always preferred.)
It's a little bit of work, but you only have 6 wires to connect to the proper 6 wires on the other cable -- so not a *huge* task. It looks like it saves money over buying the proper cable and would be faster than mail ordering one and waiting days for it to arrive.
Yeah, isn't that what my original post said?
The cable from Micro Center I referenced is a 6-pin male to female cable, intended to simply act as an extension cable to plug another 6-pin power cable into it. The male end of it is the same connector that's found on both sides of the original Apple video card power cable though. So you could use 2 of them to make what you need, as long as you're comfortable with cutting the female ends off of both cables and soldering all of the wires together.
(If you don't want to solder, you could even use those 3m crimp connectors with a crimping tool to connect the wires together. I just know from doing car stereo installations, soldering is always preferred.)
It's a little bit of work, but you only have 6 wires to connect to the proper 6 wires on the other cable -- so not a *huge* task. It looks like it saves money over buying the proper cable and would be faster than mail ordering one and waiting days for it to arrive.
re: splicing cables
Ok... now I have to admit you've got me second-guessing myself here.
I *was* indeed suggesting you would splice two of those cables together to get the exact same 6-pin male connector on both sides.
(I *think* that photo you referenced just makes the one connector appear larger than the other because they magnify it, since it's closer to the camera/screen than the other end.)
But I just searched on eBay, and see descriptions of the proper video power cable as saying, "Mini 6-Pin to 6-Pin PCIe" and so forth. (Do they mean mini 6-pin is a different connector than 6-Pin PCIe", or is that just the way they worded it?)
If I get a chance, maybe I'll just take apart my Mac Pro and verify this for sure, because though I *think* I'm correct, I don't want to tell you to go buy these cables, cut them up and splice them together, and then the end that plugs into the Mac Pro motherboard doesn't fit ....
Ok... now I have to admit you've got me second-guessing myself here.
I *was* indeed suggesting you would splice two of those cables together to get the exact same 6-pin male connector on both sides.
(I *think* that photo you referenced just makes the one connector appear larger than the other because they magnify it, since it's closer to the camera/screen than the other end.)
But I just searched on eBay, and see descriptions of the proper video power cable as saying, "Mini 6-Pin to 6-Pin PCIe" and so forth. (Do they mean mini 6-pin is a different connector than 6-Pin PCIe", or is that just the way they worded it?)
If I get a chance, maybe I'll just take apart my Mac Pro and verify this for sure, because though I *think* I'm correct, I don't want to tell you to go buy these cables, cut them up and splice them together, and then the end that plugs into the Mac Pro motherboard doesn't fit ....
Argh! Sure is!
I did, however, find a place that sells the cable at a pretty good price:
http://www.moddiy.com/products/Apple-Mini%2dPCIe-to-PCIe-6-Pin-Video-Card-Power-Cable.html
I did, however, find a place that sells the cable at a pretty good price:
http://www.moddiy.com/products/Apple-Mini%2dPCIe-to-PCIe-6-Pin-Video-Card-Power-Cable.html
Depends on the usage scenario. 3 monitors off 1 card means the available video memory is shared among them. Should only be noticeable in a few games, though. Same for GPU processing power being divided - during normal finder and 2D use it should not be noticeable.
It is supported. Running the very same configuration, only with a 7300 instead of the 2600 (for boot screen purposes).
6870 in a Mac Pro 1,1
Currently I'm running Snow Leopard on a Mac Pro 1,1 with a 7300 GT on 2 partitions 1 with the normal installation and the other with chameleon(So I Could Run OS X in 64bit by bypassing the efi but off course the Video and sound doesn't work properly since drivers weren't written for 64bit). Now I really would really like to install mountain lion on this machine using this method: http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47 But my problem is that it doesn't work with the 7300GT and I really do not want to buy the 5770 cause its a lot for an older card. Now I'm a true noob at flashing cards. So how would I get a Sapphire or XFX 6870 to work on a Mac Pro 1,1. Do I just have to install it and it would start working if I was using Lion or would I need to install kext and the drivers. Also on eBay there are 6870 flashed for OS X already but says they aren't compatible with Mac Pro 1,1 but some of you guys had it work, would it work for me or would it work if I'm booted in 64bit in chameleon. I don't mind upgrading to Lion first. Thanks. I'm sorry if I made any mistake in advance.
Currently I'm running Snow Leopard on a Mac Pro 1,1 with a 7300 GT on 2 partitions 1 with the normal installation and the other with chameleon(So I Could Run OS X in 64bit by bypassing the efi but off course the Video and sound doesn't work properly since drivers weren't written for 64bit). Now I really would really like to install mountain lion on this machine using this method: http://www.jabbawok.net/?p=47 But my problem is that it doesn't work with the 7300GT and I really do not want to buy the 5770 cause its a lot for an older card. Now I'm a true noob at flashing cards. So how would I get a Sapphire or XFX 6870 to work on a Mac Pro 1,1. Do I just have to install it and it would start working if I was using Lion or would I need to install kext and the drivers. Also on eBay there are 6870 flashed for OS X already but says they aren't compatible with Mac Pro 1,1 but some of you guys had it work, would it work for me or would it work if I'm booted in 64bit in chameleon. I don't mind upgrading to Lion first. Thanks. I'm sorry if I made any mistake in advance.
only way to see boot screens on EFI32 machine is with an EFI32 card
there is no EFI32 for 6870. there are people who could mod 5770 or 5870 EFI to work but they haven't gotten around to it
a 2600xt would be a good choice for boot screen card, then you could use may other cards as "main" GPU
there is no EFI32 for 6870. there are people who could mod 5770 or 5870 EFI to work but they haven't gotten around to it
a 2600xt would be a good choice for boot screen card, then you could use may other cards as "main" GPU
I'm curious about the answer to that question as well. I was considering purchasing a 6770 for the same purpose.
I'm beginning to think I might just go all out and get a great graphics card and just live with Lion and Windows 7 on my Mac Pro 1,1. Almost too much of a hassle for ML.
I'm beginning to think I might just go all out and get a great graphics card and just live with Lion and Windows 7 on my Mac Pro 1,1. Almost too much of a hassle for ML.