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Replacing MacPro Video Card

R

RogersDA

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 19, 2009
271
0
I have a 2008 Mac Pro 2x2 GHz Quad core, 12 GB RAM (800MHz DDR2) running OS 10.6.6, and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT PCIe card. As far as I can tell this card is located in the PCIe slot 1 (x16), which is the PCIe 2.0 slot.

I am considering replacing this card with the ATI Radeon 5770 1 GB PCIe card along with an Apple 27" display.

Amazon's site states that this particular card "[r]equires MacPro (Mid 2010 with 1333MHz DDR3 memory) with PCI Express 2.0 slot; Mac OS X v10.6.4 or later".

Is that right? Does this card really need a 2010 MacPro with 1333 MHz Ram?
 
I recently fitted at 5870 to my 08 Mac Pro, the only minor annoyance was the heatsink just to the left of the PCIe slots. This stops the PCIe slot clip from closing, with force you could probably make it close, but it'll be putting a lot of pressure on the logicboard.

As far as I can tell the 5770 is the same size in all but length.

Of course, I could be missing something, but it seems this could be why it's not officially supported, as the software works fine.
 

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beige matchbox said:
I recently fitted at 5870 to my 08 Mac Pro, the only minor annoyance was the heatsink just to the left of the PCIe slots. This stops the PCIe slot clip from closing, with force you could probably make it close, but it'll be putting a lot of pressure on the logicboard.

As far as I can tell the 5770 is the same size in all but length.

Of course, I could be missing something, but it seems this could be why it's not officially supported, as the software works fine.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. I don't recall having this issue..
 
I'm interested in putting this into my 2008 Mac Pro as well.

How is the installation? Is flashing difficult?
 
Flashing the firmware to make it compatible with Snow Leopard I presume? If so that is generally pretty straight-forward stuff isn't it? At least I would assume so as I have not had any issues flashing hardware on the Mac.
 
Seeing the heatsink proximity I checked my Sapphire HD5870 Vapor-X card, it doesn't seem to sit as close and would possibly be a better choice. The PCI-e clip locks over fine too. The fan is fitted centrally not at the back end of the card, this could be significant.
 
dimme said:
My ATI 5770 went in my 2008 MacPro without any problems.
Click to expand...

but is "flash it" ???? and not works with DVI, just VGA??? please help!!! I need a reemplace, see this please:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=12372904&posted=1#post12372904

and see this guy sell it! but! it was flashed? and say that DONT works with DVI! so???

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Mac-Pro-ATI-Radeon-HD-5770-1GB-Video-Card-HD5770-/130449697027?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item1e5f686903

please tell me, where do you buy and if you need flashed and if works with DVI, or how you do for work with your macpro 08, I need it !!!!! :eek:
 
Sorry for my MacPro ignorance but can I get the new Radeon Sapphire 6970 2 gb ram card pci express and just put it in my upcoming MacPro - just as long as I flash the bios on it to make apple think it's one of their 'own' cards ???

In that case I feel like I'm almost building a PC. Anything from ram, HDD, SSD, GPU and CPU can be upgraded to standard PC stuff :)

Only the logicboard and the psu is a hard nut to upgrade then.
 
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