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Successful GTX 260 installation

E

elvisizer

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 29, 2003
310
24
San Jose
hey everyone, I just installed a BFG GTX 260 maxcore OC2 in my mac pro. The 260 is working great under windows, and the fan is NOT running at full tilt under OS X- at least, I can't hear any noise at all from the card with the case open and OS X booted.
I used an ATI power cable with a PCI-e y adapter to power the 260, and the original power cable for the 8800 since I've already got 2 optical drives.
Getting about 2x the FPS in fallout 3 with the 260 compared to the old 8800gt. i am a happy camper and just wanted to share.

Now i really hope the rumors of generic windows GPU support under snow leopard come true . . . .:D
 
elvisizer said:
hey everyone, I just installed a BFG GTX 260 maxcore OC2 in my mac pro. The 260 is working great under windows, and the fan is NOT running at full tilt under OS X- at least, I can't hear any noise at all from the card with the case open and OS X booted.
I used an ATI power cable with a PCI-e y adapter to power the 260, and the original power cable for the 8800 since I've already got 2 optical drives.
Getting about 2x the FPS in fallout 3 with the 260 compared to the old 8800gt. i am a happy camper and just wanted to share.

Now i really hope the rumors of generic windows GPU support under snow leopard come true . . . .:D
Click to expand...

Can you post some pictures...:):apple::)
 
It's funny that you post this...

I currently have a GTX 280 (EVGA FTW), a 8800GT and a Caldigit RAID Card all in my Mac Pro. I am finding the fan to bit a bit noisy as compared to the 8800GT alone. Now this may have to do with one of the following:

1) I am a picky son of a $@!#
2) Your 260 is indeed quieter (weird since they are fabbed from the same place)
3) It runs quieter under Windows? (Haven't Bootcamped yet, that comes this weekend)

My wife's Mac Pro is near dead silent with only her 8800GT in it. This is part of the reason she is holding off installing her 260 :)

I admit, I am a silence snob and would love for my 280 to be as quiet as the 8800GT...


- Stan
 
Could you link to the PCIe power cable you're using? I've got two Superdrives installed as well, and would really like to add a 260 in as well as my 8800GT.
 
StanD said:
It's funny that you post this...

I currently have a GTX 280 (EVGA FTW), a 8800GT and a Caldigit RAID Card all in my Mac Pro. I am finding the fan to bit a bit noisy as compared to the 8800GT alone. Now this may have to do with one of the following:

1) I am a picky son of a $@!#
2) Your 260 is indeed quieter (weird since they are fabbed from the same place)
3) It runs quieter under Windows? (Haven't Bootcamped yet, that comes this weekend)

My wife's Mac Pro is near dead silent with only her 8800GT in it. This is part of the reason she is holding off installing her 260 :)

I admit, I am a silence snob and would love for my 280 to be as quiet as the 8800GT...


- Stan
Click to expand...



Why install a 280 and not try it in bootcamp yet? You know a pc card does not give you any performance under osx at all?
 
Can any of you post pics of your GTX 260 or 280 in your MP cuz i want to do the same and would like to see if there are going to be too many cables in the case lying freely.
 
A couple questions, because I'm thinking of doing this too. :)

1. How is that power working out? + What cable did you use? + Are you keeping the optical drive cage in place? How does that work?
2. Is it really working under OS X? Or do you have your EFI-compatible card in there too?
3. Pictures, please. :D :D
 
I have to say, I'm curious as to how the GTX260 works under OS X.

I thought about getting an EFIX card but the video is my main concern since its not currently supported.

I have a bunch of other Mac's in the house, I've always been curious about creating a dual boot Hackintosh out of my Gaming machine.
 
Cindori said:
Why install a 280 and not try it in bootcamp yet? You know a pc card does not give you any performance under osx at all?
Click to expand...

I am indeed aware that a non-EFI card won't work in OS X :)

Maybe the reason I haven't installed Boot camp yet is that .... I am waiting for my Bootcamp drive to arrive.

:)


- Stan
 
so, to clarify:
  • the card is not working on OS X, which is normal for a PC card. I have not tried to hack up support under OS X.
  • the fan IS spinning at full tilt under OS X, unfortunately. It's pretty quiet, but it's very noticeable in a quiet room. Not too happy about that, so I'll be seeing if I can do anything about that. Any tips?
  • For power cables, I used the standard ATI power cable into the motherboard with a Y adapter. The 8800GT is powered from the other motherboard PCIe connector. I did not run power from the optical drives.
  • Windows is not entirely happy, either- it always defaults to using the 8800GT. I have to boot up using that, then disable the 8800 in device manager to get the main display onto the 260. then I have to remember to re-enable the 8800 before I power off. If I don't, the system refuses to use the 260 on boot up and disables it.

I'll post some pics tomorrow of the installation. If anyone has tips for how to get windows to boot up with the 260 as the default GPU, i'd be all ears. I searched all over the insanelymac forums last night and didn't come up with much. That's mostly hackintosh info, not much there about using PC hardware in an actual mac pro.


Oh, yeah, link to the ATI cable. that has the correct mini connector for the motherboard, and a standard 6 pin pcie connector on the other end.
 
elvisizer said:
so, to clarify:
  • the card is not working on OS X, which is normal for a PC card. I have not tried to hack up support under OS X.
  • the fan IS spinning at full tilt under OS X, unfortunately. It's pretty quiet, but it's very noticeable in a quiet room. Not too happy about that, so I'll be seeing if I can do anything about that. Any tips?
  • For power cables, I used the standard ATI power cable into the motherboard with a Y adapter. The 8800GT is powered from the other motherboard PCIe connector. I did not run power from the optical drives.
  • Windows is not entirely happy, either- it always defaults to using the 8800GT. I have to boot up using that, then disable the 8800 in device manager to get the main display onto the 260. then I have to remember to re-enable the 8800 before I power off. If I don't, the system refuses to use the 260 on boot up and disables it.

I'll post some pics tomorrow of the installation. If anyone has tips for how to get windows to boot up with the 260 as the default GPU, i'd be all ears. I searched all over the insanelymac forums last night and didn't come up with much. That's mostly hackintosh info, not much there about using PC hardware in an actual mac pro.


Oh, yeah, link to the ATI cable. that has the correct mini connector for the motherboard, and a standard 6 pin pcie connector on the other end.
Click to expand...

Disable the 8800GT in the device manager in Xp.
 
ildondeigiocchi said:
Disable the 8800GT in the device manager in Xp.
Click to expand...

heh, maybe you missed the part where I said I have to do that every time I boot. So, obviously I know to do that. What I'm wondering is if there's any way to make that setting stick. If I leave the 8800 disabled, windows freaks out the next time i boot and disables the 260, saying it's 'incompatible with the current VGA driver'. I'd just like the settings to stay so I don't have to do that on every boot.
Also, this is not XP, i'm running vista x64.
 
connoleg said:
Thanks for the info

Is this the same cable that I need from Mac Pro '08 motherboard to the GTX260?


link to ebay

TIA
Click to expand...

nope, that is not the correct cable. that takes 2 standard pci-e 6 pin connectors and converts to pci-e 8 pin. the link to the ATI store is correct- you need a cable that has the molex mini connector on the mac pro's motherboard, and a standard pci-e 6 pin connector on the other end.
 
elvisizer said:
nope, that is not the correct cable. that takes 2 standard pci-e 6 pin connectors and converts to pci-e 8 pin. the link to the ATI store is correct- you need a cable that has the molex mini connector on the mac pro's motherboard, and a standard pci-e 6 pin connector on the other end.
Click to expand...

brilliant thanks, only problem is sourcing one in the UK. I spoke with ATI UK and I might have been talking Martian. I gave the guy the product number but it didn't help at all. Any one in the UK managed to source one here?

TIA
 
connoleg said:
brilliant thanks, only problem is sourcing one in the UK. I spoke with ATI UK and I might have been talking Martian. I gave the guy the product number but it didn't help at all. Any one in the UK managed to source one here?

TIA
Click to expand...
I can't say for finding a UK based source, but this site does carry it and ship internationally. ;)

So you can get one. :D
 
Anybody got CUDA working under OS X

Can readers of this forum let me know if anyone has got CUDA working under OSX with the 260 or 280? I am actually not bothered about graphics support (as I have both an ATI and NVIDIA 8800 in there) but would like to fire up CUDA on a 260 or 280 to get at the computation capabilities.

Ta
 
elvisizer said:
so, to clarify:
  • the card is not working on OS X, which is normal for a PC card. I have not tried to hack up support under OS X.
  • the fan IS spinning at full tilt under OS X, unfortunately. It's pretty quiet, but it's very noticeable in a quiet room. Not too happy about that, so I'll be seeing if I can do anything about that. Any tips?
Click to expand...
Sorry - I am probably missing something blindingly obvious. But first you say it doesn't work on OSX, and then you say the fans are 100% when you're using it in OSX?

Just to clear for others, you're running off the 8800GT under OSX and the fan just blows 100% as it sits idle right? :)
 
elvisizer said:
hey everyone, I just installed a BFG GTX 260 maxcore OC2 in my mac pro. The 260 is working great under windows, and the fan is NOT running at full tilt under OS X- at least, I can't hear any noise at all from the card with the case open and OS X booted.
I used an ATI power cable with a PCI-e y adapter to power the 260, and the original power cable for the 8800 since I've already got 2 optical drives.
Getting about 2x the FPS in fallout 3 with the 260 compared to the old 8800gt. i am a happy camper and just wanted to share.

Now i really hope the rumors of generic windows GPU support under snow leopard come true . . . .:D
Click to expand...

Hi! you got boot screen with the card flashed?
 
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