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What is the best Video Card currently able to be used in Mac OS X for mac pro 2010?

I

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macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 10, 2012
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I have a 5870 I believe (whatever the top one is that apple sells). I am curious if there is a better one that I can flash, and if so, how I would go about doing this, thank you.

Also, what do you personally think the likelihood is of OFFICIAL support for the 7970 that was just released (I know there were hints in 10.7.3, but the official tester build was just released and I haven't heard anything else).
 
Dunno if it's the best you can get, but one that works for sure and is powerful as hell is the one i'm using, NVIDIA Quadro 4000. You can even double the power and tether 2 of them together (severe overkill in my opinion unless you are processing massive image/video/CAD files and really need the processing power)

I do use Photoshop a lot and it make a huge difference on my workflow.
 
can you specify what you need the GPU for? gaming or 3D work
In terms of gaming I think someone here on the forums got a GTX 590 to work.
SLI isnt supported in OSX so he the poster technically had a GTX 580 in OSX but a full GTX 590 in windows.

for 3D work the quadro 4000 is very powerful but it has a pretty heavy price tag and apparently there are still issues with drivers.
 
the Quadro 4000 is not powerful. Quadros in general aren't, what they are is well-optimized (at least in Windows) and precise.

the most powerful drop-in card I believe is still the 5870. not sure if anyone's got a 69xx or 79xx to work via flashing, I've only really heard about the 6870.
 
toxic said:
the Quadro 4000 is not powerful. Quadros in general aren't, what they are is well-optimized (at least in Windows) and precise.

the most powerful drop-in card I believe is still the 5870. not sure if anyone's got a 69xx or 79xx to work via flashing, I've only really heard about the 6870.
Click to expand...

Well, no clue in a game related environment, but in a work (CAD/photoshop) environment i can assure you that it is a extremely powerful card.
 
Cindori said:
no.
Click to expand...

I'm a complete noob at this. Does the card "need" to be flashed at all? In particular, I'm looking at an OEM 4870 for sale on ebay that the owner claims works right out of the box w/o being flashed. This includes a boot screen and DVD Player app support.
 
jpine said:
I'm a complete noob at this. Does the card "need" to be flashed at all? In particular, I'm looking at an OEM 4870 for sale on ebay that the owner claims works right out of the box w/o being flashed. This includes a boot screen and DVD Player app support.
Click to expand...

then it's a mac card.
read the golden guide if you're interested in learning more.

basically, we can flash 4870 / 5870 / even 6950, the last being the strongest one but needs a soft boot to work so that's why I answered "no" to OP.
 
And stronger by 5-10%. No faster in DX9, 5870 and 6950 are about the same in DX10 and in DX11 the 6950 is 5-10% faster. So soft boot and hassle really not worth it. Except for the cost of the official Mac 5870. Damn. So old, so expensive.
 
Cindori said:
then it's a mac card.
read the golden guide if you're interested in learning more.

basically, we can flash 4870 / 5870 / even 6950, the last being the strongest one but needs a soft boot to work so that's why I answered "no" to OP.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response! The guy claims it's not a Mac card. He must not know what he has.
 
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