Mac Pro graphics card questions

Combat squirrel · 21 Feb 2009 at 14:00

As title, im thinking of getting the mac pro when they bring out the new processors in them, 2 things im thinking of here though:

1) What graphics cards will most likely be in the systems ?

2) If I wanted to buy an off the shelf graphics card, i.e. for a pc, I know it wont work with OSX, however will it work with windows if I duel boot windows with OSX ? Or would the apple bios just not like it ?

Draeconis · 21 Feb 2009 at 14:33

Can't answer the first question, I can guess perhaps a top ATi card though..

It should work, but it will default to the graphics card that came with the Mac Pro, so you'll have to uninstall it in Windows after you've finished setting up Boot Camp for it to use the other one.

I can only give rough advice as I've ever done it myself, sorry.

imatt89 · 21 Feb 2009 at 14:41

i would say looking at the current line of card that mac offer in there mac pros

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB
2 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB [+ £78.00]
3 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB [+ £157.00]
4 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB [+ £235.00]
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB [+ £88.00]
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5GB [+ £1,762.0

that they will move onto nvidia graphics card looking at the recent move with the macbook and macbook pro lines.. apple have moved away from the ati chip over the last year so i can see the move also happening with the mac pro.

and i dont see why an off the shelf graphics card would not work with macosx and windows in dual boot as my ati card works exactly the same in dual boot windows as it does in macosx

hope this helps

benwoodcock · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:05

imatt89, BIO/EFI (8800GT) and lack of drivers for OSX.

J1nxy · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:14

Having spent a fair amount of time trying various things before I sold my Early 2008 mac Pro I can answer the 2nd question...or at least when it comes to that version of hardware...

Yes they do work...you get no display when you boot until Windows intialises the drivers, until then the screen is blank. What you do have to watch thou is the limited options for PCI-E power. You can't for instance take a 8800GT and then stick something in the other slot which needs 2 feeds without running a mess of molex adaptors from the optical drives. You'll also need a second PCI-E adaptor to draw power from the motherboard.

Another thing is that windows is a bit funny about having 2 makes of card visible at the same time, so it either becomes all ATI or all Nvidia. I found disabling one the cards made things even worse.

Another small but really annoying problem is that as the 2nd no OSX complaint card is not initalised by the bios the fans don't spool down, they run flat out all the time. Drove me barmy that one did...

tsinc80697 · 21 Feb 2009 at 22:15

My mac pro came with an ATI 2600XT installed and I wanted an upgrade so I grabbed a 2nd hand 8800GT.

You have to look around carefully though as only certain 8800GTs can take the settings needed to work under OSX. macrumors forums have loads of posts on there and I think evga 8800GTs work perfectly, mine is evga I think!

Its easy to flash as well

also depends what mac pro, early 2008 were more limited in what they could handle I think from reading around a lot of forums before buying my 8800