Upgrading to a Mac Pro Quad Core, Parts?

[keogh]

Howdy,

I am a PC user, but have a mac mini (I only used that for testing websites on... thats my job), but I will be upgrading to a Mac Pro Quad Core for full time use over my PC soon.

My question is, what parts of my PC will work in the mac? Mainly Will my Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250gb SATA-II ST3250620AS HDDs work in there?

Also Im 99% sure the answer to this is no, but Ill ask anyway as the Macs are PCI-E, why wont my GeForce 8800GTX work in there? Or will it?

Finally, I am also quite sure this won't work, but my GeIL DDR2 ram wont work either will it? Does the Mac PRo only accept 5300 or a special type?

Any advice on what from my PC (sig) will go in there will be great?

ta

 

[J1234]

The hard drives will work, not sure about the GFX card, probably not though. The Mac Pro only accepts 5300 RAM, so yours wont work in it.

Edit: The GFX card wont work, have a look here.

 

[keogh]

Guessed as much, cheers Justin!

 

[Jokester]

Won't the RAM just work at 5300 speeds?

Jokester

 

[J1nxy]

No the RAM wont work as the Mac Pro uses FB DDR2 ECC 5300 Ram which is very different to normal DDR2 ram.

Hard disks will work.

The 8800GTX wont work either unfortunatly. If it did I'd be swapping to a Mac Pro myself. Biggest card that'll work is a Mac version X1900XT. You can flash a none mac one to a Mac one as its a GFX card bios change.

I have been sooooo tempted to swap to the Mac Pro and use Boot Camp so been reading a lot about all this recently.

 

[lsg1r]

I was under the impression that most windows graphics cards work in the mac pro when its running in boot camp. Its only when its in os-x that there are issues.

 

[J1nxy]

It will work in boot camp but you have to swap the 1900xt or 7300gt in to get OS X to run. If you could boot with the 7300gt for OSX and then boot the 8800GTX for windows that'd be great, but you can't tou have to physcially swap the cards which is too much of a PITA.

 

[FirebarUK]

Mac Pro revision may be expected soon, perhaps 2 months time at most...

 

[keogh]

Yeah im gonna wait for Leopard I think before I upgrade, otherwise Id have to shell out another £100 odd squid, and im in no rush!

 

[lsg1r]

It will work in boot camp but you have to swap the 1900xt or 7300gt in to get OS X to run. If you could boot with the 7300gt for OSX and then boot the 8800GTX for windows that'd be great, but you can't tou have to physcially swap the cards which is too much of a PITA.

I thought there was a work around for that. Basically the 7300 would be switched to the second/third slot and the first would have the 8800 in say. You just need to boot into os-x first with the 7300 in and then let it get detected, then shut down install the 8800 and then boot up again - os-x should take the 7300 (or ask which it wants to use as such).

Atleast thats what they were saying on macrumors forum (not read the thread for a while)

 

[J1nxy]

I've re-read that thread on mac rumors (again for about the 4th time) and the answer is still no. You can't have both the 7300/1900 and a 8800 in at the same time OSX chucks its toys.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

The graphics card won't work because you need a OS X-flashed card.

I remember a thread where someone used his XT1900XT (in a Mac Pro) and he could only use the display when running Boot Camp, and when booting in to OS X he was greated with "no signal"