Who do I have to kill to upgrade my current Mac Pro gfx card?

buddhabuddha
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I've asked about this before - but only hypotheticals because the cards haven't been released - but if I can get my hands on an 8800 GT (for Mac Pros of course) would I be able to upgrade my current Mac Pro that has an x1900 XT? Would it be hard? Would it void my warrantee? Is there anyway I can get Apple to upgrade it for me(sounds kinda unlikely to me), or order the card for me? Any information would be really helpful. Hopefully I can buy the card off of ebay or something if I have to.



Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    ssmurphyssmurphy Posts: 40member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by buddha View Post


    I've asked about this before - but only hypotheticals because the cards haven't been released - but if I can get my hands on an 8800 GT (for Mac Pros of course) would I be able to upgrade my current Mac Pro that has an x1900 XT? Would it be hard? Would it void my warrantee? Is there anyway I can get Apple to upgrade it for me(sounds kinda unlikely to me), or order the card for me? Any information would be really helpful. Hopefully I can buy the card off of ebay or something if I have to.



    Thanks.



    This should work.



    http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...SLID?find=8800



    Later
  • Reply 2 of 8
    buddhabuddha Posts: 386member
    Thanks - you made my day .
  • Reply 3 of 8
    yikes600yikes600 Posts: 85member
    BareFeats reporting it won't work.

    Quote:

    The GeForce 8800 GT is *NOT* compatible with the older Mac Pro (August 2006, April 2007) as we assumed. I've been informed that new machines use EFI64, the old Mac Pros use EFI32, to work in an EFI32 machine you need an EFI32 ROM.



    http://barefeats.com/york2.html
  • Reply 4 of 8
    buddhabuddha Posts: 386member
    Yes, I just found that. So stupid.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    tubgirltubgirl Posts: 177member
    well, all this "buy the Mac Pro if you want to upgrade your gfx-card, you pinko xMac-lover" got a new twist to it.

    now one should say: "buy a new Mac Pro if you want to upgrade your gfx-card, you pinko old Mac Pro-lover"...



    edit: I guess one can still hope for a firmware upgrade for the 2006/2007 Mac Pro...?
  • Reply 6 of 8
    buddhabuddha Posts: 386member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tubgirl View Post


    edit: I guess one can still hope for a firmware upgrade for the 2006/2007 Mac Pro...?



    Would that resolve the issue? Is it just that the current Mac Pros have a later EFI firmware version? I wasn't sure if it was hardware constricted or not. That would definitely be something to hope for, although I would have expected it on launch day \.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    wild-billwild-bill Posts: 10member
    Killing off the video card upgrade path should drive more people away from Apple. I can see Mac Pro users (who are so inclined) selling off their machines on Ebay and building a Hackintosh with whatever damn video card they want!



    So, so stupid of Apple to do this. I guess my Mac Pro that will be here in 3-5 weeks because of Apple's poor supply chain will be a dead-end graphics wise in precisely 512 days?
  • Reply 8 of 8
    isomorphicisomorphic Posts: 199member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wild-Bill View Post


    So, so stupid of Apple to do this.



    I will give it a little time to see if there is a firmware update before I call it.



    However, yes: If Apple doesn't release a firmware update for their old Mac Pros to let them use the more modern graphics cards--then Apple is stupid. It says "Pro" in the title, folks. It's not a frickin Mini.



    I bought a Mac Pro with the 7300GT in it back when they first came out. I did this because the X1900XT card delayed the shipping by weeks. I've held off buying the ATI because I knew better cards were coming. Now this.



    What the heck is the point of PCIe if you're going to do this? Just solder the damn video card onto the motherboard and stop pretending.



    /rant

    //awaiting firmware to make this post irrelevant
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