ATI Radeon HD 4870 - is it plug & play?

After few days searching why my Mac Pro (early 2008) was not passing the apple logo icon at start up (just freezing and showing every few seconds an orange color page) I concluded that my Nvidia 8800 was dead.
My best option here in Belgium is to go for the ATI Radeon HD 4870 but I was wondering how to install it.
Would the ATI Radeon HD 4870 install itself or do I need an other Graphic card on to be able to see all the process...
If it doesn't install itself I have to go to some Apple center to do the work (and the 453USD of the card... yes 315 EUROS!!!!!!!)..., I am really scared of the final bill!
Will my Mac Pro transform in a "very" expensive paper weight!

Thank you japamac for the links!
The hatter:
To be honest I don't know if I have 10.5.7! I usually always do all the update and believe that my Mac Pro is upgraded to 10.5.7. (Because I cannot pass the Apple logo, I cannot check which exact version I have now...)
Regarding my "dead" graphic card: Is it dead if it still gives me something on the screen even if it is in a "frozen" way!? Usually really dead means dead screen too!?
My problem is to try to find out by myself because I just don't have the budget for a costly repair (only the graphic card will cost me 400USD).
My problem started when I was playing Civilazation: the color switched and even the sound started to come out of the internal speaker of my Mac pro!?

Similar Messages

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 card and HELP on installation

    Hi
    I really tried to reserach this without being spoon fed but I need some advice
    I have a "early" MAC pro 2008 and I'd like to upgarde the graphics card to a
    ATI Radeon HD 4870 (purchased from APPLE)
    Is it an easy install as far as configuration or is it "plug and play" so to speak
    Sorry, I am sort of new to this and have never installed a card. I have installed memory and an additional hard drive in my MAC and from what I have read uprgading a graphics card is not that difficult. I looked at a tutorial and that was helpful
    Does the Apple recognize it or do you have to install drivers? When I look at the Apple store it mentions nothing about "drivers" nad the purchase of the product
    Okay,t hanks for your time and patience as I don't have alot of experience with this.
    David

    Plug and play. Connect the auxillary power to card.
    You need to be running 10.5.6 or later though.
    Make sure you have a bootable backup, and if you use your DVD (many don't other than first time) you may want to look for a later DVD to come out at some point.
    I think most of what you need want is here, it comes with power cable.
    http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB999ZM/A
    http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/Mac_Pro_Early2009_RV770_CableDIY.pdf

  • Early 2008 Mac Pro + ATI Radeon HD 4870 = Not working

    Just took delivery of my new HD 4870 video card today. I installed it in my Early 2008 Mac Pro and booted up. I got a picture no problem on one monitor, but nothing on the other. Furthermore, the display perfpane was missing a lot of controls, like Arrangement and Detect Displays and whatnot.
    I did a bunch of rebooting and swapping of cables, and determined that both the mini-display port and the standard DVI connection will drive a monitor. However, if both are plugged in, the only active display is the one plugged into the mini-display port, and there's no option to setup the secondary display.
    So I booted into bootcamp, and it automatically recognized both display ports, and mirrored my desktop on both monitors. I downloaded and installed the latest windows drivers, rebooted the machine into windows once more, and was able to configure a multiple monitor display with no problem.
    This tells me it's not the card and it's not the motherboard.
    Booting back into mac OS, I discovered that it doesn't even recognize that the card has video ram. It thought I had no video ram in the system.
    So, this all leads me to the conclusion that Apple shipped me a card that it has not yet provided driver support for.
    Hey Apple, can I have my 4870 display driver now?

    Hi again,
    It was funny to read all your answers on my iPhone while away from my computer. I could have reply on the iPhone but I preferred to wait to give you all the procedure I used to install the beta driver successfully this morning.
    To start, I found this link:
    http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=155477
    and followed the "4870 INSTRUCTIONS", starting like suggested by doing the "First, follow the 4850 INSTRUCTIONS above"... (See the link)
    I would like also to specify that I did this without having installed the card physically yet. So I kept my HD 2600 in the computer, followed all the steps excepted for the step 3:
    3. Reboot with -f -v (kextcache/verbose mode)
    There is no -f nor -v switches available for the reboot command at the shell prompt. I simply rebooted as usual "Pomme -> Redémarrer".
    After the reboot, all my software was still working as expected with my HD 2600 card, meaning that these steps are specific and active only for the HD 4870 when it's detected at boot-up.
    You may have to Google for the string "Kext" in order to get the application to install the file ATY_Motmot.kext. For your information, ATY_Motmot filename is the same string as the one found under "System Information ->PCI cards" under "Name".
    I get:
    ATI Radeon HD 4870:
    Name: ATY, Motmot
    The article is not clear regarding where to find the OpenGL.framework to backup before installing the downloaded one. I found mine under:
    /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework
    After having shutdown the computer, just after the reboot that proofed everything was ok, I removed the original HD 2600 card and put back the new HD 4870 and boot up...
    Then I check the "System Information" and found both "Quartz Extreme" and "Core image" supported!
    I launched Aperture, got it!
    I launched Final Cut Express, got it!
    I launched Starry Night Pro Plus, got it! Then I checked the OpenGL settings in Starry Night Pro PLus and activated both options:
    Use shaders where available
    Use AllSky shader (Not compatible with all hardware)
    When I was doing these actions with my original HD 2600 card, the software was giving me a warning that my hardware did not support these options and that it could crash.
    This time, with the HD 4870, it accepted my settings and give me back a very beautiful blue sky with much more shades!
    So in conclusion, it works very smoothtly with my system and I am writing this with two monitors, having bought the MiniDP to DVI adapter this afternoon
    I am happy!
    P.S.: A girl from Apple support called me back this afternoon regarding my problem. She was very happy two when I told her that I did apply the beta driver and that it was working very well...
    Good luck and best regards...

  • Ati radeon hd 4870 mac specifications

    I haven't been able to find detailed specifications for the ati radeon hd 4870 mac edition.
    The PC version specs show "accelerated transcoding and decoding for H.264 and Mpeg2".
    Is this on the Mac version? Is it accessed/useful when compressing video to H.264 and Mpeg2?

    We started to catch up, but missed the mark as far as driver support.
    A GPU can also be a GPGPU, or CUDA, or PhysX card, or used in non-Macs for SLI and CrossFire. Windows 7 uses DirectX to off load work to the GPU.
    A GPU is great for a lot of mathematical, encryption, parallel computing, even as a Fortran compiler.
    I've never used a computer to play games, and when you see the extremes that some go to, $1000+ for 2-3 graphic cards teamed up, 180 fps... I imagine a wall of monitors at a concert or most any presentation today.
    CS4 on Windows can use Quadro CX ($1600) not just for eye-candy, but off load and render. Don't send the image back and forth to the cpu.
    Intel hopes to have Larabee out next year. Which goes in the other direction, use the cpu for handling tranditional gpu functions.
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-larrabee-graphics,2253-11.html
    http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9111498/Intelkeeps_number_of_Larrabee_cores_under_wraps?intsrc=hmlist
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_%28GPU%29

  • Gaming with an ATI Radeon HD 4870

    Hi Does anyone game on a Mac Pro with an ATI Radeon HD 4870? How is the performance? Can it play most games? Thanks

    Check MacRumors forum.... there just aren't many owners yet with the 4870, and that have gotten around to doing benchmarks.
    Besides, sometimes people who do benchmarks "for a living" and write up reviews - which do take a lot of time and effort, too - can give good reliable numbers.
    If it can't play games, ATI is in the wrong business. And there are some excellent PC gaming / hardware reviews that give some good background research (and beginning to look to the 4890 next up).

  • Reviews for ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro?

    There's no review at the Apple Store on this [ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro (Early 2009 or Early 2008)|http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB999ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=NDE4NDMx OA]. Googled and found nothing related to the Mac kit. Mostly PC based.
    Should I consider this card? I need a spare/replacement graphics card for my Mac Pro (early 2008). The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT card has failed me twice.

    Just came out on barefeats:
    http://www.barefeats.com/nehal14.html
    Shows new drivers with 285, also compares 4870.
    If you play a lot of games on the windows side, you might also want to consider the 4890. I has recently became flashable (if you're into that kinda thing). It has a lot more leeway to be overclocked. Close to (or if your lucky) hitting the 1 Ghz core clock speed, gives very close comp to the 285, and at fraction of the price. You can get an XFX 4890 on newegg for $195.

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 / 30''Display low res on Mini DisplayPort

    hello. Since day one, my 30'' CinemaDisplay is working fine on my Mac Pro using a ATI Radeon HD 4870. Today, I wanted to connect a second display. This one's plug is a DVI one (as is that of the 30''), but one that contains the pieces C1 to 4 (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigitalVisualInterface). The DVI to MiniDisplay Port adapter I got from apple has a C5 slot, but the ones for C1 to 4 are missing. The DVI Port on the ATI Radeon HD 4870 on the other hand does have the slots C1 to 4. So I connected the second display to the DVI port on the card, and the 30'' via the DVI to Mini DisplayPort adapter. After startup though, the highest resolution available for the 30'' ACD was 1028 x 960.
    I hope this is the right place for such a question. I didn't find a radeon forum that doesn't focus on games only. Maybe I should turn to the producer directly?
    Otherwise, any idea on this is appreciated. Thanks.

    Mini display port reminds me too much of ACD. Nice idea, but quick back-pedal. MDP makes sense for docking a MacBookPro to that one display, but other than that - the jury's still out. Noticed they haven't introduced a 30" MDP? Or ANY new displays for that matter... WHY IS APPLE GIVING THE DISPLAY MARKET TO DELL??? Love Apple but "been there done that" with their efforts at proprietary connections. Firewire is the only one that succeeded because it IS truly lightyears beyond USB (any version). And it didn't hurt that Sony agreed. Just installed a flashed PC 4870 from Applemecanix on eBay and reveling at the increased number of jitter-free movie windows I can have open compared to Mac Edition 3870 (great card BTW). The flashed PC version has 2 DVI ports (only 1 is dual link) and 1 GB of memory compared to half that on the "official" upgrade. And you can make an offer on eBay and get it MUCH cheaper than the "upgrade" version. My Applemecanix was an EFX card by the way. You can find instructions on the internet for flashing any number of PC 4870's but I calculated it was worth paying someone else $100 bucks to do it, with the right of return. If you are hard-pressed for cash and have a boot-camp windows installation you might be better off flashing it yourself. You'll have to buy a flashable PC version (retailers have gotten smart, they're charging more for these) and get the Mac power cords direct from ATI/AMD.
    Apple has made a decision to sit on the sidelines in the display market. Accept it. On the whole the platform has never been better I LOVE SNOW LEOPARD!

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB for Mac Pro 2.66 Quad Core Xenon

    I have the option of picking up an ATI Radeon HD 4870 1 GB graphics card to go with my soon-to-be-new MAc Pro 2.66 Quad core. I see know that Apple can upgrade to ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB, but that card is not available to me at the moment. Will the 1GB do the job without overheating the system? Am new to the Mac Pros. Need it for the Windows gaming portion of the system. Am using the rest for graphics and photography.

    If the MAc Pro 2.66 comes with Snow Leopard, why would I have to upgrade my OS?
    OK. So, if got the MAc version, it would work A-OK without overheating?
    Thanks for your input!

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 vs ATI Radeon HD 5870

    I have an early 2009 Mac Pro with 8 cores and the upgraded ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card. I see that the 2010 Mac Pros have an option for the ATI Radeon HD 5870. Apparently this card will eventually be available as a kit that will work in my computer.
    Do you think there will be a significant performance boost using the 5870 over the 4870 with Aperture if I purchase this upgrade? Apple says the 5870 is great for "motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation", but not sure if I should expect much improvement using it with Aperture. I am pretty happy with the 4870, so don't want to spend the cash for minimal improvement.
    Any thoughts or speculation?
    Thanks,
    Dave

    No response here, but I posted the same question on the Apple Store Product page for the 5870 kit and received the following reply:
    "You won't see a noticeable difference unless you are running heavy 3D applications or gaming. What I would suggest if you want to see an improvement in Aperture 3 is to add more ram to your mac (have at least 8 Gigabytes of ram ) boot up your mac to 64 bit (if running Mac OS 10.6) and run Aperture 3."
    This supports my suspicions that this card may not be much of an improvement for Aperture users that currently use the ATI 4870.

  • Ati Radeon HD 4870 out of order?

    Hi folks,
    im using a mac pro 1.1 with an ati radeon hd 4870 since aprox. one year without troubles.
    since two weeks i habve the problem, that when i start the machine the fan of the graphik card is very loud, the power led is blinking and there is no starting at all. First i thought it would be the ram/ or riser cards. Then i installed the old graphik card (Nvida Model no P345 that one came with the computer) - and everything was ok. so i think the problem is NOT the ram. (am i right?).
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    Did anybody have the same trouble with that graphic card? is the gpu out of order? please help
    This is my first post in any forum concerning computer-problems. sorry for my bad english, i´m german
    thanks for your answers (which i long for)

    ATI Radeon 5770
    http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC742ZM/A
    http://www.amazon.com/Apple-ATI-Radeon-5770-MC742ZM/dp/B003Z6QH6M 
    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/726537-REG/Apple_MC742ZM_A_ATI_Radeon_HD_5 770.html
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    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4433
    2x2GB FBDIMM DDR2 667MHz @ $32
    http://www.amazon.com/BUFFERED-PC2-5300-FB-DIMM-APPLE-Memory/dp/B002ORUUAC/
    Those 512s fail. They are 7 yrs old. They were not as well engineered at what is being made and sold now, in the last year. These I use (1,1 8x2GB) are not just fine they are great (run 10-15*C colder)
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  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and S20 ??

    Hello,
    Could somebody help me with this card ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 ?
    I was wondering if we can put this card into S20 and if yes ..what exact we need to do this ? If not why ?
    As far as i know there is different power socket on card ? So do we need some adapter or ??? to put this card
    into S20?
    Many thanks in advance
    Regards
    prosek
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    lead_org is incorrect.   a converter cable on the S20 is not needed.   it already has two PCI 6 and PCI 6+2 power sockets, allowing it to run two cards requiring 6+8 pin power sockets such as the 4870x2 natively.(edit: typo... meant to say 6+2, not 6+1)
    Message Edited by erik on 07-09-2009 03:53 PM
    ThinkStation C20
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  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB

    Does anyone know if 1 ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB uses how much power, because in the new Mac Pro (early 2009) it can't use more than 300W of graphics power consumption. So, i am thinking of getting 4 of those ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB graphics cards (because i'm a real gamer) and stick them all into my new Mac Pro (early 2009)but if it does exceed 300W, then would anyone suggest a powerful gaming graphics card that is both compatible with Mac and Windows as i am planning to get windows vista on boot camp. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB is said to be a very crappy graphics card so i'm saying NO WAY!! to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB.

    Get what you need for OS X, then get a PC card just for Windows. The GT120 might do normal things in OS X and grab whatever you want.... there is 75W and two aux power connectors of 75W each. GTX 275 Nvidia or something perhaps.
    http://www.barefeats.com/nehal07.html

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870

    I just bought a ATI Radeon HD 4870 so I could add two more monitors to my newish mac Pro. I was going to leave the existing card in there. Looks like the new card requires 2 power slots though, and I only have 1 available. Do you think I can hook it up with only 1? Or is there something I can buy to power it? I'm dying to have 4 monitors going.

    Two more for a total of three? Yeah, you'd need the card you have in there still and I hope that it's not needing to be used in the slots the Radeon needs. If the other card is a single lane and you have one slot open there is no problem, but if it requires two, then that's a problem for you.
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    http://www.macsales.com/
    Message was edited by: Samsara

  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 not better than the Nvidea Geforce 120?

    I bought av new ATI Radeon HD 4870 card to my MacPro. But are wery disappointed. My old NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 performes almost better than ATI. I ran Cinebench test and this is the results:
    *NVIDIA GeForce*
    Rendering (Single CPU): 3225 CB-CPU
    Rendering (Multiple CPU): 18880 CB-CPU
    Multiprocessor Speedup: 5.85
    Shading (OpenGL Standard): 6107 CB-GFX
    *ATI Radeon HD 4870*
    Rendering (Single CPU): 3218 CB-CPU
    Rendering (Multiple CPU): 18852 CB-CPU
    Multiprocessor Speedup: 5.86
    Shading (OpenGL Standard): 5846 CB-GFX
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    Apple says that the ATI 4870 card performs 2x better than the Nvidea 120. That is not my experience!

    Hello,
    I currently have a 2008 3.0Ghz Harpertown mac pro and I am trying to figure out what to do here. I just purchased the 24 inch cinema display, but yet I have a nice 1GB 4870 ati radeon I got off ebay. Its more powerful than the Apple version, but lacks the mini-display port.
    Currently, I have the ATI RADEON 2600 XT connected, though inactive, while my 4870 is active.
    So, should I just get the Nvidia GT 120 and keep my 1GB 4870, or should I get rid of the 4870 I have and just buy Apple's? Either way, the GT 120 works in a 2008 mac pro despite what Apple says on their site that it only works in 2009 mac pros.

  • ATI RADEON HD 4870 Mac

    Cam the ATI RADEON HD 4870 run in the 06 Mac Pro?

    Yes it's an pc XFX 4890 (regular stock clocked model; not XXX version). I have it working in osx via injectors. I've been trying to flash it recently, as a rom has become available, however things aren't going very well... It seems possible that my later version xfx 4890 is not very compatible with the rom. Seems like people with earlier versions, had better success.
    If I can't get it to flash correctly, might just change to a more compatible brand.
    This thread can help answer all your questions:
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=713428
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=751062
    Word to the wise though, if you're not comfortable fiddling around with stuff inside your comp, it might not be a good idea. It can cause a lot of headaches~

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