Can you have 2 ATI 3870 cards in a 1st gen Mac pro

I have a first gen Mac pro my system specs is 2 x 2.66 Ghz Dual Core Xeon. I was wondering if its possible to install 2 graphics. Does anyone have any information on if this is possible and if so can you get cross fire to work on the pc side for gaming.

Yes you can. I have a 1st Gen Mac Pro with 2 ATI 3870s and crossfire mode when I run Windows with Bootcamp.
On the mac side install the drivers BEFORE you put the hardware in.
Install them in the two lower pcie slots and connect them with both crossfire cables. You have to go into the expansion slot utility (HD>System>Library>CoreServices>Expansion Slot Utility) and change the configuration of the two lower slots (slots 1 & 2) to be 8 lanes each.
In bootcamp: After you physically install the cards you need to remove all current gpu drivers from Windows and then install the new drivers for the 3870s.
I just did this myself not even a month ago after several days of frustration of trying to make it work. The key is to make sure the pcie slots are both equal at 8 lanes. Nothing worked until I did that.
Works great but is quite loud. I'm looking into passive cooling systems now...

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Need advice on Video card for my 1st Gen Mac Pro 667ghz

OK, I'm getting frustrated because I can't seem to find a card to replace my now failing NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT. I was thinking of buying the ATI 4870 but I saw that it needed 800ghz and my Mac Pro has 667ghz..
What are my options? ;-(

The graphics card doesn't care about your memory bus speed. The ATI 4870 will work in any Mac Pro.
<http://www.barefeats.com/nehal05.html>
"As with the Radeon HD 3870 and HD 2600, ATI included both a 32-bit and 64-bit EFI driver in the ROM, so it should work in all models of Mac Pro with the latest drivers. We installed in the Clovertown first generation 8-core Mac Pro (as you can see from the graphs above) and a close colleague installed it in a 2.66GHz Woodcrest 4-core first generation Mac Pro. As long as you have two power feeds for the card in your first generation Mac Pro and have the correct drivers properly installed, it should work fine."

ATI 1900 dying on my 1st gen Mac Pro. Looking at options.

It seems like the three easy options are another 1900, an 8800GT, or a 3870. I know there are other options if I feel like flashing (and spending a lot of money), but I'm not looking to get too crazy.
I've tried looking around, but can't get a clear answer to my basic question: which of these three will be best for apps like Aperture and Photoshop (if it ever starts using Core Image)?
I read on barefeets that the 8800GT is reall bad for pro apps, but that is old info. Are the drivers better?
The 3870 seems like it's getting good reviews... is that an option over the 1900?
Or should I just get another 1900 and be done with it?
Or, is there something else relatively inexpensive that would give me good Pro App performance?
Thanks for any input.

Hi welcher,
As a photographer, still using wet film and scanning with a dedicated film scanner my 7300gt failed at the start of this year and I was presented with the same situation. At that time I opted for the 8800gt card which I got from the apple store in the uk. I can say that it gives me excellent colours in CS2. I have tried Aperture and may get it later on this year. Again i like the colours. The screen is set up to give adobe 1998 gamut. I have a 24 inch LG screen and a 2.66 pro. No doubt it could be better, however, I am more than happy with it.
I had to get the latest OSX dvd from apple as I had to do a re-install the other day and my old osx dvd was'nt accepted as the drivers were old. Hope this is of some help,
Dave

Can you marry a thunderbolt display to a early 2008 mac pro?

can you marry a thunderbolt display to an early 2008 mac pro?

You will need a DUAL-LINK DVI cable for that display.
<http://www.amazon.com/DVI-D-Male-Dual-Link-Cable/dp/B003QNDEGA>
Your video card is designed to run two 30" displays, but is getting old. Cards that age do fail due to bad capacitors, bad solder, of stuck fans.

Ati radeon hd 4870 for 1st generation mac pros?

unfortunately the ati radeon hd 4870 is working for all mac pros except the first generation: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB999ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=NDE4NDMxOA
are there any other graphics cards that have a mini displayport connector and are compatible with a mac pro first generation?
thanks for the help!

The information on the AMD/ATI site actually says the 4870 has lower power requirements than the 3870.
The PCIe power limit of 300W is the same for the 2008 Mac Pros as the 2007 8-core Clovertown Mac Pro. Power is not an issue. EFI appears not to be an issue either as Rob's tests have shown.
Can anyone give a logical or technical reason why the 4870 is not being made available to 1st Gen Mac Pros like the 3.0 GHz 8-core. I can't think of anything.
Surely Apple aren't restricting this cards use in an effort to persuade users to upgrade? Are they?

What happened to the 8800 GT upgrade cards for the first-gen Mac Pro?

I have a first-gen Mac Pro (System Profiler says model identifier is "MacPro2,1" which I think still makes it a first-gen model), and I was considering upgrading to the 8800 GT so I could take advantage of OpenCL, since the 7300 GT I have is not supported, according to Apple's page. ( http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html )
However, I can't seem to find the card anywhere on Apple's store site, or anywhere else, for that matter. Does anyone know what happened? Can I still buy the 8800 GT for my Mac Pro? If not, what OpenCL-compatible card can I upgrade to? Apple only seems to have the ATI X1900 XT in their store.
Thanks in advance for any advice!

{quote:title=Malcolm Rayfield wrote:}
ATI Radeon HD 4870 (Despite what Apple says, it works in any Mac Pro.)
<http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB999ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=NDE4NDMxOA>
Have you done it, or know someone that has put it in a 1st gen Mac Pro?
I'm just double checking so I don't waste my time.
Message was edited by: JeffDM2

Confused about upgrading Video card on 1st Gen Mac Pro

When looking in the Apple store under video cards it looks like the 8800 or even the ati 2600xt say :
PCI Express 2.0 but under the reviews for the ati card there are a few posts that say they used this card to upgrade their '06 ' and '07 Mac Pro from the Nvidia 7300 ...
But if the older Mac Pro's dont have pci express 2.0 how can this be ?
I also have read that a nvidia 8800 for the 1st gen mac pro may come out but what if it does not ? Whats the deal ? Will there be a video upgrade path for the 1st gen mac pro or not ?
Why are we being " left out " in the cold for buying a machine a year and a half ago ?
So basically there is the 7300 or the ati 1900 and thats it for the 1st gen mac pro's ?
Even my 4 year old PC has video options and its agp !

If you are bored you might be able to find an early post of mine from the early MacPro days when I commented that MacPro buyers should only buy if they can live with never being to upgrade the graphics card. Apple is Apple and if you know the history of Apple you know that graphics cards are all but ignored. I remain hopeful that Apple, through nVidia, comes out with an 8800 for older Mac Pros, but I don't count on it. The MacPro line has glaring strengths and glaring weaknesses and the dearth of video cards is a glaring weakness. Still better a MacPro with this weakness than a PC box, but with no official word from Apple and all this expectation from a single comment by an nVidia PR person (PR for gosh sakes!), I don't find the rumor to be terribly credible. Hope I'm wrong. Very much so. Hope the oft quoted email by steve j. regarding it being looked at is on the money and we have an announcement tomorrow. Holding my breath till then....

What displays WILL work with 1st gen Mac Pro & 4870 video card upgrade?

I've been reading these discussion threads for hours.
I, like so many others, have a 1st gen Mac Pro with a 1900XT that is taking a dump on me.
My only/best option for replacing it is the 4870...
But SO many folks with 3rd party displays have had problems, though almost no one is commenting on which 3rd party displays DO work.
Can anyone help? Do you have this configuration and a 3rd party display that IS working?
I don't want to buy this card and find out I have to shell out another ton of $$$ to buy Cinema Display.
I have an LG Flatron Wide...
Can anyone confirm a 3rd party display that DOES work? I'd be VERY grateful!

I have the Acer 24". been fine for 18 months. I know several people using them

1st Gen Mac Pro - Graphics card upgrade options?

Hi guys,
I have the 1st gen Mac Pro with 2 x 3GHz dual core xeons and a Radeon X1900 graphics card. I have wanted to upgrade to a new card for a while, however, I can't find any that apple say are compatible. I wanted to upgrade to a 5870 but on apples website it said this wasn't compatible with the first gen.
What is the limiting factor here? Is it the software or hardware?
What is the best card I can get for my machine?
Please help!
Thanks Guys
Tom

Your post has been added to a thread regarding Mac Pro Xeon Tower computers. These have nothing in common with your MacBook Pro.
To get an answer that is meaningful, you need to post on the MacBook Pro forums, here:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=190

Can you have more than one itunes accounts on 1 mac?

Can you have more than 1 itunes accounts on one mac

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1st Gen Mac Pro Graphics Card replacement??

I have a 1st generation mac pro and the nvidia geforce 7300 GT graphics card died.
what can I replace this with that is relatively inexpensive? Does it need to be 256 or 512 MB?

Thank You. That isn't quite my situation. There is a back on April 11th. 2010 and still unsolved. That is very disappointing considering there are a lot of people who are genius with technical issues on this forum.
It booted up OK from a long power down time but if I have to restart for any reason or power down and start up within a few minutes, I will have nothing on the display (black). The little light is on and if you touch the button the light will goes to sleep but nothing on the display. I checked everything and tried every combinations. What I ended up with is; 1. to leave the computer on forever until the end of time but I can't because sometimes the fan would come on high and stay on., 2. if I have to restart, I have to unplug both power chords and wait at least half an hour to forty five minutes then plug everything back in and start. Most of the time it will work. This puzzled me.
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1st Gen Mac Pro: Graphics Card Needed Urgently

My mac pro is first generation (Model Identifier: MacPro1,1) Not the 2008 Mac Pro.
I have Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1900
This card is failing. Pram reset, SMC reset, and/or repair permissions do not work. I cleaned the fan intake area as well... card is still failing (won't wake from sleep, no display on reboot, etc etc).
I have searched these forums high and low. Can anyone please provide me with a good option for a replacement card?
The closest I have gotten is the "Apple nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Graphics Upgrade Kit for 1st Generation Mac Pro" which is now discontinued (?)
I am getting really frustrated here, please help!

Hey,
I am having the exact issue with my Mac Pro (2.66 gig first gen intel). I have a discussion (unresolved) that you can find here.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9666490#9666490
I wonder how many folks are having this particular card die early on them. I think the problem is more widespread than Apple would indicate on the phone.
Anyway, my concern is whether or not the replacement card will be able to use the Open CL (sp?) protocol that will come with Snow Leopard. This will allow the computer to use free cycles on the graphics card to boost processing power. The guy on the phone and at the Apple store I went to was fuzzy on this. The last thing I want to do is upgrade to an antiquated card.
He suggested the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT which I cannot find (discontinued).
Does anyone know if the 4870 will take advantage of the new Snow Leopard features?
Thanks,
G

How/Can I install WINDOWS 7 64BIT on a 1st Generation Mac Pro ?

Hi, Is it possible to install Windows 7 64 bit on a 1st Generation Mac Pro 2.66Ghz? Apple suggests that it's not possible and yet I've seen several Googled posts where the users have successfully installed 64 bit on a 1st Generation Mac Pro. The problem is that they've done this creating a bootable iso disk(whatever that is) using a Windows computer with imgburn and windows commands. I'm pretty good at following instructions but I haven't seen any instructions on how to install Windows 7 on this machine using a Mac based approach.
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I have a March 2009 Mac Pro dual quad core running Win7 Pro 64 bit. I have Windows installed on a dedicated internal hard drive. There are no partitions, the entire drive is for Windows use.
Here's how I installed it, I did not start with BootCamp. Make sure the drive you're going to use for Windows doesn't have any important files on it because it will be formatted.
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2. Place the Windows cd in the Super Drive
3. Shut down the computer
4. Remove all the hard drives except the one you want Windows installed on. Keep track of the order they are in and at the end replace them in the same order.
5. Boot the computer holding down the Option key
6. Boot to the Windows cd
7. Install Windows and format the drive to NTFS
8. When Windows needs to restart during installation you'll need to hold the Option key and boot to Windows, not the Windows cd.
9. After Windows installs, place your Snow Leopard disc in the Super Drive
10. The Drivers for Windows will be installed along with a Windows version of BootCamp.
11. Go to Start > All Programs > Apple Software Update
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13. You'll also find a BootCamp under Control Panel, check it out.
14. Shut down the computer and replace the hard drives in their original order
14. Now if you turn on the computer it will boot to Snow Leopard, but if you hold the Option key during boot you can select Windows or Mac.

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Can you have 2 ATI 3870 cards in a 1st gen Mac pro

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