Early Intel Mac Pro--what are my graphics card upgrade options?

I bought my Mac Pro in June, 2007 and want to improve my ability to use it for games--right now it's a bit of a dog in that respect. I have a 3 GHz dual Quad-Core processor setup that my hardware overview says is a MacPro2,1 model identifier. My stock graphics card is the GeForce 7300GT using the PCIe bus. Any help would be greatly appreciated--I know there are some expensive cards out there for newer models and that there is some discussion on what is compatible with earlier models like mine, but I would hope that my $5,000 system has no viable upgrade path for this.
Rocketman

The card is dead silent on idle. I haven't tried it on any games yet, but with 720p HD content like .mkv files playing in VLC, the fan only goes up to 20-25%, and even at that I can't even hear it.
Idle fan speed is about 5%
Idle temps are 63 deg celcius (note that its summer, and my ambient room temps are hot)
Note these temps and fan speeds are under Windows 7 on ATI CCC. I can't get the temps and fan speeds under OSX, but I doubt they are different, the card is very quiet. And yes it does work under bootcamp
Aside from maybe dual flashed PC 1GB 4870s in crossfire, this is most likely the best gpu upgrade you can do presently; it is the best upgrade if you want to stay with apple oem parts.
There is always the dark horse: the GTX 285 from nvidia, however I doubt (wish) that it will be supported for 1st gen MPs. It's possible, though highly unlikely.

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Early 2008 Mac Pro-What type of HD? Smart failing?

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Second Question:
What SATA speed does the Mac Pro handle? I see many hard drives that are 3.0GB/s and some that are 6.0GB/s. Does the Mac Pro handle the faster 6.0GB/s? If not, would they still work but just not at the additional speed?
I may consider upgrading to a 1.5TB or 2TB but figured I'll go with a Western Digital or Seagate drive. I see cache ranging from 16MB to 64MB and speeds at 5400RPM and 7200RPM. Between these two which is more important, large cache size or RPM's?
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Run WD Lifeguard (*Windows program or their ISO you burn to CD) is best and almost only reliable way.
If a drive has started to use spare blocks it is gone.
IT DOES NOT MATTER. Any 3.5" SATA drive is a drive is all SATA and mostly about features and specs. So just buy the newest size you need. 64MB cache and 7.2K (Green can have trouble on Macs and are more for backup and storing movies etc).
I recommend WD 10K VR newest 250GB 200MB/sec for system $152, and WD Black or Hitachi.
http://www.macperformanceguide.com likes 2-3-4TB.
Questions like this get asked unfortunately.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3908030?tstart=0
For every drive, you want to have multiple backup sets (clone and Tm) because drives and backups do fail and you want an alternate boot drive and to restore when needed.

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I just bought a new Mac Pro but upon set-up I realized that I couldn't use my existing Apple monitor that has a ADC connection. I would have to buy the Apple DVI to ADC Adapter.
The Apple adapter will work for a LCD with ADC, but not for a CRT.
<http://store.apple.com/us/product/M8661LL/B?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MjE0NTg4NA>
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Looking for advice on Mac Pro with a dying video card. This the early Xeon dual core 3.0Ghz with an ATI Radeon X1900. Maybe the Nvidia Quadro 4500. I know there is s Quadro 4800 which I don't know if will will work with this older Mac Pro. Links and advice is appreciated.

Both cards will work with your computer although that's not stated on Apple's website. I'm using a 5770 in a first generation Mac Pro and it works quite well. I can't get the best performance from it because my MP only has PCI Express 1.0 slots.

Got Early 2008 mac pro - What kind of power do I possess?

Hello,
To whom it may concern, for a long time now I have been with powerpc and finally made the jump and transition to the mac pro. The machine I currently have is a Early 2008 8-core 3.0ghz machine. I'd like to know what kind of real power I have here. Also, how do I set up a regular raid setup using either disk utility or a 3rd party program?
My hard drives are as follows: 2 320GB hard drives, 1 1TB hard drive w/32MB cache, and 1 250GB hard drive. I also am going to get the ATI Radeon 4870 HD so that I can use the mini-display port with a new 24 inch ACD.
Bear in mind as of right now, I am not much of a heavy graphics or pro-app user, though I plan to delve into imovie and creating my own movies of my family. I also plan to learn a little bit about high definition encoding(really don't know what this is), and possibly maybe a little bit of the other video apps.
I got the mac pro for mainly being able to stick with the intel technology, as I realize now that Intel is the way to go. Also, got the mac pro due to its powerful expansion capabilities.
So, my question is this: What options are available for my machine? I am aware that the max memory is 32GB, though will I ever need to use that much? What is optimal or the sweet-spot for my mac pro to be fast?

I got the mac pro for mainly being able to stick with the intel technology, as I realize now that Intel is the way to go.
Wow! After all your Intel bashing thru the years! Man!
Also, got the mac pro due to its powerful expansion capabilities.
Same here.
So, my question is this: What options are available for my machine? I am aware that the max memory is 32GB, though will I ever need to use that much? What is optimal or the sweet-spot for my mac pro to be fast?
It is fast and sweet now!
Nadav, you mean you really don't know where to find this information? You've been using Macs for years and have been posting and reading posts here since 3/31/05. Please, if you need help for a real issue we are here to help....but please don't waste our time with these beginner like posts.
You have the knowledge!
Dale

Graphics card upgrade options for Mac Pro (early 2008) Model 3.1

Hi,
What are my options if I wish to upgrade the stock graphics card? I seem to remember there being one that was about £80 but I can no longer check as the site is only listing the 2009 mac pros now.
Any assistance would be gratefully received!

Your current options are:
ATI 2600
Nvidia 8800
Nvidia 5600
Or third-party ATI 3870 Mac/PC Edition.
Presumably the new ATI 4870 will work in the Early 2008 MP, but requires OS X 10.5.7 which is not yet released. You can find benchmarks at Bare Feats.

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LaCie TB HUB has two TB ports which is good for daisy chain. Has two esata ports also. I connect a Voyager bought from OWC to one sata port and that's where my bare 2.5 and 3.5 hard drives reside when I need them. The other sta port has a Pioneer 207 blu ray drive. When I sleep my 2013 Mac Pro I turn off the power to the Voyager and the Pioneer. All work flawlessly.

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Hi guys,
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What is the limiting factor here? Is it the software or hardware?
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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

Mac pro 1,1 highest graphic card support 2012

Hi I wanting to know what is the highest graphics card to put in to a mac pro 1,1 ?
Apart from the ati 5770 and 5780 can I put newer models in to this mac pro?

newer as in.... you need 10.7.5 and can then look at but you want get full hit from GTX 570 for instance. And there are long thorough threads and all the rest on MacRumors Mac Pro section asked multiple times (but stay with threads don't create new ones!)

Does Mac Pro auto-detect USB graphics card?

Hi
I have Mac Pro with a half dead motherboard. For whatever reason it can't recognize graphic cards. I've tried switching around with other similar graphic cards from other working Mac Pro's with the same specs (early 2008).
If I plug in a USB graphics card, does that start working immediately or does it need to be installed before anything happens?
I realize this Mac Pro is probably going to die on me any day now. But the USB cards are cheap (since work is paying), I can utilize it until it dies, even with weak graphic power.
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I doubted there was anything to be done about the internal graphics, that's why I neglected to give other details.
I just realized it was an older Mac Pro than I originally thought.
It's this one with 2x3.0GHz Xeon processors (A1186) (EMC 2113)
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30
We run Lion on all our machines.
It used to be spending it's days as a Metadata controller for an XSAN 2.0. But we've upgraded to Lion Server, on two Mac Mini's. So it's out of a job until I can get it to give me an image on a screen.
So the card it's not seeing is a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (probably died).
I tested these
NVIDIA GeForce 6600
NVIDIA GeForce 210 512 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
But none of these appear to be on the list of compatibles for my Mac.
I just need it to work for cheap right now. Buying a internal graphics card is to expensive because it's basically going to be an oversized and overpowered harddrive (maybe subjected to some SMB share experimentations).
Right now I can't even get it on our network because I can't see the MAC Addresses
So no remote controlling either...

Cannot install FCP X on Mac Pro (2,1). Graphics card issue.

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Radeon HD 5770 (as inserted into the current MacPros) will do it. Make sure it's the unit bought from Apple, not a big box store.
Plenty of discussions about it, here's one:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2544029?start=0&tstart=0
Your "super computer" is more of a super computer than mine, but it did start life in 2007. Things have moved on... your MacPro isn't obsolete, by any means... in fact your original graphics card is probably just about to give up anyway! Mine did last year (I had an older card in a MP 1.1) and am glad I changed it.

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Two questions:
1. Any card recommendations known to work with large quantity audio throughput?
2. Most every card I've reviewed has a card-mounted molex power connector; will I need to supply auxiliary power to this connector to provide enough power for the Firepods?
2a. If I do need to provide auxiliary power to the card. Where do I pick it up from? Is there a connector/cable somewhere inside the Mac Pro?
TIA

I'd take a look at the Sonnet range of cards. I use them for video, which I guess has similar throughput and lack-of-latency requirements to multi-channel audio.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegrofw400pcie.html
I believe you only need the aux.power feed to such cards *if your FW devices take power down the FW cable*. If your FW devices are separately powered from the AC mains, I suspect you won't need the aux.power feed to the card.
If you find you do need an aux.power feed, I guess you can find an adapter/extender from the unused second optical disk drive power connector?

Mac Pro with X1900 XT graphics card EFI boot display

Hi all,
I've got this problem with my mac pro with ATI Radeon X1900 XT - 1st DVI connected to the 23 inch apple display and the 2nd DVI connected to my optoma dlp projector.
My problem is that the EFI boot menu shows up on the 2nd DVI connection. So basically I see the boot menu only on the projector when it should have been on my apple display.
Can someone please help me figure this out. Can't seem to find any on google or anywhere else.
Thanks in advance for the help!

Sorry, I forgot to add that small detail..
I can switch both connections and it'll work for the mac part of the deal but the windows end cant switch screens - making the apple display the primary display on windows..
now it sounds like a "windows" issue doesnt it!?heh

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It is not offered by ATI/AMD Radeon cards.
www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home_new.html

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"... I know that I'll need to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but I believe I'll need to upgrade my graphics card also."
Why do you have to upgrade to Snow Leopard?
The graphics card is not upgradeable.
I would query the forum for users of CS5 and Leopard with your hardware configuration and see if they have any problems.

Early Intel Mac Pro--what are my graphics card upgrade options?

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