HELP! Upgrading Graphics Card on Mac Pro 2009

Hi all,
I'm interested in upgrading my current graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB to something with more memory.
I'm having a hard time trying to figure out which brand to go with that'll be compatible with my Mac Pro 2009 model and will work well under OSX Mavericks.
I really dont want to break the bank. Need a good amount of GDDR5 ram for Adobe Creative Cloud mostly. Would also like to run some gaming on PC Bootcamp drive under Windows 7 (Titanfall, Crysis, Battlefield, etc). However that's all secondary, thanks for your help.

LOTS of choices, depends if you want ones that will work without fuss (ATI 5770 & 5870 plus Mac edition EVGA 680 and Sapphire 7950) still give you boot screens if you option boot.
If you don't care about boot screens, you can use almost any recent ATI or Nvidia card. If you only boot into OSX, you can live without boot screens.

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yes-i agree with what kaz-k has written. As long as you get the correct power cables for your graphics card you should be okay. I think the Mac Pro has 2 6pin sockets. We don't flash the card ( thought I'm assuming it could be done elsewhere) , and Apple doesn't support anything other than a few graphics cards anyways, and it doesn't really read what's been posted here. here's the takeway: The card will probably work, however, due to the lack of a Mac EFI (basically a boot rom), you won't see a startup screen should you choose to install the card into your mac pro 2009. As the OS gets going you will see graphics. Should you need to do basic troubleshooting, eg choosing which drive to start up from
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Graphics Card for Mac Pro

Hello,
I have a mac pro 2009 with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB and though it is sufficient for gaming when I bootcamp into windows 7 it isnt that great!. As I have a Apple LED monitor cinema screen and it uses a display port does anybody have any recommendations for something more intensive for games?

Please check those out:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB999ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU2NTc&s=t opSellers
http://store.apple.com/us/product/TW387ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA5OQ&mco=MTA4MzU2MDA
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Regards
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Hey guys,
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I don't think that will help but you can pick any beefier card and throw money at it.
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At the same time, cards that previously did not show a picture AT ALL on a Mac started working (except boot screens). This is said to be due to some research NVIDIA did. They figured out a way to include EFI in the Driver in Mac RAM and make it work as if it were in the card's Firmware.
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Hi everyone,
I'm sorry if this question has been asked several times... But it seems technology moves so fast... And also I found lots of cards that seem to me being PC only... That's why I'm having this question for Mac only.
I'm on a Mac Pro, Snow Leopard CS5.5 , and I want to re-instal a clean new system with Lion and CS6... mostly to edit 5K footage from the Epic (+ VFX and grading)... So it is mostly about PPro and AE (not quite sure about Speed Grad, still have to try it out).
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Julien_deka wrote:
First think strange... I used to run my Wacom Cintiq from a second graphic card - NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 - through mini-dispaly port, and this stoped to work... I have to use another port (DVI) from this same card to have a display on my Cintiq.
Second thing: I have 4 ports on the GTX570 (2 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 Dipslay Port)... I plugged my 2 main screens for UI into each DVI but only one worked (the bottom one). For my second screen I had to use the Display Port and use a bunch of adaptors.
I can't really help you out regarding the GT120 and why the DP went dead. I suspect it has something to do with the Mac not wanting to power more than 1 DP, but I'm not 100% sure of that. With the GTX570, only 2 of the ports are going to be active, as you found out: the first DVI and the DP. It has to do with the EFI on the card and the driver, I believe. The MacVidCards guy can explain it more thoroughly. He's fairly responsive via email and PMs on the MacRumors forum.
I actually bought this card for CUDA performances inside of CS6, so it would be disapointed to realise it's not working...
EDIT: I think I need to change something in a file to add the name of the card in order to get Premiere use its CUDA technology... I will dig into that a bit more
Right, you need to edit the CUDA text file and add it in as:
GeForce GTX 570
mrfreeze$ cat /Applications/Adobe\ Premiere\ Pro\ CS6/Adobe\ Premiere\ Pro\ CS6.app/Contents/cuda_supported_cards.txt
GeForce GTX 285
Quadro CX
Quadro FX 4800
Quadro 4000
GeForce GTX 570
jas

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the mac pro with 2 penryn quad-core processors seems very much the type of computer that will accomplish this.
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rob_ART wrote:
Faster cards may become available in the future but they will cost you much more than the GeForce 8800 GT.
Are you planning to run dual displays? I've heard there's some problems with the #2 DVI port.
re: dual displays ... at the moment a single 23" display. however, at some point in the not so immediate future i will either upgrade to a singe 30" or dual 23" displays. thanks for the tip on the dvi port
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A Mac Tech support article says: "Final Cut Studio applications may exhibit unexpected behaviors when used on a Mac Pro that has more than one graphics card. Unexpected behaviors may include rendering issues, Digital Cinema Desktop display issues, and window display issues."
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I want to pull one to make the 2nd monitor respond correctly. But I have to justify this to the owners of the suite.
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Hi guys,
I disconnected one card. Working with a single monitor there are is no more crashing with FCP. The card I'm using has a DVI out and two miniDisplayPorts. I'm looking around for an adaptor (or two) to go with the two miniDisplayPort outs. The card is an ATI RADEON 5770; I think it will support up to three monitors, two for sure.
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HELP! Upgrading Graphics Card on Mac Pro 2009

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