Enhancing an early 2008 Mac Pro: The GPU Upgrade
Despite the fact that the “cheese grater” Mac Pro has always been touted as an expandable device, one of my biggest frustrations with it has been the anemic selection of available video card upgrades. Unsurprisingly, these “Mac Pro only” cards also come at a hefty price premium over their PC video card counterparts.
My early 2008 Mac Pro came with the stock ATI Radeon 2600 video card, sporting a paltry 256MB of VRAM.
Though the ATI Radeon 2600 has served me surprisingly well over the past few years, as of late, it was really beginning to show its age. Nowhere is this more evident than when running Photoshop CC, which requires a minimum of 512MB of VRAM to leverage the extra processing power of the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU).
The past few weeks I have been researching GPU options for my Mac Pro. Eventually I was brought back to the world of flashed PC video cards. The act of taking a PC based video card and converting it into a Mac version is a popular sub-culture among certain Mac Pro users. It’s popular for two reasons:
- It’s cheaper than buying a Mac specific video card.
- There are more card options to choose from.
Of course, there are also potential drawbacks:
- You may not see the gray Apple logo boot screen if you are directly connecting two DVI displays
- ATI’s “Crossfire” technology should work on Windows Boot Camp partitions, but the Mac won’t take advantage of it
- It’s not an “official” Mac card
I was ready to gamble. In my mind, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks, with one caveat: difficulty.
About a year ago, I tried flashing a PC Radeon card (a 4870 model, to be precise) as part of a DIY challenge, but failed. What I really wanted this time around was a ready-made solution – a pre-Flashed PC video card that would plug and play as a Mac card without any voodoo on my part.
Enter eBay.
As of this writing, a 1GB ATI 5770 Radeon flashed PC video card for the Mac Pro costs between $120 – $160 on eBay, which is substantially cheaper than the official ATI 5770 “Mac Pro” branded model, which retails for $249. After about three weeks of “window shopping”, I scored an ATI Radeon 5770 XFX 1GB video card for $121, with free shipping.
A week later, the card arrived. Included in the box was the card, a color booklet on how to install the card, a DVI -> VGA adapter, and a power cable to connect the card to the Mac Pro’s motherboard.
Installation
After disconnecting all the cables from the Mac Pro, I installed the new video card into Slot 2 on the Mac Pro, keeping the existing Radeon 2600 card in Slot 4. (PCI-e cards that require additional power from the motherboard need to go into Slot 1 or Slot 2.)
Installing the Radeon 5770 was straightforward: First plug it in, then connect the Molex power cable from the motherboard to the card.
The Test
After connecting all the cables back to the Mac Pro, it was time to see if my $121 investment worked. Unsurprisingly, it did. I was able to see the boot screen on my Mac, thanks to the fact that one of my displays (the Yiynova MSP19U) has VGA out. I used a VGA to DVI cable to connect the Yiynova to the Radeon 5770 card. The other DVI out from the 5770 connects to my HP 24″ display.
With both video cards in the Mac Pro, I was able to bring an old 19″ display back to life by connecting it up to the Radeon 2600 card – giving me a three display setup to work with.
Conclusion
In total, I now have five displays connected among two computers. With the Radeon 5770, Photoshop CC’s advanced graphic processing capabilities (including OpenCL) are now at my disposal. Maya runs much smoother. Plus, I have an additional dedicated display to utilize.
For me, the $121 gamble was worth it.
-Krishna
gregb999
February 11, 2014 at 10:28 pmI put in a stock (no flashing) nVidia GTX 660 in my Mac Pro. I took it out of my gaming PC when I upgraded it to a GTX 680. With 10.8, the card just works, once OS X boots up. I do not see a startup screen, but I don’t consider that important. I did have to pick up the power cable for it, but with the speed I get for gaming and it does have 2 GB of VRAM.
Krishna M. Sadasivam
February 11, 2014 at 10:33 pmGood to know, Greg! I’ve heard that modern cards like the one you have support newer versions of OSX out of the box. I’m very pleased with mine. I do see the boot screen, but that’s because my Yiynova has VGA out (not DVI).
nd
October 1, 2014 at 9:09 pmhi gregb999, what model of mac pro did you have for that, i’m in the same boat and would like a smoking card for my pro ;) gonna get some more life out of it with some ram, graphics and hd’s
cheers
nd
Krishna
October 1, 2014 at 10:18 pmI have the early 2008 model MacPro.
Bob
October 28, 2015 at 2:52 amMine is great in GUI performance, but since it’s not flashed, it runs games in Mac OSX as well as my old 5770 did. I have the Nvidia web drivers, but it’s still lacking in that area. I know that, in Windows, it will be just grand… but it’s annoying that it’s not gonna run at full capacity in Mac. I wonder if anyone has flashed one of these before…
Tangy minty
September 30, 2014 at 2:00 pmShouldn’t the cards be in the two lower slots? These are the 16x PCI slots, top two are 4x only.
Krishna
September 30, 2014 at 5:02 pmGood point, Tangy. Truthfully, I had no idea there was a bus speed difference in the slots. Now I’m tempted to rearrange everything…
LWWZ
December 1, 2014 at 2:37 pmKrishna,
I’m in the same boat with my 2008 MacPro “Cheese Grater”. I’ve loved this machine for many years and before finding your site had upgraded to SSDs, 32GB of RAM and a USB3 card.
After the Yosemite upgrade, the video performance was abysmal! I enabled the “Reduce Transparency” in the Accessibility options which helped some but started looking for GPU upgrades as well. After digging for a couple of hours I’ve come to realize that you currently have the ONLY single slot Radeon HD5770 card I’ve ever seen! :) Every other card out there is dual slot. In addition to the one I picked up off eBay for $109 w/free shipping. I was planning to use the blank on slot 1 but I’ll get buy.
I’ll let you know how it goes, but I expect to be able to keep this baby useful for several more years with these upgrades as long as Apple doesn’t “obsolete” me too soon with UI “enhancements”! Love your site and keep it up!
Krishna
December 1, 2014 at 2:43 pmThanks, LWWZ! Looking forward to your report on the new video card. The cheese-grater Mac Pro is still a very capable machine. A new video card will definitely spruce it up. Good luck!
Michael
December 8, 2014 at 5:48 pmSaw this post and decided to get the same card (I think it is) on Amazon for the Mac Pro (Early 2008 3.1) that I just got. I am switching everything over to Apple as I use Adobe alot and really hate win and Google atm. Anyway, I can get the card in, but have NO idea as to where to plug the power cord that came with the card. Any help would be great. I want to turn this on….
Card bought at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0032F63TW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Computer bought on ebay and specs as advertised are,
Brand:
Apple
Processor Speed: 2 x 2.80GHz
Product Family: Mac Pro Memory: 16GB
MPN:
A1186
Hard Drive Capacity: 2 x 500GB
Processor Type: 2 x Intel Xeon Quad Core Operating System: Yosemite
Product Identifiers
Brand Apple
Product Family Mac Pro
Model ID MacPro3,1
Model Number A1186
Motherboard
Video Output Interface PCI Express
Motherboard I/O Ports FireWire (IEEE1394a) x 2, FireWire (IEEE1394b) x 2, RJ45 Lan Port x 2, USB 2.0 x 5
Bus Speed 1600 MHz
Technical Features
Expansion Bays 2 x 5.25″ (External Access), 4 x 3.5″ (Internal Access)
Expansion Slots PCI Express x16 x 1, PCI Express x4 x 2
Memory
RAM Technology DDR2 SDRAM
RAM Max Supported Size 32 GB
RAM Memory Slots Qunatity 8 x DIMMs
Max. Cache Memory 12 MB
Video
Video Outputs DVI x 2, Mini-VGA
Audio
Audio Input Line In (3.5mm), Optical Digital In
Audio Output Headphones, Line out
Networking
Data Link Protocol Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet
Networking Type Integrated 10/100/1000 Network Card
Dimensions
Depth 18.7 in.
Height 20.1 in.
Width 8.1 in.
Weight 42.4 lb.
Miscellaneous
Form Factor Desktop
Release Date January, 2008
Exterior Color Silver
Other Features 64bit Ready, Dual Channel Memory Architecture
Krishna
December 8, 2014 at 8:54 pmhi Michael:
That card isn’t listed as flashed for Mac, so I doubt it would work with your Mac Pro without proper flashing. From what I understand, only certain PC model 5770 cards can be properly flashed to work with the Mac. With the Mac Pro, there are some molex plugs located on the motherboard, near the right side of the DVD drive.
Michael
December 8, 2014 at 11:35 pmKinda figured I had made a dumb move buying that one. Maybe I can use it in my PC. So, what would be my best economical choice to throw in the mac to upgrade it. I use Adobe CC for my small business.
Michael
December 8, 2014 at 11:41 pmWhat about this one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-HD-5770-1GB-GDDR5-MAC-DVI-DP-HDMI-PCIe-Video-Card-for-Mac-Pro-HD5770/231366228054?_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982&_trkparms=aid%3D777000%26algo%3DABA.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D27538%26meid%3Dd2fc9440ff9e46759e910792b743216c%26pid%3D100009%26prg%3D11353%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26
Krishna
December 8, 2014 at 11:51 pmThat should work. Here’s the product from the seller I purchased from: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flashed-ATI-Radeon-HD-5770-1GB-GDDR5-PCIe-for-Apple-Mac-Pro-1-1-5-1-2006-2012-/111542782219?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item19f877c90b
Michael
December 9, 2014 at 12:04 amWent ahead and ordered. Hopefully it will come fairly soon. Any other ideas of upgrades that I should do, now that I have posted the specs and opened this can of worms? Lol. Btw, thanks for the help!
Krishna
December 9, 2014 at 6:12 amSweet! Good luck, Michael!
Adam
February 28, 2015 at 12:31 amThank you for posting this Krishna! You literally have the exact same setup I’m trying to (eventually) get to. I just recently acquired a Mac Pro (2008 model) with 8-core processor (2 x quad), and I’m upgrading the RAM to 16 GB as well as an SSD in one of the PCIe slots for the OS X and Adobe CC apps for fast boot up and performance times. The graphics card is one thing I’m planning to upgrade next, but trying to find the best value. Some PC ones I’ve heard work, just without the apple boot screen (no big deal to me) within the Geforce 600 and 700 GT and GTX sereis. I’ve seen 2GB ones within the $120-$150 range and I’m probably going to go that route as long as its compatible.
But you also have a Yiynova MSPU19 and a Dell 24″ for better color yes? those are the exact same two displays I have been looking at purchasing! How do you like them? Do you find the Yiynova works well for drawing on, and the larger dell for correct color and higher resolution?
Many thanks!
-Adam
Krishna
February 28, 2015 at 8:35 amhi Adam! Both the Yiynova and the Dell displays have been working really well for me. From what I have read, there is an even newer version of the Yiynova display MSP22 (version 3) that has a much better viewing angle and improved color gamut. All the work I have been making over the past 2 years has been on the Yiynova. It’s a solid product and I’ve been really happy with it.
brad
May 4, 2015 at 8:53 pmHello all
I have the same Mac Pro (Early 2008) with the stock ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB graphic card. if i upgrade to the
ATi Radeon HD 5770 1GB Graphics Video Card For All Apple Mac Pro 2006-2012 10.10 will i be able to use Adobe CC, and Apple Motion? I really like my cheese grater mac and would like to get a few more years out of it.
Thanks in advance
Krishna
May 4, 2015 at 8:54 pmIt should work just fine, Brad. I run Adobe CC apps like Photoshop, Bridge and Illustrator all the time, with some After Effects thrown in for good measure. All work without any issues. I’m assuming Apple Motion will also work. In short, I’ve had no compatibility issues.
brad
May 4, 2015 at 9:39 pmThanks! Krishna i will add to cart and complete my transaction. i have been on the fence for sometime. Glad i found this thread. Again thanks!
Krishna
May 4, 2015 at 9:41 pmAwesome. Glad to help, Brad! Enjoy the new card!
Dread2005
September 16, 2015 at 5:08 amhey Folks came across this page, to finde out, how to enable a 3.0 PCIE Graphic Card, to work with the 2.0 of my Mac Pro 2008!
Hm there seams to be now way arround a GPU Flashing….
I use right now the GTX 750 TI with 2 GB Ram at DDR5, i works like a charm with just 60 Watt needed! (its Passiv cooling!)
Joe
October 8, 2015 at 7:08 pmHey Dread! I’m not clear on your success with the GTX 750 TI. I have a MAC pro 3,1 I’d like to upgrade.
More GPU required for software these days…
Did you have to flash the 750? did work out of the box?
Jay
June 1, 2016 at 10:41 pmI just bought an EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti SC for $110 from Amazon and installed it in my A1186 (3,1). Download the nvidia drivers (can find a list of all of them here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/306535-nvidia-web-driver-updates-for-el-capitan-update-05252016/ or search Google for something like “nvidia osx drivers 10.11.5”)
After driver installation & reboot, shut down the computer, install the new card, and start it up again. Works out of the box without any flashing or modification at all.
Krishna
June 2, 2016 at 11:13 amVery cool. Thanks, Jay. Great tip!