Best Gpu for mac pro 1.1

[Quinten]

What is the Best gpu I can get for a Mac pro 1.1 Do not tell me to buy another mac pro I know this one is old but im just intrested in a good Gpu to replace the 7300gt and make an upgrade to 10.11 possible.
Thanks ahead

 

[Slydude]

I haven't kept up with that model since mine blew some time ago. Last time I checked there weren't many better cards available and some of those that were happened to be really expensive. I think the best at the moment is a Radeon 5770/5780 I'm not sure which. Harryb should be on later and will likely have some thoughts.

One other thing: The graphics card is not the primary reason that vintage Mac cannot run things higher than OS X 10.7.x. The boot sequence for that machine is 32 bit. There is a fix available on the web but many users have reported problems with it bricking their systems. Again Harry or Nick will have more info.

 

[Quinten]

I do not need the Boot screen necessary so it doesn't have to be a mac card

 

[harryb2448]

Go wth the 5770 and you may need a boot screen if ever you want to get into Receovery with Lion OS X.7.

 

[Quinten]

If ever i need the bootscreen I can just use the original 7300gt. But I will defo consider the 5770

 

[lclev]

Check out a similar discussion at Macrumors. They offer a couple of other possibilities.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/graphics-card-upgrade-for-mac-pro-1-1.1949452/

Lisa

 

[Quinten]

Thanks for the information!

 

[harryb2448]

Quinten in my Mac Pro days I used an SSD in Bay Two, and simply formatted it NTFS and ran Windows 7 on it straight out.

 

[Quinten]

Yeh i have 4 HDD's 3x 250gb and one 320gb I think im going to do it the same way you did and skip bootcamp. Are drivers easy to find for this model?. And can i put any Nvidia videocard in it like a 960? (Without the bootscreen of course) or do I have to look on wich are compatible with osx? If they are not then I will most likely only run Windows 7 on this machine

 

[lclev]

Any drive - hdd or ssd - will work with a Mac Pro. They must be formatted OS X Extended Journaled or Fat32 (not recommended) or extFAT (also not the best either). The other option for shared external drives is to install Paragon for NTFS (and if you run windows you might need to.)

As for video cards - yes you can run just about any Nvidia card. Here is a link to a rather long thread on MacRumors that discusses using Nvidia cards in Mac Pros. I know it starts in 2012 but I suggest you take the time to read it as there are things to consider when picking a video card. Also you will discover a guy who custom modifies video cards for the mac pro and he has a website.

I choose the Nvidia GTX 780 with 3GB because Apple supplies the drivers and I have an original Apple Nvidia GT 120 in it which is not used but available if I need to see the boot screen. I also did not have to add an extra power supply source which will happen when you start putting in some of the higher end cards.

Lisa

 

[Quinten]

Yeh I don't need performance like a 780 (althought it is a BEAST card ) I got a gtx 555 OEM from a friend who upgraded his x51 alienware gone see if that works ill keep you updated.
Can I keep the 555 and 7300gt in the machine at the same time or will this cause problems?
Thanks ~Quinten

 

[pigoo3]

One thing to keep in mind when upgrading an old Mac Pro 1,1…and that's the power supply. Mac Pro 1,1's are now in the neighborhood of 10 years old…and depending on how much use a specific Mac Pro 1,1 has seen…the power supply could be on the weaker side (slow degradation over time).

Take an older Mac Pro 1,1…then start upgrading it (with maybe faster CPU's, 8 cores, 4 internal hard drives, lots of ram, a more powerful video card, etc. Things could go from operating fine (with 4 cores & stock video card)…to "deadsville"! Thus may need a new power supply after the upgrades.

Just something to consider when looking for that more powerful video card.

- Nick

 

[Quinten]

Yes I will keep that in mind thanks! But keeping the 7300 gt is not an option. it is utter crap
~Quinten

 

[pigoo3]

Yes I will keep that in mind thanks! But keeping the 7300 gt is not an option. it is utter crap
~Quinten

It wasn't that great of a card in 2006!

BTW…have you had this Mac Pro for long…or did you just get it…and looking at upgrading it?

- Nick

 

[Quinten]

Got it for a long time but never used it much. But lately I've been really interested in turning it in a low-end gaming pc for the causal games I play

 

[lclev]

Yeh I don't need performance like a 780 (althought it is a BEAST card ) I got a gtx 555 OEM from a friend who upgraded his x51 alienware gone see if that works ill keep you updated.
Can I keep the 555 and 7300gt in the machine at the same time or will this cause problems?
Thanks ~Quinten

I am not familiar with the power requirements or if they need additional power connected. That would be the only issue. My GTX 780 takes the two supplemental connections but the GT 120 only needs the power supplied by the board connection.

Lisa

 

[Quinten]

I don't expect power to be an issue. The card only uses a single 6 pin connecter and the 7300gt takes its power from the pci-e slot. Im going to order the power connector tomorrow since the mac pro uses a non standard cable
~Quinten

 

[harryb2448]

From memory does not the 7300GT, which was a terrible card with very high failure rate, have a single power cable from the rear of the card to the logic board also?

More powerful cards all use double cable to the logic board. It is normal for the two cables to come complete with the card.

 

[Quinten]

Nope the 7300gt doesn't use any power cables. And well almost every stock graphics card is crap

 

[pigoo3]

Got it for a long time but never used it much. But lately I've been really interested in turning it in a low-end gaming pc for the causal games I play

Just another thought…since you mentioned low end gaming PC for casual. It's really surprising how much electricity (watts) Mac Pro's use compared to Mac-Mini's, iMac's, and Apple portable computers. I have a watt-meter than I play with every now & then to see the energy consumption of various devices.

Just idling a Mac Pro 1,1 can use in the neighborhood of 130-150 watts. Start gaming...making the video card & cpu's do some work…and you could be talking 250-300 watts (or more). Other Apple devices can use far less than 100 watts when doing low-end gaming.

Electricity use may not really be an issue. Just mentioning it since I happened to have investigated the electricity use of a Mac Pro 1,1 recently.

- Nick