User Tip: Mac Pro silver tower (2006-2012) Replacement Graphics cards
RE: Mac Pro silver tower (2006-2012) Replacement Graphics cards
1) Apple brand cards,
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards, and
3) "Mac Edition" cards ...
... show all the screens, including Boot up screens, Safe Mode, Installer, Recovery, debug screens, and Alt/Option boot screens. At this writing, these choices include:
1) Apple brand cards:
• Apple firmware 4870 0.5GB **works in all models of Mac Pro, 2 aux power cords, loud at startup (discontinued)
• Apple-firmware 5770 1GB, about US$250** works near full speed in every model Mac Pro, Drivers in 10.6.5. (discontinued)
• Apple-firmware 5870, about US$450
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards
• NVIDIA Quadro 4000 Fermi, about US$1200
• NVIDIA Quadro K5000 Kepler, about US$2500
3) "Mac Edition" cards that require 10.6.8 or later:
• EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition, about US$450** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 3,1 or later (discontinued)
"Mac Edition Cards -- REQUIRE 10.8.3 or later:
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition, about US$480** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 4,1 or later
• EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition, about US$600
The cards above require no more than the provided two 6-pin aux power connectors provided in the Mac Pro through 2012 model. Aux cables may not be provided for third-party cards, but are readily available.
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If you are Meet ALL of these:
• running 10.8.3 or later AND
• don't care about "no boot screens" etc AND
• can re-wire or otherwise "work out" the power cabling, THEN:
You can use many more cards, even most "PC-only cards".
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One more thing--
Flashed PC cards: There are a good many EFI flashed cards. Many behave very similar to official cards. Some even offer boot screens. "for more information about using and flashing non-Apple cards, please check out the various sites like Netkas (and others) that focus on and discuss what is known and available." (Not supported or endorsed by Apple.)
About graphics-card compatibility between Mac Pro models - Apple Support
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