ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Graphics Card in 'old' Mac Pro

My HD 2600XT card came this morning and I have installed it in my 2006 Mac Pro, replacing my suspect X1900.

Runs fine in Leopard, both 23 and 30 in monitors simultaneously. Xbench and Cinebench results seem consistent with Barefeats. See detail results here. The performance is closer to the 1900 than I expected. (NB not a gamer).

In 10.4.11 it only drives the 23 inch leaving the 30 inch blank.

Strange thing is that even when booting in 10.5.1 the Apple logo and cog wheel appear on the 23 inch not the main 30 inch. When all is booted up everything is in the right place, as it was with the X1900, with right profiles assigned by display prefs etc.

Anyone succeeded moving the drivers across from 10.5.1 to 10.4.11 yet?

The other puzzle is that I run the computer through a wattmeter, and there is no difference in power consumption. I thought the 2600 used 60 watts less than the 1900? perhaps only only under high load?

Mike

Message was edited by: Mike Boreham

Message was edited by: Mike Boreham

I have a 2600xt in "old" mp and it's the same problem on tiger, the card is not a open gl and quartz extreme card for 10.4.11 I have just one resolution 1440 900, and just one screen of two

but this card is very cool on 10.5.1, my problem with HDV and leopard ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6093851) as left

To read about problems with the 2600 in the Mac Pro, look here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1358062&tstart=0

To read about the previous issue with the iMac with the similar 2600 Pro card, look here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5873077&#5873077

I should be able to do that next Tuesday when my Mac Pro arrives with that card.

Meanwhile, I was told by an ATI engineer that they have been running the 2600 in older Power Macs while developing the drivers for Apple.

I have tested it. It works (Mac Pro 2,66, first edition). But... the card is SLOWER as the build-in NVIDIA 7300! OpenGL is (a bit faster) but all otherthings run slower (Cinebench 9,5 en XBench 1.3) like the OS X interface elements.

I've got the original Mac Pro 2x2.66 running leopard 10.5.1. In System - Library - Extensions...there are drivers for the following:

Intel GMA 950
Intel GMAX 3100
ATI Radeon X2000
Geforece 8xxx
ATI Radeon 8500
ATI Radeon 9700
GeForce2MX
Geforce3
ATI Radeon X1000
GeForceFX

Placed in the fast slot, 16 lanes. OS X 10.5.1
Yes, it is slower in the PCIe 1 Mac Pro.
My guess is it is a driver problem. Remember that when the 'first' Mac Pro came out, the ATI card was also slower then the NVIDIa due to non-optimized drivers...

The web-page for the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT card now says:
"Requires Mac Pro with PCI-Express 2.0"
<http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=DD A21DA9&fnode=home/shop mac/macaccessories/storage&nplm=MB198Z/A>
Maybe that's why it is so slow in the older Mac Pros.

Hope that isn't a SID or something.

PCI Express 2.0 does not cause a card to run slower than it already is, and this card, while a step up by not quite 2x from the 7300 is still on the lower end of the scale.

I just booted the new Radeon HD 2600 XT on our 'old' 8-core 3.0GHz Mac Pro "Clovertown" (Apr 2007). Works like a champ.

I'm running benchmarks comparing to the GeForce 7300 GT and the Radeon X1900 XT.

Then I'll post some results comparing those three to the Radeon HD 2600 XT running on the 3.2GHz "Harpertown" (Jan 2008) in which it shipped.

I wish I could include the GeForce 8800 GT in the shootout but the kit I ordered won't ship until around the first of March.

I've just had my HD 2600 XT delivered and it won't work in OS 10.4.11. Interestingly though, when I got the card I didn't have 10.4.11, I had a slightly older version (last updated a few months ago, but when I started the computer it booted up OK and the screen came on but the only resolution available in system preferences were 600*800. So I updated the operating system to 10.4.11 and as a result (after restarting), the monitor wouldn't even come on at all.

Back to the point - does anyone know of (have - can e-mail me perhaps) the drivers I need to get this thing working on 10.4.11? Or will I have to got out and buy Leopard?

Thanks

It's official now: got an email from Apple that states that the ATI 8800 AND 2600 Xt ar NOT supported in older Mac Pro's but only in the new Mac Pro models.

Apple gives the option to return the card if you had ordered it within 48 hours after the email message.

Bummer 😟