Mac Pro 5,1 replacement graphics card

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Level 2

227 points

Mac Pro 5,1 replacement graphics card

The original 5770 card seems to have died, and I'm considering replacing it with a Metal capable card. Can somebody recommend the cheapest card that would do the trick that will show the boot screen, and does not use more that two 6-pin power connectors? Maybe one 8-pin will work, assuming somebody makes a dual 6-pin to 8-pin cable that is compatible. Does that exist? I think I would prefer two 6-pin so I can reuse the existing cable.

Any good places to look aside from eBay?

Mac Pro, macOS 10.12

Posted on Sep 11, 2021 9:46 PM

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Answer 1

Sam Wilkins Author

Level 2

227 points

Sep 12, 2021 7:23 AM in response to padams35

That's a lot shorter list than this: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208898. Do most of those not come with Mac firmware? Also, aren't Quadros super expensive?

Are you suggesting I leave the monitor connected to the GTX 6xx normally, and if I need to do stuff like boot from another drive, connected to the GT 120? Will the GT 120 just stop outputting video once the OS loads if I put Mojave on there? I'll assume both cards come with dual-link DVI, and I'll need 4 slots for this. This might not be doable since it looks like it only has 4 slots total, and there's already another card in one of the slots.

E: Apparently they don't even like the H-word here.

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Answer 2

padams35

Level 4

3,313 points

Sep 12, 2021 3:06 AM in response to Sam Wilkins

a) 'Metal capable with bootscreen' is a short list. You need a Mac Edition card (or a PC card flashed with Mac Edition firmware) in either

> GTX 680

> Quadro K5000

> HD 7950

Cheapest might be to get an Apple GT 120 for the bootscreen and a generic GTX 6xx series card for Metal.

b) Dual 6-pin to 8-pin cables do exist.

c) eBay is probably cheapest. Otherwise... newegg?

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Answer 3

padams35

Level 4

3,313 points

Sep 12, 2021 10:15 AM in response to Sam Wilkins

Apple's recommended GPU list is a blend of 'metal-with-bootscreen' (the 680, K5000, and 7950 assuming MacEdition) and 'newest-supported-disregarding-bootscreen' (the Polaris/Vega series).

The Quadro cards were supper expensive when new, but the used cards have more modest price premiums. Probably not the cheapest choice, but still worth mention when the short list was that short.

As a 3rd choice for the adventurous and tech-savy there is an open source 'OpenCore' bootloader that can provide bootscreen support with generic PC cards that have MacOS drivers. It's just not out-of-the-box-native and not-supported-by-Apple.

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Answer 4

Sam Wilkins Author

Level 2

227 points

Sep 12, 2021 9:32 PM in response to padams35

I definitely saw a few others on eBay that said they have the boot screen. I guess those have all been custom flashed then.

I'm still curious as to the behaviour of the GT120 under Mojave and later, but I guess it isn't super important. It looks like one of the PCIe slots is double-wide, so there would still be room for the other card, even if the card took two slots.

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Answer 5

Sep 12, 2021 7:28 AM in response to Sam Wilkins

The GT120 is a very small card and can be placed in any single slot. Double-wide slot is not required. Aux cable is not used.

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Mac Pro 5,1 replacement graphics card

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