ATI Radeon 5770 for 2008 Mac Pro

Hi-

I am curious if this is just a simple swap, or if I need to attach any additional power cable to the mother board.

The 5770 requires one auxillary power connection to the logic board.
It also takes up two slots.

You should be able to use multiple graphics cards.
The 5770 averages about 70W, with about 110W at load.
The 2600 averages about 50W, with about 90W at load.

Just make sure your additional cards don't put you over 300W.

Does the manufacturer matter for this card? Can I use one from Best Buy or Frys or do I have to get the Apple Store model and wait 2-4 weeks for it to be shipped.

ONLY cards with EFI, and right now, Apple isn't shipping any.
All you'll find where you mention are PC cards.

Hi-

Welcome to Discussions!

Does the manufacturer matter for this card?

Yes. As The hatter states, EFI is needed, and PC versions don't have what OS X needs.

Can I use one from Best Buy or Frys

No.

I've got a 5770 and a 2600 in my Mac Pro3,1 and thus far I haven't really had both working at the same time in OSX - except, they sort of both worked together before I installed the recent graphics update package for 10.6.4. Before the update one of my two screens off the 5770 would work, but with not QE. The 2600 was 100% at that point. Now I've got QE going on both DVI ports off the 5700, but nothing at all from the 2600 (doesn't even show up in System Profiler)

😟

That said, when I boot my box in to Windows 7, I get 4 displays of glory.

I had basically the same problem with trying to run the Mac 5770 with a Mac/PC 3870 in my 2008 Octo 3.1 MP. I was hoping I could use the component output on the 3870 (using the 9 pin ATI adapter that has component, s-video and composite outputs) for my Sony CRT Pro monitor and using the DVI to run a large screen TV for Netflicks, etc, or another smaller digital monitor. Plus, I was keeping my fingers crossed that Apple's "Color" application wouldn't see the 3850 if I had the AV switcher turning the connections off when not in use while editing in FCP Studio (Color will usually not launch if it "sees" two graphics cards connected to monitors).

Apparently the 5770 firmware has a conflict with other ATI cards: 2600, 3850 and maybe even 4870. I thought they would have a better chance of working together being ATI, but apparently not. Another user posted that he was able to get a NVIDIA GT 120 working fine with the ATI 5770 after having the same issues with the ATI 2600, but whether Color will launch is another question. I suppose I can try some older cheaper NVIDIA's maybe even some with analog outputs that the 3870 had if I could find one? Any suggestions or success stories in running a second card with the 5770?

Finally, I removed the 3870 to see how the 5770 would work by itself: the screen start-up time went from several minutes to seconds. Both monitors are very snappy and working fine with one 23" CD in the DVI port and the other23" CD using the mini-display port adapter (just the single $29 one, not dual DVI $99 type).

I don't play games or do much 3D, so I hope it was worth the upgrade price, as the 3870 had a passive cooler, was rock solid in every aspect and ran Core apps fast, but it didn't have OpenCL, so I'm hoping to see some improvement across the board in my graphics, especially the Adobe CS5 Suite.

I just installed the 5770 and for whatever reason only my VGA monitor that has the DVI converter attatched works in the DVI port. My Mac monitor that has a DVI cable won't work in the same port or with a Mini DVI converter. I upgraded to 10.6.4 and still doesn't work. Anybody have any ideas?

Did you run Software Update to install updates for 10.6.4, such as the graphics update?
<http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1083>

Just got my 5770 and put it in. Starting back up at first seemed normal but after a couple minutes the little spinning wheel stopped spinning and left me with a blank screen except for the motionless wheel.This is my hardware
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro2,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 8 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP21.007F.B06
SMC Version (system): 1.15f3
Serial Number (system): 4073 **UPZ
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0019E3F9E53A
I have been running a ATI Radeon HD 3870 with no problems. I
thought this would speed up my renders.

<Edited by Host>

Kinda the same problem as I have. The HD 4000 and HD 5000 series driver seems to be a bit picky when it comes to screens. I tested several screens with those cards and most of them don't work (all screens were TFTs, connected via DVI-D).

Apple has to fix this because all screens I have tested worked with Windows 7 without problems.
With Mac OS the screen turns black after the grey bootscreen with the Apple logo has showed up.

Which Mac monitor? I have my 30" on DVI and it works great. I have my 23" on the mini. I'm wondering if you are running 32 or 64 Kernel. My 2006 is a 32 EFI and this card works great.

I installed my 4770 in my 2008 mac pro and attached my 30inch apple display to the dvi port and also had my older ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT that originally shipped with my mac also installed in the second pcie slot and attached two more monitors. At first they all worked fine together but a fday or two later things started acting up and then the computer would not boot. I then unattached my 30 inch from the dvi of the 4770 and only had one monitor my 22 inch cinema display connected to the second video card and the computer booted very quickly. Then I removed the second older ati card and reattached the 30inch back to the 4770 and it is working fine. I guess there is something to the fact that there is either ati firmware / driver conflict between the two cards or perhaps there is not enough power for two cards.
I also have a nvidia 8800 that was my main card, I think I will install that in place of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB and see if it works. It also needs power from the logic board via a cable and there is a second slot for one on the logic board where the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB does not need power from the logic board.

Has anyone tried installing the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB and the ATI 4770?

I have to say, it is important to pls. keep numbers straight.

The OPs thread is about "5770" but you're talking about... 4770? what is that? a typo? multiple times.

Oh so sorry thanks for the correction hatter I did mean the 5770.

Now here is what I have found in the past few hours with my MP 2008 and the 5770 doing a bit of experimenting.

I am finding that this could be a power distribution problem or rather lack of overall power.

My computer boots fine with the 5770 on its own installed and just the 30inch monitor attached, then I added my nvidia 8800 installed in the second slot. I have my thirty inch plugged into the 5770 dvi port and two monitors plugged into the dvi ports of the 8800. All three monitors are working fine but this is without any of my peripherals plugged in. Then I added a two terabyte usb 2 drive plugged into the front of the MP's usb port and the computer wont even boot. I also have 4 drives installed internally. I tried this several times. I unplugged the usb 2 drive and the MP booted fine, I plugged the usb 2 drive back in and it would not boot. Then I just took the drive out of the mix and then one buy one I started plugging in all my other peripherals like my usb hub, firewire digi 002 audio interface and eyetv firewire tv tuner. All seemed ok but I know from past experience if the tv tuner and digi 002 are plugged in at the same time they compete for firewire bus power and I will get errors in one or both apps that work with them. Then with the two power hungry firewire devices plugged back in the 5770 went into a blurred look, the other two monitors were fine. I unplugged the digi 002 and it was back to normal after a reboot and has been fine since.

So to make a long story short, connect your video cards to your monitors and don't have any extra peripherals plugged in except your mouse and keyboard and see how it goes. If it works like I think it will then add your peripherals one by one until you hit your limit. I know from passed experience with the firewire 400 bus that if I have too many devices connected on it like 3 daisy chained 400 drives and my 002 connected a drive or two will stop mounting or won't be seen by the disk utility.

I will se how it goes for a couple of days and might even remove my 8800 and put the older ati in its place and see if that works.