Last ditch effort here: is there any way to get the XFX AMD Radeon™ HD 6450 (625 MHz Core 2GB DDR3 HDMI DVI VGA PCI-E 2.1 - HD-645X-CLH2) to work on my mac pro 1,1 2.66 Ghz Intel Core Duo running 10.7.5?? The manufacturer's web site and installer CD were of no help as they do not mention OSX at all. Bad sign, I know, but I really do not want to spend (a lot) more money!!
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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 5770, about US$250** works near full speed in every model Mac Pro, Drivers in 10.6.5. (This card has just been discontinued and is no longer available from Apple dealers. There may be some new, old stock still available at resellers)
• 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 -- REQUIRE 10.8.3 or later:
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition, about US$480** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 4,1
• 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 that offer boot screens and behave like official cards. "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.)"
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Okay, I am aware that this would all be much much easier if I just forked over a few hundred dollars more to apple and got the official compatible graphics card, but I am stuck with the 6450 and am willing to try anything at this point. I do not want to run 10.8.3 or later, so I do not meer all those conditions. And they beg the question: What exactly is the power cabling problem??
At the Netkas site I found this post that reflects where I am at (though he is talking about a different card):
Hi folks, I have trawlled through about 40 pages and hundreds of posts but so far it seems to have only confused me further and for all I have tried the best result I have got is a grey screen with a cursor, although now I just have a broken os so starting again... So far what I can gleam is the 6970 won't actually work properly in 10.7.3 or in 10.8 dr2 ? There is a cold boot bug in that you have to boot into windows firsthand then reset to get it to work? Do you have to fully load into windows and login?? You have to either replace or remove some ati driver kexts (this it seems is what's broken my install ATM, just get spinning flower).?? You need to use chameleon although it's still not working right, the latest chameleon I can see ref rc4 has a post date of 2009? Am I missing something?? I have been using chimera 1.9 something the latest on tonymacs site. I can get 10.7.3 running fine with my 5770's but if I have the 6970 powered then all I get is black screen, grey /whitish screens, sometimes with cursor or blue screen, depending on what framebuffer I force. Running a triple head set up. I do have a 10.8 waiting in the wings but am reluctant to roll onto a beta os as need system to be stable more than anything. So can this 6970 actually work right, or should I just pull it and stick with the 5770's I got for the moment? Spec is msi 6970 lightening, Any pointers in the right direction would help as now gone through so much stuff I'm just plain confused... |
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But more to my own problematic point was this post:
« on: April 13, 2012, 06:29:56 PM » |
Hi All
Just thought i'd let anyone interested know that the xfx hd6450 works great in a mac pro 3.1. Just no boot screen.
Its currently using the radeon FB and gives dual screen DVI and HDMI and shows as 6xxx in profile.
Editing the FB will possibly make it show as a 6450.
I have no desire to be using 10.8 on my old Mac Pro 1,1 - am perfectly content with 10.7 and would go back to 10.6 if that would allow the XFX Radeon hd6450 DDR3 2Gbt card to work. I went ahead and downloaded 2 versions of Chameleon and a version of Chimera already in anticipation of trying to follow some difficult procedure, but this last quote leaves me asking what exactly is an "FB" and how can it be edited??
Another question: since "flashing" seems (by my limited reading) to mean starting the graphics card up in a Windows environment (with BootCamp, I guess) - does that mean that you could simply put the card in a standard PC and it would be "flashed" then for a mac - specifically my 1,1 2007 Mac Pro with OS 10.7 on it??
Jeffox
What exactly is the power cabling problem??
Some cards require more than two six-pin aux cables to function properly. Some need one or two 8-pins as well.
If yours does not, Merry Christmas!
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"Flashing" means re-writing the flash ROM firmware on the card. Most of the programs that do this are for Windows. This is sort of like hacking the card, and it is Apple's firmware that needs to be written to the card to replace what is on there, so we try to be discrete not talk about the details here on Apple's forum.
Last ditch effort for Radeon HD 6450 and old Mac Pro
