Video Card upgrade for Early 2008 MacPro III

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Level 1

8 points

Video Card upgrade for Early 2008 MacPro III

I'm looking to upgrade the stock video card in my Early 2008 Mac Pro (2x2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon, 14 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB graphics, running OS X 10.9.3). In reading the posts here and elsewhere, it looks like a PC card like one of the two below would work and would meet my price requirements ($200 or less). I know that the non-Mac cards won't show the boot screen, and that does not worry me as I will keep the old card for emergencies. I'm interested in faster graphics performance overall and in online games.

I have narrowed my options down to two versions of the GeForce GTX 660 available on Amazon:

#1: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express 3.0 DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/Displayport SLI Ready Graphics Card GV-N660OC-2GD

#2: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 SUPERCLOCKED 2048MB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DP Graphics Card 02G-P4-2662-KR

In reading the reviews on Amazon, I like #1 better because it seems to have a better, and most importantly for me, QUIETER, cooling fan system. My questions are:

Will both of these cards work?

Any preference between them?

Any issues likely with power supply or back-compatibility of the PCI-e 3.0 card with the PCI-e 2.0 slots?

Any other suggestions?

OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on May 28, 2014 11:24 AM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

May 28, 2014 11:45 AM in response to PeteSchatz

Have you looked at the previous discussions listed on the right side of this page under the heading "More Like This"?

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Answer 2

PeteSchatz Author

Level 1

8 points

May 28, 2014 12:03 PM in response to lllaass

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have read through them. They were the basis for my choice of the GTX 660. I just want to be sure these particular cards will work, and to see if anyone has advice to help me choose between them.

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Answer 3

May 28, 2014 12:04 PM in response to PeteSchatz

There are a whole raft of caveats about stepping off "the Apple pathway". This tip attempts to list them:

User Tip: Mac Pro silver tower (2006-2012) Replacement Graphics cards

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Answer 4

PeteSchatz Author

Level 1

8 points

May 28, 2014 12:17 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks. The main caveats that I'm aware of are the lack of a visible boot screen, and the need to buy a couple of power cables. That seems manageable given that the GTX 660 Mac version costs about $600 vs. $200 for the PC version.

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Answer 5

PeteSchatz Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 12, 2014 8:27 AM in response to PeteSchatz

Here's an update. I bought the first GTX 660 card listed above (Amazon: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express 3.0 DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/Displayport SLI Ready Graphics Card GV-N660OC-2GD) and installed it. It requires one power cable purchased separately (Amazon: PCIe PCI-e Power Cable for Mac G5 nVidia ATI Video Card - High Quality). I installed it in place of the stock video card 3 months ago. Overall, I have been very pleased with the performance. It is VERY quiet, making scarsely more noise than the other fans in the MacPro, even when used for graphics-intensive games. Graphics performance is hugely improved. For example, games like Diablo 3 and World of Tanks now very are playable on this 6-year-old machine. I just checked Amazon, and the video card now costs about $160 after rebate. In 3 months of use, I have noticed only two problems:

1. As noted in other posts, the start-up screen is not visible until the login screen appears. This could be a problem if you need any of the pre-login functions.

2. Occasionally, the screen stays dark when the MacPro wakes up from sleep mode. When this happens, I need to do a restart to get it working again. This has not been a big problem. You just need to be careful to save any documents before the MacPro goes into sleep mode.

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