The list here says,
Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012)
but I'm wondering if I can install a different PCIe video card, or do I have to buy either the ATI Radeo HD 5770 or 5870 for the Mac Pro (2010 with 2.8 GHz dual core Xenon)? It was given to me without a video card.
Mac Pro
Yes you can use other cards. You can either get a second-hand Mac specific card or you can get a brand new PC specific card. PC specific cards will work in your Mac Pro but will not show anything on screen until the Mac has completely finished booting and loaded the drivers.
It is possible to flash the firmware of a PC specific card to make it have Mac firmware and this is fairly straight forward for AMD cards and older Nvidia cards like the GTX 680. Newer Nvidia cards however currently cannot be done by yourself and currently can only be flashed by a company called MacVidCards. Flashing a card is done from Windows and while it could be done in a 'real' PC is often done using Boot Camp on a Mac.
Apple include AMD drivers as standard in OS X, but you would have to download and install Nvidia drivers. If you currently don't have a working video card then that could present a catch-22 situation.
The AMD Sapphire HD 7950, or the Nvidia GTX 680 were cards with last Mac specific versions released. Newer cards would only come as PC models but as mentioned can still be flashed to Mac firmware, this includes the AMD R-290x, and the Nvidia GTX 980.
Thanks guys. I guess I have a double catch-22. This Mac Pro also came without a disk drive, and I am trying to load Ubuntu onto a blank drive. I created a bootable Ubuntu USB, but when I boot the Mac, the monitor power button never goes from orange to green, so I'm afraid there is no output from the video card. It's a really old PCIe card, a VisionTek X1550 (ATI Radeon X1550 GPU) that I know works as I just used it in a Pentium D system to install Ubuntu and also formatted and tested the drive in that system before moving both components to the Mac. I'm not sure if the EFI issues apply since I'm not using OS X yet. If I can get the system running with Ubuntu, then the next step would be to consider buying an HD 5770 or 5870 or some new equivalent card (I've seen a GTX 750 TI for under $100 with rebate) and loading OS X on it. I also have an even slower GeForce G310 spare card I could pull from another system to test. Lastly I have a 9500GT card I could pull from my main PC to try out (but don't really want to). I waited 5-10 minutes for the monitor light to go green with the ATI X1550 last night and left it running. I'll check it tonight to see if it ever gets a signal and/or display from the Mac.
Does Mac Pro (2010) Support Other Video Cards?
