Seeking cheap silent graphics card for MacPro3,1 in place of ATI HD 2600

Question

Seeking cheap silent graphics card for MacPro3,1 in place of ATI HD 2600

The Radeon HD 2600 in my MacPro3,1 (Early 2008) is making too much noise. It's whining to the point of being annoying. If I force its fan to stop, the MacPro gets nearly silent.

I have been looking for replacement cards but most of them seem to be rather expensive. I already have a rather fast card in there (a Geforce 660 Ti), so I don't need another fast card - I only need one that I can attach my secondary monitor to in order to see the startup screen (the 660 Ti doesn't support the Mac's startup screen).

I had tried installing a GeForce 7300 GT, which is fan-less, but found that not to work in this Mac model.

What other options do I have for finding a cheap and noiseless graphics card for the MacPro3,1 that supports the startup screen?

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), null

Posted on Sep 24, 2015 5:05 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 24, 2015 5:38 AM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

I should add that, due to the installed Geforce 660 Ti, both power supply cables from the motherboard are already in use. So, for instance, the RADEON HD 4870 seems to be no option for me because that requires these power connectors as well, and I have no more available.

Alternatively, what's a high-performance card that I could install in place of both the 2600 and the 660 Ti, i.e. a card that has a performance at least as good as the 600 Ti?

BTW, a list of officially supported cards I just found here: About graphics-card compatibility between Mac Pro models - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,554 points

Sep 24, 2015 6:10 AM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

got a 3.1 too. recently my nvidia 8800gt packed up and needed replacing, so i bought the nvidia gt120 which is powered through the motherboard

so no need for the extra power cable, works fine for my needs, boot screens and silent, and cool. not a high end card, but with your other card might be useful.

mine was a new unused card in a sealed bag in an apple genuine upgrade box, although dated 2011, but as i say in a new unused state.

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Answer 3

Sep 24, 2015 6:12 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Ah, had not even considered looking at that one yet, I somehow missed it. And it seems to fit my needs perfectly.

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Answer 4

Sep 25, 2015 6:48 AM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

Thomas Tempelmann wrote:

BTW, a list of officially supported cards I just found here: About graphics-card compatibility between Mac Pro models - Apple Support

That list is not actually officially supported cards, it is the cards originally included with each model of Mac Pro. For example Apple support the Radeon HD 7xxx series which is not on that list.

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Answer 5

Sep 25, 2015 6:50 AM in response to John Lockwood

Well, Apple supports (inofficially) almost any PC-compatible graphics card since OS X 10.7.5. But the question here is which cards support the EFI boot code so that you get a display while booting the Mac. Can you confirm that all Radeon HD 7xxx series do that?

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Answer 6

Sep 25, 2015 8:57 AM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

There was an official Mac version of the Radeon 7950 sold by Sapphire which had as standard Mac EFI firmware. However most AMD cards can be 'flashed' to have Mac firmware as a DIY process. This is usually done via Windows in Boot Camp on the Mac.

I have a genuine Mac edition 7950 for example and I am about to try flashing a 7970. You could therefore buy a standard PC edition 7950 or 7970 and flash it yourself as well.

Once they have been flashed they will do all the normal Mac boot things.

Some Nvidia cards can be also DIY flashed e.g. the GTX 680, others like the GTX 980 can only be done at the moment by a specialist reseller called MacVideoCards.

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Answer 7

Sep 25, 2015 9:35 AM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

I looked at http://forum.netkas.org/ but it seems there is no flashable EFI ROM for my 660Ti, but there are some for similar cards. Not going to help me but perhaps others.

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Answer 8

Oct 29, 2015 10:27 AM in response to Eau Rouge

I've installed the GT 120 next to the GTC 660 Ti. While they work together on OS X 10.10, they do not work together in Windows 7!

On Windows, these cards need a different set of drivers, and Windows can't seem to have them installed simultaneously: As soon as I install one, the other gets disabled. No matter what I tried, including disabling the GT 120 in the Device Manager, I couldn't get Windows to work in a way where I didn't have driver conflicts shown and also getting two monitors working. In the end, I removed the GT 120 again, connecting both monitors to the GTX 660.

I will now install the GT 120 only when need, i.e. when I need to see the boot screen.

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Answer 9

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,554 points

Oct 29, 2015 11:04 PM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

Sorry I can't help you with the Windows drivers issue. Maybe that the GT120 was made I think only with Mac in mind. You could just leave the card in

to prevent wear on the connections on motherboard and card, just switch the display cables when necessary.

hope your 3.1 is happy.

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Answer 10

Oct 30, 2015 2:37 AM in response to Eau Rouge

Don't worry, I didn't mention this last part to ask for help, I just left it here so that others can be warned if they wanted to the try the same.

And no, the issue is not that the GT 120 is "made for Mac". If I have only this card in the Mac, then Windows is happy with the drivers it installs for it.

And not connecting any display cables to it won't work, either - Windows will still misbehave, seeing a hardware installed that the drivers for the GTX 660 have trouble with.

The driver issue seems to be based on the fact that the older GT 120, which is then identified as a GT 8000 (or something similar, don't remember exactly), is only DirectX 10 compatible, while the GTX 660 is DirectX 11 compatible, requiring different sets of drivers.

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Answer 11

Oct 30, 2015 3:10 AM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

Hmm, I have used an AMD Radeon HD 7970 and an Nvidia/Apple GT120 at the same time in Windows 10 via Boot Camp - more precisely I had a monitor connected only to the GT120 while I used Windows to 'flash' the HD 7970. I did not have any problems with this and using a GT120 while flashing various makes of cards e.g. an Nvidia GTX-680 is a common approach.

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Answer 12

Oct 30, 2015 4:56 AM in response to John Lockwood

John, what point are you trying to make? There's no question that the GT 120 works on Windows. There is also no question that an ATI and an NVIDIA card work simultaneously on Windows. Event two GTX cards will work together. Just not the configuration I listed. That's an exception to the rule I'm trying to point out. No need to list all the combos that do work.

The only thing that you should have mentioned was if you got both the GT 120 and the GTC 680 working together, with Nvidia drivers - I claim that it won't. If you have that working, then that'd be a valuable information for this thread.

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