Best Quadro FX for Mac Pro 1.1?

[phulrich]

Hey there,

which is the best Quadro FX card I can get to work in a Mac Pro 1.1? Softmodded or flashed card would also be ok! Would be cool to have something more powerful than the old FX 4500

Thanks in advance!

Philipp

[aquamac]

Hmm,

That is a tricky one! FX 4500 was the best card made for this machine. There was always a 8800 GT that was made for the 1,1 (you have to get the right one). I no longer have a 1,1 but I did get a PC GTX 285 going in the second slot with the original 7300GT in slot one. Don't go and splash the cash though, see if you can borrow one. Which country do you live in?

[phulrich]

I live in Germany. I must say i have hope that the new Quadro 4000 will work in the Mac Pro 1.1, because it definately does support x86 architectures and is Fermi like the GTX 480 which works in all Mac Pros.

Also is it possible to flash the 8800GT or even GTX 285 to a Quadro working under OSX?

[aquamac]

I worked out how to convert 8800 GT to Quadro 3700 for hackintosh and PC but not for Real Mac. Take a look here:

www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=134631

GTX 285 cannot be converted to Quadro for Mac Pro 1,1 only 3,1 & 4,1 as these have firmware that is compatible with the 64 bit roms that both cards have. Not good news and one of the reasons I got rid of my Mac Pro 1,1.

[phulrich]

I know the thread on insanelymac. Why exactly won't this work in a real Mac (sorry if this is a dumb question)?

Edit:

Can I at least flash a PC FX 4500 to work in a Mac Pro? PC ones are easier to find.

[aquamac]

Some flashing basics:

1. Mac Pros have EFI firmware and PC's use a traditional bios. These are both quite different from each other. With Mac EFI firmware, your mac requires that you have a substantial amount of code in your graphics cards rom to boot your computer. In fact the rom chip is generally twice the size in a mac to a PC.

So the contents of a mac rom contain two parts

a. The actual graphics cards firmware and
b. the EFI firmware relating to that particular card.

Even the EFI part is specific to the actual card.

This is why you can sometimes use a PC card in say the second slot as if you leave your mac card in slot 1, your mac uses the EFI firmware from the first card to boot.

2. Therefore you can't just dump a mac rom onto a PC card and flash it as there will not be enough room. You have to buy a larger rom chip, cut the old one off your card and flash the new one (blind) once you have soldered it onto your card.

So yes you can flash a FX 4500 to use in a mac pro, BUT the chances are that you will have to solder on a new rom chip. The rom also needs a certain amount of editing too to be mac compliant.

[phulrich]

Darn it, I'll just throw a GTX 480 in there and see if the new Quadro 4000 will work in the Mac Pro 1.1. Thanks anyways!

[blacksheep]

Aug 6, 2010 4:06:04 GMT aquamac said:

So yes you can flash a FX 4500 to use in a mac pro, BUT the chances are that you will have to solder on a new rom chip. The rom also needs a certain amount of editing too to be mac compliant.

I've done few FX4500 for myself and friends and fortunately all of them had 128K EEPROM.