Will ATI Radeon HD 6970 fit my Mac Pro?

Serendipity

Hi,

So I am looking into a graphics card upgrade and was wondering if a PC-based ATI Radeon HD 6970 will work in my Mac Pro? I am looking at several graphics cards such as the XFX Radeon 6970, Sapphire Radeon 6970, Asus, etc.

I know Apple has a 5870 for $449 on their website, but I am thinking about using a more powerful PC-based card such as the 6970 because it is less than the 5870 would cost from Apple.

Any ideas on if this would work? I know any PCI Express x16 card will fit in the slot, but not sure if a PC card will work in a Mac Pro.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

AsSiMiLaTeD

nVidia cards will typically run in Macs because of the 'magic' driver they make, not sure about ATI cards

Drenis

The 6970 is a long card. Best to measure the model you are considering and see if it will fit by measuring in your case.

Serendipity

Thanks. I went to a computer store and asked the salesperson (who knew a lot about Macs) and he said you would have to hack the card for it to run on a Mac workstation. Reason being, the PC video cards don't support the Mac boot EFI out of the box, therefore you won't see anything when the system boots up. As a result, the only way to get this to work is to "flash" the card and then install drivers for the OS you are using. I think I am going to try this as the Mac card is $449 and a PC 6970 is about $350.

Drenis

Serendipity wrote: »

I think I am going to try this as the Mac card is $449 and a PC 6970 is about $350.

Considering I am selling two 6970 cards with warranty for $500 locally, that's expensive IMO

Serendipity

I know the Apple cards are overpriced, but you can just drop one into the Mac Pro and call it a day.

With a PC card, you have to flash it so that it can be recognized by OSX, and even then some things don't work right (like DVD Player, Front Row, etc.) from what I've read on Mac forums. However, I'm a tweaker by nature, and don't mind trying this out, so this is most likely the route I will go.

It's unfortunate that Apple charges so much for their graphics cards, when you can get PC versions for a fraction of the price. At least with the Mac Pro you can use a standard 3.5" SATA HDD and upgrade the processors; last time I checked the Hard Drive and CPU aren't even upgradeable in the iMac 27"!