# Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 - ATI 7970 Confirmed



## stand_1998 (Aug 13, 2003)

I am by no means an expert, but based on my recent research it appears as though there may be opportunities to extend the life of the great 1,1 and 2,1 systems even further.

Native Support for newer video cards: MacRumors Forums - View Single Post - Confirmed AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Running on Mac Pro

PCIe scaling: Ivy Bridge PCI-Express Scaling with HD 7970 and GTX 680 Review | techPowerUp

Based on the above, am I correct to assume that I could purchase a newer video card that has native support without any modifications (aside from the missing Apple logo upon startup), power it using an external power supply (or take a chance running as-is), and the performance wouldn't be that horrible when compared to a PCIe 2.0 or 3.0?

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I successfully installed the 7970 in my Mac Pro 2,1 - see below for impressions and benchmark.


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## hexdiy (Dec 18, 2011)

Interesting question. Since you have been doing the research, you are actually the expert. Have you seen this yet: Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards - MacRumors Forums Also check out netkas.org
Anyhow, a few points of attention pertaining to the 1.1 and 2.1 Mac you will probably know already:
Although their internal architecture is true 64 bit, their EFI is only 32bit. Same deal with their original video cards. So you are right: you will lose the startup screen. Even if you try to run those with a newer Mac EFI video card. Those might not run at all BTW.
In order to use an off-the-shelf PC card, you will have to run a recent OS. I've posted this before: Those old Mac Pros can run Mavericks, patching their 32 bit EFI to 64 using Sfott: SFOTT – pre-release | oemden
About the extra power consumption: consensus seems to be most cards will run on the 6 pin Mac Pro power connector, though some newer cards carry an 8 pin connector. If you want to solder your own, look here: PCI Express Auxiliary Graphics Power Connectors - Power Supply 101: A Reference Of Specifications
If you take a very close look at those Molex pinouts, however, you may find the way to plug your old (e.g. from an original ATI X1900XT) 6pin connector into an 8pin Female Molex on a newer graphics card. Be really sure what you re doing in that case, otherwise you may ruin your MoBo and/or PSU.
Hope this is useful, and good luck with more or less Hackintoshing your ancient Mac Pro.
This week, I've become the proud owner of a Mac Pro 2.1 wreck, so I'm reading up on it. I suspect it has been discarded because of a faulty X1900XT in the ex-recall range. Found it among some scrap iron, but it will need some fondling and spare parts (ram and ram risers)...


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## richb (Feb 6, 2004)

I have upgraded my older MacPro 1.1 to 2.1. Stuck in extra RAM, upgraded the Xeon processors from dual core to quad core (big speed bump there!).

As for the video card, i picked up a used PC Sapphire ATI HD5570 (1GB), similar to the Apple 5570 cards.
I plugged it, zapped the PRAM, restarted and the card works great, just no Apple logo at startup. The System Profiler shows the card as an ATi HD 5000. I did have to order the 6pin Apple power cord off ebay.
The netkas forums are a great source of information, and suggest flashing the card with a mac EFI would make it show up correctly, but its working great in Lion.

Thanks for the info about the SFOTT, i would love to get this MacPro to run Mountain Lion or Mavericks, (Apple should have addressed this!). 

These towers have a lot of power still.


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## stand_1998 (Aug 13, 2003)

I've made arrangements to purchase a Gigabyte 7970 graphics card, and will have an opportunity to test it to ensure compatibility.

If successful, I plan to update this thread with benchmarks and a detailed summary of the upgrade.


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## stand_1998 (Aug 13, 2003)

I've got some great news, everything works just fine!

This "ancient" machine (Mac Pro 2,1) has a whole new set of wheels on it - Gigabyte 7970.

Some initial impressions:
- the boot loader menu doesn't display on the monitor anymore. I've memorized the key presses so I can still select whether to load into OS X or Windows 7
- the card is relatively silent, but the fans do kick in when I load a game
- I've had to resort to some shiftyness to get power into the new card: 6-pin straight from the motherboard & 8-pin/double molex -> attached to molex y-splitter -> attached to one of the molex cables from the optical bay (case side panel removed)

The benchmarks:

Here is what I'm comparing myself to: NeoGAF - View Single Post - Tomb Raider PC Performance Thread
I set all the settings to match the linked web page where the owner has the following specs:
CPU:i5-3570k at Default Clock speeds
RAMDR3 1444Mhz(I think)
GPU: AMD HD 7850 1GB OC to 1110Mhz GPU and 1300Mhz Memory with 13.4 drivers.

He ran the Tomb Raider benchmark and received:
MIN 58.3
MAX 60.3
AVG 60.0

I ran the same test with the same settings and received:
MIN 58
MAX 62.3
AVG 60.0

I'm happy with the results and plan to eventually build a separate PC tower to really unleash this graphics card. My PCIe 1.0 and slower RAM speed/dated CPU's really hinder its potential.


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