Mac Pro with 2 ati 5870

Mac Pro with 2 ati 5870 - HELP

I'm looking to buy a new Mac Pro in the next couple of weeks. Specs are close to basic (3.2 nehalem, 6 gigs of ram and an ati 5870). Eventually I would like to upgrade it... meaning get a westmere 6 core (bye bye applecare), ssd and hopefully a second 5870. My question to the more mac savy ppl is: would it be possible to install and operate an additional 5870 in crossfire?
I've been reading some forums saying I have to install a PSU to run the second video card since the Mac Pro won't take more than 300 watts (for the PCI slots) and some wire mambojumbo that i have yet to get any specific info about. From the looks of it, I don't think it would be hard to install the PSU in the empty optics bay but would this kill my applecare thing and would the 2 cards work from a hardware/software point of view (in OSX and Win 7)?

Thank you.

anyone?

If any damages/problems are caused by you running something that is not intended to be run, you warranty/apple care will be void.

You anticipate we will tell you how to turn your Mac Pro into a hackintosh?

Semaka said:

I'm looking to buy a new Mac Pro in the next couple of weeks. Specs are close to basic (3.2 nehalem, 6 gigs of ram and an ati 5870). Eventually I would like to upgrade it... meaning get a westmere 6 core (bye bye applecare), ssd and hopefully a second 5870. My question to the more mac savy ppl is: would it be possible to install and operate an additional 5870 in crossfire?
I've been reading some forums saying I have to install a PSU to run the second video card since the Mac Pro won't take more than 300 watts (for the PCI slots) and some wire mambojumbo that i have yet to get any specific info about. From the looks of it, I don't think it would be hard to install the PSU in the empty optics bay but would this kill my applecare thing and would the 2 cards work from a hardware/software point of view (in OSX and Win 7)?

Thank you.

Click to expand...

If you want that kind of power,skip the mac pro,get a Dell XPS 9100,I know dell was always more pricy,no more. For the base price of a mac pro,you can grab an i7 920,an ATi 5970 and 12GB of ram with dedicated sound and 1.5Tb drives.

Is it even possible to do a crossfire on a Mac? I know you can do an SLI config.

harryb2448 said:

You anticipate we will tell you how to turn your Mac Pro into a hackintosh?

Click to expand...

More like a modded Mac Pro. I would say.

Semaka said:

My question to the more mac savy ppl is: would it be possible to install and operate an additional 5870 in crossfire?
I've been reading some forums saying I have to install a PSU to run the second video card since the Mac Pro won't take more than 300 watts (for the PCI slots) and some wire mambojumbo that i have yet to get any specific info about.

Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure what your goals are...but with most Mac Pro's, you can install 4 video cards. If each video card has 2 DVI ports...you can connect up to 8 monitors. Obviously if the video cards take up two PCIe slots...you won't be able to install 4 cards.

So with this being said...if your main goal is to run a lot of monitors from this Mac Pro...just install more video cards. If you want to run two 5870's in Crossfire...not sure you can do it.

- Nick

You might be able to replace the 5870 with an 5970,which integrates the twin 5870s into one card,might save you a buck too.

That depends doesnt it. I thought the video card has to be mac specific you can't just slam any old card in there.

Terms youllers

Anyone have luck flashing the 5970 and powering it in their Mac pro? I want to do this in my 2009 tower and I've heard few had some luck but I haven't seen a definitive guide around.

There's a guy on macrumors who is just waiting on the crossfire bridge to try the 5870 crossfire under windows, another guy cut a piece out of his case to fit the wiring. Sounds worse then it really is. He has picks

harryb2448 said:

You anticipate we will tell you how to turn your Mac Pro into a hackintosh?

Click to expand...

What about this sounds like a Hackintosh? He wants to buy a MacPro and put an additional graphics card in it. You can't really make a Hackintosh out of a machine that's already a MACintosh.

Maybe he wants to use the dual cards in Windows via bootcamp for gaming, but again, that isn't a Hackintosh.

Also i talked to an senior advisor in applecare and he said just to remove the PSU and 2nd 5870 in case u need to ship your mac for warranty repairs.So the 5870 crossfire set up will NOT void your applecare.

Assuming that you could get crossfire working is it going to give you that big a performance boost? I haven't really researched it on the Mac side since I don't need it for what I do but I know that my wife did not notice a difference with many of the games she uses regularly on her Vista box.

Sounds awesome Good luck
Good choice on getting an SSD as well - if you need any help choosing the best model to buy, let me know and I'll be happy to help out.