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ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro (Early 2009 or Early 2008)

I have a 1st Generation Mac Pro that I purchased in early 2007. Will it work in that machine?

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11 Answers from the Community

  • Best Answer

    The card works just fine in all apple mac pros: 06,07,08,09 at full speed.

    Tested and true.
    Running one on my Macpro 1.1 (2006) just fine,installation took 4 minutes.

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  • There's a lot of discussion on forums about this. The overall consensus seems to be that, though it doesn't seem officially supported by Apple, the 4870 will run on the EFI-32 Mac Pro's 1.1 (first generation from 2006).

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  • uhm, PCIe 2.0 is fully backward compatible with 1.x, it's in the spec. So while it may not run at full blast it should still function.

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  • Hello

    I just install it in my Macpro 8 core 3 ghz early 2007 with 667 MHZ memory

    No problem !

    You just need to find the plugs to put the 2 power cables of the Radeon
    The plugs are on the left side, a bit hidden by the fans

    You do not need to move the PC Slider, neither the disks


    The Radeon HD 4870 is working with the original NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 7300 on my Mac

    I have 4 monitor !

    THIS IS GREAT

    APPLE WHY DONT YOU TEST before saying it is not compatible !!!!!

    Best

    Cyril

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  • I can confirm that the ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card works perfectly with the MacPro1,1 (original Mac Pro). The installation took less than 10 minutes. The only time I ever hear the card spin loudly is when booting up, but then after a few seconds I hear almost nothing. It is very quiet.

    Here is what I have from System Profiler...

    ATI Radeon HD 4870:

    Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 4870
    Type: GPU
    Bus: PCIe
    Slot: Slot-1
    PCIe Lane Width: x16
    VRAM (Total): 512 MB
    Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
    Device ID: 0x9440
    Revision ID: 0x0000
    ROM Revision: 113-B7710C-176
    EFI Driver Version: 01.00.318

    Now my ATI TV Wonder 650 USB works even better than it had with my older ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card. The older card was causing my Mac Pro to sound like a wind tunnel. LOL Plus I think it was ready to go at any time because I was getting video tearing, lines on my two SAMSUNG LCD monitors, random freezes requiring hard restart, etc.

    I'm happy! :-)

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  • I just installed in my Sept 06 1.1 version 3 Ghz MacPro and agree the hardest part of install is plugging the power cables to the mother board if you have fumble fingers like me and are lying on the floor next to the computer with a flashlight in your mouth be prepared to spend some time at this task.

    The setup is now driving a new(refurb) LED Cinema Display as Mon1 and my old 2006 Cinema HD as Mon2. the old monitor had to be put on a book to make the tops of the 2 screens line up.

    the only problem I have seen is that about 4 or 5 times a day Mon1 will flash to black for perhaps 1/2 a second. perhaps this is why Apple says it does not work? Apple does tend to be a perfectionist company.

    As to speed the system does feel a good bit faster than (my 3rd replacement thanks apple care X1900 that came with this computer. and I can run games with all eye-candy maxed with faster frame rates

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  • I can also confirm that this card works perfectly with my Mac Pro 1.1 2006. There doesn't seem to be any issues at all. I got it so I could connect to an Apple LED Cinema Display (24" flat panel) which has the mini Disply Port connector. So far everything is perfect and there were no issue to install, very easy. The monitor is working perfectly as well.

    Mario

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  • I've installed one in my Mac Pro 1,1 and it works absolutely fine.

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  • I have a 1st gen Mac Pro and it works great. I was having problems with my machine freezing requiring a hard boot, random lines and artifacts. I purchased this card and it works great so far.

    Here are the specs from my profiler:

    ATI Radeon HD 4870:

    Hardware Overview:

    Model Name: Mac Pro
    Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
    Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
    Processor Speed: 3 GHz
    Number Of Processors: 2
    Total Number Of Cores: 4
    L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
    Memory: 5 GB
    Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz


    Graphics
    Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 4870
    Type: GPU
    Bus: PCIe
    Slot: Slot-1
    PCIe Lane Width: x16
    VRAM (Total): 512 MB
    Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
    Device ID: 0x9440
    Revision ID: 0x0000
    ROM Revision: 113-B7710F-176
    EFI Driver Version: 01.00.318
    Displays:
    Cinema HD Display:
    Resolution: 1920 x 1200

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  • If this card needs 800Mhz RAM to work, then no, not in the 2007 Mac Pro. The first models have 667Mhz RAM only. Bummer.

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  • Unfortunately, the answer is no. This card requires PCI Express 2.0 in order to operate. The first generation Mac Pro you own does not have PCI Express 2.0 slots.

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