News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

April 24, 2008

hardware

GeForce 8800 GT upgrade experiences

Posted Apr. 24, ’08, 5:31 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Hardware

Graphics Upgrade I wish this were a first hand account, but I’ve got the next best thing, a really nice account of what it’s like to install the GeForce 8800 GT upgrade for first generation Mac Pros. It’s actually not a double size card like the Radeon X1900XT card.

There is a bit of a caveat for those that use Boot Camp with some regularity. Drivers aren’t installed with the current version of Boot Camp and as such, won’t be recognized as the card it is. You’ll need to manually install drivers.

The 8800GT works fine under Windows XP 32-Bit although I had to install the current NVIDIA forceware drivers in Version 174.93 beta to get the new card recognized.

That said, Alex is really happy with the card and calls it the graphic upgrade for the original Mac Pro. Sounds like I wouldn’t be a responsible owner if I didn’t buy it, right? Enable me readers. Enable me.

[via xlr8yourmac]


1 Comments

Dave said:

If you peek into the Apple Discussions board, you'll find that the 8800GT is a really good upgrade card for gamers. If you're a pro app user who spends over $3K for professional machine for professional work (on a mac called "Pro"), you would expect professional results from an upgrade card.

You will be disappointed. Furious, more likely. Many suspect that the drivers for pro apps are immature. Regardless, Apple has apparently done a poor job with this upgrade card. I am holding back the purchase of a Mac Pro specifically because of this issue.

For some reason, those who do benchmarks are not really testing this pro machine for pro apps. However, Barefeats did a test with Apple Motion with astoundingly bad results re: the 8800GT. Buyer beware.

April 24, 2008 6:35 AM

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