[Kusakun]

Hi there. I wanted to know if I can buy the Nvidia Geforce 8800GT if I also have a macpro. The thing is that in my country they sell the macpro with the basic configuration and I want to upgrade the graphics option. I wanted to buy the card online

Thanks a lot!

Diego

[RobM]

Yep it's available as an upgrade kit.
Or CTO if you are ordering new - but it's the same deal if you try to buy the card as an upgrade kit as if you CTO - you're going to wait ! Shipping around the end of Feb or Mar or April.

Go to the Apple store and click Displays on the left side of the page under the Popular Accessories header.

Be aware that the card at the mom does not support older Mac Pro's - either nVidia or Apple have to write a 32 bit Rom for the card, which they have said will happen - but as to when ? Well, your guess is as good as mine....

The best hope for us older Mac pro owners is that the 32 bit Rom is written soon and will be able to found in the wild.
Meaning that, for the brave home brewers - we can buy an aftermarket pc 8800 and flash it over to Mac - but until that Rom is written and available then it's "hurry up and wait" ...

[Kusakun]

Actually Im going to buy the Macpro Octo 2.8 here in my country and I will buy the video card later on the internet.

[RobM]

ok - I suspect that this situation will be similar to the ATI x1900xt in the older Mac Pro's. Took them ages to ramp production and supply the cto's and then those that ordered the upgrade kit from Apple had to wait EVEN longer at first.

Eventually Apple got the lead time down to around 2 weeks for a cto graphics card in a new Mac Pro. Just depends on if you can wait.

At least this time round the card isn't carrying too much Apple tax ...

[Yonzie]

Originally Posted by Kusakun Actually Im going to buy the Macpro Octo 2.8 here in my country and I will buy the video card later on the internet.

You must make sure to get the Apple-branded 8800GT. All the many "generic" (Asus/XFX/etc. etc.) 8800GTs out there will NOT work in your Mac Pro!

[RobM]

Originally Posted by Yonzie You must make sure to get the Apple-branded 8800GT. All the many "generic" (Asus/XFX/etc. etc.) 8800GTs out there will NOT work in your Mac Pro!

Quite right !
I didn't mean to suggest anything else.

But when the Apple Rom's are in the wild then the after market pc cards could/can be an option.
<BIG FAT Disclaimer> This route is not for all and it's not for the faint hearted but it's likely to be an option for some.
If you fcuk the flash up then you can wind up with a dead card and a dead wallet, too ! <BIG FAT Disclaimer>

[dmegatool]

Originally Posted by RobM ok - I suspect that this situation will be similar to the ATI x1900xt in the older Mac Pro's. Took them ages to ramp production and supply the cto's and then those that ordered the upgrade kit from Apple had to wait EVEN longer at first.

I ordered a Mac Pro when the x1900 was a problem. I ordered with the 7300GT and a seperate x1900 upgrade kit. My Mac Pro arrived 3 weeks before the card. I thought it would be more but since I sold my 7300GT, it didn't cost me anything and it worth it

[Yonzie]

Originally Posted by RobM Quite right ! I didn't mean to suggest anything else.

No no, just wanted to be certain that Kusakun didn't somehow have that idea

[Kusakun]

I actually was going to buy the upgrade kit from apple.com

How good is the ATI that comes with the OCTO 2.8?

Because I have a GEFORCE 6600 in my G5 QUAD and its pretty decent

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by Kusakun I actually was going to buy the upgrade kit from apple.com How good is the ATI that comes with the OCTO 2.8?

It's a fairly decent card for a default configuration...much better than the 7300 GT option in the old Mac Pro and roughly equivalent to a GeForce 8600 GT. High-end Mac towers have traditionally been equipped with really shitty video cards, so an HD2600 XT is a welcome change.

At $150 standalone, it's also not too badly overpriced vs. PC retail alternatives.

[RobM]

Originally Posted by Kusakun How good is the ATI that comes with the OCTO 2.8?

Here ya go - http://www.barefeats.com/harper2.html
Not bad for a stock card and as Eugene says - a vast improvement over the 7300.

[Kusakun]

Thanks Rob!

[RobM]

np

I really want to see Barefeats add the results for the 8800 to those tests.
Should be the end of this month, hopefully.

[Kusakun]

Any news about the tests of this video card?

[rampancy]

I have read reports of people successfully flashing PC 8800 GT cards for use in a Mac Pro - apparently one card which has the right kind of ROM chip for flashing is the e-GeForce 8800 GT 512MB DDR3 Superclocked Edition PCI-Express Graphics Card (512-P3-N802-AR), by eVGA. The whole thing still seems rather iffy to me...

[PB PM]

Yeah, since if you screw up the flash your out $250-300.