Mac Pro multiple video cards

[Mr. lax]

Hello all, I am fairly close to buying a new computer and i would like to choose a Mac for obvious reasons.

My question is as follows, if i were to buy a Mac Pro with a Radeon X1900 as the primary card, could i also buy a Geforce 8800 GTX and use it only in windows mode. I would like to run each card in PCI-E 16x separately (The Radeon in OSX and the Geforce in Vista)

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.


Mr. lax

 

[waremaster]

Hello all, I am fairly close to buying a new computer and i would like to choose a Mac for obvious reasons.

My question is as follows, if i were to buy a Mac Pro with a Radeon X1900 as the primary card, could i also buy a Geforce 8800 GTX and use it only in windows mode. I would like to run each card in PCI-E 16x separately (The Radeon in OSX and the Geforce in Vista)

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.


Mr. lax

Short answer is no it's not possible.

The long answer is The ATI x1900xt takes 2 slots as does the 8800GTX both are PCI-E 16x cards you do not have enough PCI-E bandwidth to run 2 cards at 16x the 4 slots share 24x bandwidth and slot 1 is typically the 16x slot. On top of that OSX does not even start up with an 8800GTX at this time. And to further complicate matters you do not get enough power from the 6pin miniature Molex connectors that are on the motherboard for both of those cards.

 

[Redneck1089]

Short answer is no it's not possible.

The long answer is The ATI x1900xt takes 2 slots as does the 8800GTX both are PCI-E 16x cards you do not have enough PCI-E bandwidth to run 2 cards at 16x the 4 slots share 24x bandwidth and slot 1 is typically the 16x slot. On top of that OSX does not even start up with an 8800GTX at this time. And to further complicate matters you do not get enough power from the 6pin miniature Molex connectors that are on the motherboard for both of those cards.

Are you sure this is correct? I think people have done it on here...

EDIT: Wait, so if I want to use a DX 10 card for gaming, I will have to remove my X1900 XT, install the DX 10 card, and then boot into Windows, correct? I can live with that... Anything for Crysis! *sigh*

 

[waremaster]

Are you sure this is correct? I think people have done it on here...

In doing a search you will find that when a user with an 8800GTX wants to go back to OSX he or she must remove the GTX first.

 

[Lord Flashheart]

Yes, I have not done it, so I don't know from experience. But from what I have read, you have to swap out the ATI x1900xt and the 8800gtx to go back and forth between OSX and Windows.

 

[Sun Baked]

Are you sure this is correct? I think people have done it on here...

EDIT: Wait, so if I want to use a DX 10 card for gaming, I will have to remove my X1900 XT, install the DX 10 card, and then boot into Windows, correct? I can live with that... Anything for Crysis! *sigh*

The first two slots max out at 75W, and each of the aux. power connectors is 75W.

So 1 really big card using both aux. power connectors, or two 150W cards using a single aux. power connector each.

 

[Mr. lax]

I wouldnt want to run them both at the same time, i would just want to have a more powerful DX 10 card for use in windows and then without having to open the case switch to a mac card (with both in PCI-E 16x)

 

[Redneck1089]

I wouldnt want to run them both at the same time, i would just want to have a more powerful DX 10 card for use in windows and then without having to open the case switch to a mac card (with both in PCI-E 16x)

Meh, to me it's a small price to pay for the extra selection and cheaper GPU's for Windows. It takes all of 3 minutes to change graphics cards.