Nvidia GPU Flashing Queries

[Waqaszed]

Hi,

I am a newbie and I know the questions I am asking might have been answered before, but after searching the forum I couldn't actually find all the info which I require, so i'll really appreciate if someone could sum up all the info that I require in this post.

Before I start I want to clear that I live in a third world country so getting stuffs from newegg, ebay, OWC or MVC is completely out of the question, so I need answers which suits my situation

I am about to buy a Mac Pro 4.1 2009 (X2 8 core 2.66GHZ Nehlam Xeon, 16gb, 1TB and HD 5770 1GB Mac Ready)
after going through the forum MacRumors which is probably the best on the internet I have found out that I will need lots of Software and Hardware upgrade to make stuff runs without issues.

My Questions are:
1.Can I upgrade to OSX Seirra ? is there a guide and how stable is the solution? (I need to run latest versions of Sketchapp and Xcode)

2.I'll upgrade my GPU to either GTX 670 4gb or GTX 760 4gb so I have found out that one has to flash GPU's to see the boot screen or use two cards i.e a mac card to boot so here are the questions:
i) Can these cards be flashed what are the pros and cons of flashing a PC card
ii) if I use two GPUs how actually I switch from mac GPU to other GPU (just by plug out the VGA cable and plug it into the PC card or is there a way to switch between the two cards through software)

3.A Powerful GPU will require extra power so is it possible to replace Mac Pros PSU with a powerful PSU like Thermaltake, Antec or CM etc or i'll have to take an alternate route and what will be it?

Thanks in advance,
Waqazed

 

[CapnDavey]

Yes the latest OS X version works fine on 09 mac pro I'm running that very same system note you can flash a GTX680 but not the 670. two ways to install the system the dos dude hack or the 5,1 firmware update good luck.

 

[s-hatland]

caveat on the running sierra on 4,1s flashed to 5,1s: yes it will work, but when i tried, my particular model airport card did not work. if you're using ethernet or running a new/updated wireless card, shouldn't be a problem. just FYI.

 

[ActionableMango]

2. I've not seen anyone self-flash the two cards you picked. I wouldn't know how to do those other than buying them pre-flashed. The most easily self-flashable cards are the GTX 680 2GB and 4GB. Next most easy are the AMD 7950, 7970, and 280x.

You can buy pre-flashed cards, although I don't know about in your country. You can also run cards that aren't flashed at all if you can live with the drawbacks or work around them.

3. You don't need a better PSU for the video cards you discussed.

 

[Waqaszed]

Yes the latest OS X version works fine on 09 mac pro I'm running that very same system note you can flash a GTX680 but not the 670. two ways to install the system the dos dude hack or the 5,1 firmware update good luck.

Thanks for the reply, can you please explain The Dos Dude Hack ?
[doublepost=1495088568][/doublepost]

2. I've not seen anyone self-flash the two cards you picked. I wouldn't know how to do those other than buying them pre-flashed. The most easily self-flashable cards are the GTX 680 2GB and 4GB. Next most easy are the AMD 7950, 7970, and 280x.

You can buy pre-flashed cards, although I don't know about in your country. You can also run cards that aren't flashed at all if you can live with the drawbacks or work around them.

3. You don't need a better PSU for the video cards you discussed.

Thank You ActionableMango for the info, I still need answers for few things:

i) if I use two GPUs how actually I switch from mac GPU to other GPU (just by plug out the VGA cable and plug it into the PC card or is there a way to switch between the two cards through software)
ii) The choice I have for buying Mac Pro is narrowed down to Mac Pro 2009 OctaCore and Mac Pro 2010 HexaCore (I need Seirra because Xcode 8+ wont run on previous versions on the other hand I need power as I will be using Mac Pro as a gaming machine by installing Win 10, I have a SSD upgrading memory and GPU ain't an issue but I am afraid CPU will bottleneck while gaming, Target game is DOOM 4 in High or medium-high graphics on max 1600 x 900/1200 resolution)
iii) and if I choose to go for High performance PC card without flashing and rather use GT 120 for booting purpose then are there any other issues that can arise while using non-flashed cards or its just black boot screen the only problem ?

 

[Fl0r!an]

Both the 670 and 760 can be flashed by crafting a custom ROM from the 680 EFI. There's no public guide to do this though and it might result in a brick when done wrong.

For your target game (DOOM) I'd strongly recommend a AMD graphics card though. My R9 280 (non-X) easily outperforms a GTX 780 in this game.