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Nvidia 8800 Series in a Mac?
Has anyone tried this? I read that it should work because it’s the same chip and uses the same driver as the (much more expensive) Quadro FX 4500.
At $300, the 8800GTS seems like the best bang for the buck without a doubt. They just don’t make an official “Mac” version of it.
Sean
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5 Replies
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[Sean ONeil] “They just don’t make an official “Mac” version of it.”
Then Nobody can guaranty that it will work and if so how well.
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Hi Sean,
I am not mistaken you are referring to the Windows driver for the 4500. Apple uses their own driver for the Mac so what we can assume about the PC might not apply the Mac.There is always BootCamp if want to run Windows. As cool as the new octacore Mac Pro is I was a little dissapointed that Apple didn’t update the video card. Maybe after the iPhone is released we will see some more activity there.
Gary -
I did some more research and it appears it will work flawlessly. In fact the online store “MacMall” categorizes all their 8800 cards as “Mac & PC”.
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It’s very unlikely that the nVidia 8800 card will work in a Mac Pro. The reason for this is that the ROM on the graphics card is designed to work with the standard PC BIOS, not the EFI boot ROM that the Mac uses.
Since Microsoft doesn’t support EFI with Windows, most graphics cards will not have the capability to work with EFI. Maybe once MS does support EFI and graphics card manufacturers add EFI compatibility to the cards, you’ll be able to drop an off-the-shelf PC graphics card into a Mac and have it work.
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Thanks for that info. Looks like it will work as a secondary monitor only.
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