Is My 2007 MacPro Junk Now?

[Tim Wilson]

I remember that the comedian Dave Barry said that they oughta have a dumpster outside the door of every electronics store. On the way out the door, you can just throw your brand new computer in the dumpster – it’s already obsolete, and this will save you the trouble of loading it in your car and unpacking when you get home, before you throw it out anyhow.

Now maybe somebody will have something actually HELPFUL to say. 🙂

[Darin Wooldridge]

Jay,

I wouldn’t call it junk. I too have the exact model and it has been pushed aside. As it is still a very fast machine I’m using it for other tasks. (fcp,lightroom, photochop, itunes 🙂 etc…

Sad to report the box will not work for the resolve. It is developed around gpu / cuda processing video cards. These cards require PCI-E slots. These slots double the throughput of the PCIe 1.0 your 2007 mac pro has.

At the least you will need a 2008 3,1 dual quad core. The suggested model is the 2009 dual quad core.

Best,

Darin Wooldridge
Freelance Colorist
Technicolor Digital Intermediates
818-653-3918-cell
DI.Colorist@me.com

[Jay Lee]

Many thanks guys…….sad but true it seems.

Cheers,

J

[Christopher Tay]

Correct me if I’m wrong, the 2007 Mac Pro does not have the 6-pin power connector on the motherboard to power the NVIDIA GTX285 or NVIDIA Quadro FX4800 GPU card.

-chrispy

[Darin Wooldridge]

Hello Christohper,

It does have both power connections, it just wont see the card. I have an Radeon x1900 in my 07 and it uses external power as well.

Darim

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jay,

Unfortunately your Mac Pro is a first generation Mac Pro which has PCI Express 1.0 slots. A newer Mac Pro with PCI Express 2.0 slots is required to run the two NVIDIA graphics cards required by Resolve.

Having said that, your Mac Pro is still a great machine for Final Cut Pro and it’s only because of the massive amount of processing performed during grading that a newer Mac Pro is required for Resolve.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Jay Lee]

Thanks for clarifying Luke. Resolve + graphics cards a worthing upgrade however compounded with a new macpro not so much.
Pity…….Apple Color serves us well except tragic blurs in FX room. Off-sets pixels instead of a nice organic looking gaussian type.

best,

j

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jay,

I do understand what you mean and it’s best to wait until you’re ready to upgrade by which time I hope there will be more choice of hardware to use with Resolve. Resolve for Mac will still be here when you next upgrade your hardware 🙂

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Robert Houllahan]

I have a Mac-Pro 2,1 8 core and I have resolve running on it right now. It is not the fastest but works. I have a GTX285 and a 7300GT the 285 is in slot 1 and the 7300GT in slot 3 with a Decklink HD in slot 2 and a Rocket Raid card in slot 4. The GUI card has to be in Slot 3 BTW.

How?

There is a modified Kext file (ATY Init.kext) which is installed using Kext Helper @ (https://cheetha.net/) before installing the GTX285 card. Once installed the MacPro 2,1 will boot fine and recognize the GTX and then you can install Resolve.

The machine is not super fast so no client “hero” sessions but it runs fine. I plan on replacing the 2,1 but for the moment it is ok.

-Rob-

email me if you cannot find the Kext file and I can email it or put it on a ftp.

Robert Houllahan
http://www.lunarfilms.com
http://www.cinelab.com