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Radeon HD 5870 / HD 5850


ixxxion
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I just received my new XFX Radeon HD 5870 today. I'm going to replace my nVidia 8800GTX (EFI strings) in my dual boot Hackintosh 10.5.8 + Windows 7 machine.

 

Has anyone had success getting the new HD 5870 or HD 5850 cards working?

 

If not, any suggestions that I could try? Preferably without having to reinstall.

 

Thanks.

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the current mac pro is reaching the end of its product cycle and i would expect it to be updated between the end of October and the beginning of December the only question is will it support the 5870
For those disappointed at the lack of instant support for the 5850 and 5870, the benchmarks for the 5850 are very similar to those of the Nvidia 285 cards and, in most cases, only a whisker faster than the cheaper Nvidia 275 card... which can be found bundled with two games for around £30 less than the current price of the 5850.

 

That doesn't take into account the greater power draw of the nvidia cards, though, but at least the 275 apparently works with Leo and is cheaper - if you already have a relatively decent power supply.

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Sorry, ixxxion, I got carried away by the title of the thread; if you can't return the card, ale§ response is spot on. I envy the fun you must be having playing games!

 

To others, if thinking about gambling and buying now and waiting in hope for drivers to show up, my fifty cents would be hold off. Even supposing retailers don't have a disappointing Christmas and don't introduce price cuts on top of whatever price cuts are otherwise be anticipated, things will get very interesting when Nvidia bring out their rival range. At that point, drivers assuming, it's win-win for the customer, rather than this frustrating dead zone of wait-wait.

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For those disappointed at the lack of instant support for the 5850 and 5870, the benchmarks for the 5850 are very similar to those of the Nvidia 285 cards and, in most cases, only a whisker faster than the cheaper Nvidia 275 card... which can be found bundled with two games for around £30 less than the current price of the 5850.

 

That doesn't take into account the greater power draw of the nvidia cards, though, but at least the 275 apparently works with Leo and is cheaper - if you already have a relatively decent power supply.

 

sorry to call you out on this but the 5850 consistently outperforms the 285 and the 295 outperforms the 5870 by a sliver. Check tomshardware.com if you don't believe me. Ati is offering much better value.

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sorry to call you out on this but the 5850 consistently outperforms the 285 and the 295 outperforms the 5870 by a sliver. Check tomshardware.com if you don't believe me. Ati is offering much better value.
Hi drumz, that's okay, no one is calling anyone out but the review sites! :) I would be delighted for the 5850 to wipe the floor with the 285. At 2560x1600 8xAA 16xAF in ten out of ten games it does, otherwise it's not so clear cut and varies from game to game and review site; the averaged benchmark of all resolutions was 5850 88% and GTX 285 83%. But even if you are fortunate enough to have a rig where you can run everything maxed out, the 5850 is not presently compatible with 0SX86 and it could be a long wait, alas.
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This new series of cards just looks so perfect... The 5850 has ample power for just about any gamer and sensible power consumption and dimensions. But then I saw the even newer 5770 and 5750 and they make even more sense for me. The sizes and power are just amazingly practical and the power reqs are very good. Oh and the specs to the complete series mention OpenCL all the time and other advanced tricks...

 

I've been shopping for a replacement for my 2600XT in last month and couldn't find anything to motivate me to pull the trigger: the 4870 is still somewhat problematic with OSX86 and it's big and not so energy-efficient while the GTX260 is sorted but even bigger and still inefficient. Keep in mind that I have a micro-ATX case so something as big as a 260 is just not practical, or maybe not even possible. The 2600 replaced a 4850 I had for 6 months before it was OSX-supported so I know what a drag a non-supported GPU can be.

 

The 5700 series would just make so much sense with the price and the performance and that is making me think about buying one now, hoping for quick support... There is a possibility that the Mac Pro could be updated somewhere around November, but that is far from confirmed and there's nothing to tell us an update would enable ATI cards when Apple seems to be very friendly with nVidia and with their GTX300 series coming. And then, even if an ATI card were to be supported, it could very well be a high-end 5870 and I don't know whether kexts could be extrapolated for the lower series of cards.

 

So all in all, I'm just hoping for now, I wish I had a setup with two PCI-E slots to make the wait easier but in the end I might end up buying an old nVidia G92 card if the new cards push their prices down.

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Just keep both the videocards (if you have enough pci-e slots) and wiat for a new driver.

 

So basically in my case I could leave my 8800 GTS (which works fine with SL) in one PCI-E slot and insert the 5870 in the other slot (for use with Windows 7) without Mac OS X acting up?

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So basically in my case I could leave my 8800 GTS (which works fine with SL) in one PCI-E slot and insert the 5870 in the other slot (for use with Windows 7) without Mac OS X acting up?

 

basicaly yes, but either u would need two monitors, or switch cables for every boot to the other system or have monitor with more inputs (hopefully both dvi)

 

physx on your windows system might get disabled

 

 

cj95 : 4770 is the same architecture as all ati 4xxx family (only on 40nm process with minor adjustments). evergreen architecture aka 5xxx is something different. and there are no drivers for 5870/5850 yet anyway

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Hello,

 

So that means those of us who have 5850/5870 or 5770 will not be able to install snow leopard? Can't we use some generic ATI driver, it has to be specific to that graphic card?

 

so far there is no way to run these cards with QE/CI, so my GUESS is - as i DONT own the card - only vesa mode, no graphic acceleration. which is unfortunate as one of snowleopards new features is opencl and overall gfx use for system, which will not work. all eyecandy also dont work, and for me personaly without gfx acceleration was imposible to work even in finder due to stutter and "mirroring/trailing" effects (not even talking about FinalCutPro)

 

i beleive that this new generation of ATI cards are so good considering horsepower and power consumption that they will get soon support from apple (especially since nvidia has nothing comparable in price/performance right now, and shouldnt till january).

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basicaly yes, but either u would need two monitors, or switch cables for every boot to the other system or have monitor with more inputs (hopefully both dvi)

 

physx on your windows system might get disabled

 

 

cj95 : 4770 is the same architecture as all ati 4xxx family (only on 40nm process with minor adjustments). evergreen architecture aka 5xxx is something different. and there are no drivers for 5870/5850 yet anyway

 

About the Physx disabling protection measure (when Ati main video card is present) of nvdia in recent forceware drivers:

The great hacker GenL has hacked this protection so it can be disabled using his crack. Down-loadable here

http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/16223-n...is-present.html

after post 30 or so

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Well I can't wait to get my 5870 back ... it was glitching OTB so I've RMA'd it ... not too happy about it but I just use it in my gaming PC ...

 

Would be great when I can use it for OS X though :P

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  • 3 weeks later...
HD 5870 installs fine. without kext. OS version 10.6.2.

Fan speed is somewhere in the middle.

 

MainBoard is ex58-ud5

Processor clocked to 4 ghz

 

That is nice to hear.

Without kext would mean that is no quartz extreme and core image. You can verify this by trying to start the Apple dvd player program. It won't start and will give an error message.

 

Can you confirm this?

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Well have tested my installation using this very nice and easy to use guide:

 

Asus P6T SE Retail Snow Leopard Installation Guide [FLASHDRIVE], Step by Step Instructions

 

Thanks to all that helped writing it and making it possible. Now onwards to my findings regarding my HD5850.

 

All went well except that my resolution is 1024 x 768 but that is a driver thing. I really hope drivers for the 5xxx will be released someday. But a 9600GT is on it's way for me so I will give that a try.

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