Following the release of ROM EFI from Netkas, we tested the procedure ourselves. The EFI part from the ROM found in Apple EOM cards (those shipping with Mac Pro or available from the Apple Store) were of EBC type (so compatible with EFI32 and EFI64), unlike EFI found in iMacs. So we decided to test it on a Mac Pro 1,1 4x 2.66Ghz October 2006. If the card works on such early Mac Pro model, all subsequent models should support such card too.
Our choice was the XFX HD5870 1Go DDR5 with the following reference XFX HD-587X-ZNFV. This card is relatively close to the ATI reference design so chance to have the EFI ROM working on it is high. This card is well designed, offering a crossfire bridge, Molex adaptors to PCIE6, a DVI-VGA adaptor and even for gamers a registration card to download Alien versus Predator. This card is not noisier than the HD4870 Gainward with dual fans, so in summary much more silent than the HD4870 available from the Apple Store.
This card is rather long, but fits well in the Mac Pro:
The flashing procedure is similar to the one described earlier for the HD 48700, so you simply need to put the application atiflash 3.79 and the hacked ROM from Netkas on a FAT32 partition on one of the HD of your Mac Pro. then you boot from FreeDOS. After having saved the original ROM from the XFX card, then flashed it with the hacked ROM EFI, you can reboot your Mac Pro, and wait for the booting "bong"... Then you see ... nothing. Good news. You will have to wait for few additional seconds to finally see the Login OS X window. The flashing procedure worked:
Good news: all video outputs are active: both DVI, display port and HDMI! We could not test a setting with 3 displays, but DP+DVI or DP+HDMI work perfectly.
Regarding Open GL performance levels, there is nothing astonishing on OS X:
For comparison, below are values obtained by a MacBook Pro Core i7 with a GF 300M:
This is only a quick test, with the highest resolution common to both system (still relatively low), so it is not necessarily significant; but it works fine and Open GL performance are most likely impacted by OS X itself.
So we dicedied to test it on a Mac Pro 1,1 4x 2.66Ghz October 2006. If the card work on such early Mac Pro model, all subsequent models should support such card too.
Our choice was the XFX HD5870 1Go DDR5 with the following reference XFX HD-587X-ZNFV. This card is realatively cose to the ATI reference design so chances to have the EFI ROM working on it is high. This card is well designed, offering a crossfire bridge, Molex adaptors to PCIE6, a DVI-VGA adaptor and even for gamers a registration card to dowload Alien versus Predator. This card is not more noisy than the HD4870 Gainward with dual fans, so in summary much more silent than the HD4870 available from the Apple Store.
this card is rather long, but fits well in the Mac Pro: