Apple Shafts Previous Mac Pro Owners

[prof]

I just found out about this and it absolutely stinks.
Steve's proprietary tactics should give anyone pause
before investing thousands in top of the line Apple products.
I'm hoping Apple will eventually make this right but we should
all voice our displeasure over this by signing the petition linked
on the Bare Feats page.

Excerpt from Bare Feats http://www.barefeats.com/york2.html

ALERT TO OWNERS OF "OLD" MAC PROS! (CORRECTED)
Though the GeForce 8800 GT is available in kit form, it is *NOT* compatible with the older Mac Pro (August 2006, April 2007) as we first thought. Turns out the aftermarket GeForce 8800 GT kit is for the "2008" Mac Pro ONLY. The ROM only has an EFI64 driver in its ROM. It could be made compatible with the older Mac Pros by putting both a 32-bit and 64-bit EFI driver in the GeForce 8800 GT's ROM -- assuming there's room for both. Otherwise, a special legacy version will have to be created by Apple or a third party.

If you still want to order the GeForce 8800 GT kit, go to the Apple Store USA and search on "MB137Z/A" to find it. The price is $349. If you are very unhappy about it not working on your "old" Mac Pro, then sign our petition asking Apple to create a version that will. We also suggest you give feedback to the Mac Pro management at Apple.

[C(-)ris]

Did Apple say that it was going to work with that video card? Technology changes, get used to it. The old ones can run 10.4.11, new ones are 10.5 only. Lots of things change in revisions. Just because the case stayed the same doesn't mean the guts aren't completely diffrent from old to new.

Your Mac Pro was top of the line when you bought it, and it worked with the video cards at the time. It really isn't fair to expect it to work with anything released there after.

[The Grim Ninja]

The new cards are also PCIe 2.0

Would it be fair if I had a top of the line MDD G4 and complained about the card not working in it? Really, every time a piece of Apple video technology has changed the slightest, it hasn't been backward compatible. You're all the sudden surprised?

MDD's 9700 didn't work in earlier models.

G5's AGP cards didn't work in G4s.

G5's PCIe cards didn't work in anything else.

Mac Pro 1's cards didn't work in anything else.

Mac Pro 2's cards won't work in anything else... see a trend?

[The UnDoug]

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like the maker of the graphics card is the one who isn't making the driver for older Mac Pros.

[prof]

[quote C(-)ris]Your Mac Pro was top of the line when you bought it, and it worked with the video cards at the time. It really isn't fair to expect it to work with anything released there after.
This I'm sure is the company line but you're talkng about a computer that in some cases is little more than 6 months old with no viable upgrade path to a high quality video card. I suspect that if you had put your hard earned cash into a Mac that was orphaned like this, that you might not be so happy to go along with the Leader in this case.

[Silencio]

What C(-)ris and Grim said.

I'd expect ATI to step into the breach and offer a retail PCIe card if they saw enough demand for one...

[M A V I C]

Apple not offering reasonable upgrade paths for video cards is nothing new. They don't offer much for their new machines either. Having the 8800GT is as close as they've gotten to offering a top of the line card since they had the GF3 Ti before PCs did, many, many years ago.

[anonymouse1]

Somebody get a WHAAAAAmbulance!

[Harbourmaster]

The new ATI Radeon HD card IS backwards compatible with the older Mac Pro and that is why some folks have got their dander up...

[C(-)ris]

I actually have one of the first gen Mac Pros. I don't feel shafted. It is exactly as advertised. I put in an order for another today as I need to run 10.4 and the original model is the only one that will.