According to Barefeats, Apple's ATI Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Upgrade Kit ($449) for the Mac Pro does indeed work in the 2008 Mac Pro. This is despite the fact that Apple only officially lists the 2009 and 2010 Mac Pros as supported hardware for the upgrade card.
We plugged the Radeon HD 5870 into the 2008 Mac Pro. It works like a charm. Runs Portal faster than the 6-core Westmere. Details coming soon.
This gives existing 2008 Mac Pro owners another video card upgrade option from Apple. We had previously reported when the video cards had become available for purchase from Apple's online store. Barefeats has posted some preliminary results on the forums:
Here's an appetizer. I'm benchmarking Portal First Slice (which all my remote testers are using).
At 1920x1200 with these settings: Model Detail = High, Texture Detail = High, Shader Detail = High Water Detail = Reflect All, Shadow Detail = High, Color Correction = Enabled Antialiasing Mode = None, Filtering Mode = Anisotropic 4X Vertical Sync = Disabled, Motion Blur = Enabled
The 6-core Westmere 3.33 (2010) with Radeon HD 5870 = 233 FPS avg The 8-core Harpertown 3.2 (2008) with Radeon HD 5870 = 250 FPS avg The 2008 model is faster!!
Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Update 10:04 a.m.: iOS 27 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking!
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event...
Monday September 14, 2026 9:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Update: Apple has released iOS 27.
During its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo event last week, Apple announced that iOS 27 will be released widely on Monday, September 14.
iOS 27 should be available around 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time today via the Settings app, under General → Software Update.
Below, we have highlighted eight new features and changes coming with iOS...
Saturday September 12, 2026 3:27 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
As noted by Nicolas Lellouche, who writes for the French tech website Numerama, Apple has updated its tech specs pages for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max to clarify which models are equipped with its new C2 cellular modem and where.
Apple now says the iPhone 18 Pro has a C2 modem worldwide, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max uses the chip in every country except for the U.S.
According...
I got the 5770 to support three displays by using one 30" Cinema on the DVI port, one 23" Cinema (with dual-link DVI to MDP adapter) on the first MDP, and one 24" LED Cinema direct to the second MDP.
Maybe one reason that all three lit up this time was the fact that the 30" Cinema is effectively an "active adapter" like the other two.
I'm continuing to experiment with every display combo on all models of Mac Pro with the 5770 and 5870 installed, so more to come on this.
I took time out of benchmarking with one display to experiment with multiple displays using the newest GPUs. (Special thanks to "Pegasusrjf" for his input.)
With the Radeon HD 5870 installed in the 2008 Mac Pro, I got three displays to light up and work with this setup: 1. 23" Cinema on the DVI port 2. 23" Cinema with MDP to dual-link DVI adapter on first MDP port 3. 24" LED Cinema with direct MDP connection to second MDP port
Tried the same setup with the Radeon HD 5770 in the 2008 Mac Pro: Only 2 of the 3 displays light up.
Here goes, gang. Seven games at 2560x1600 and 1920x1200 in the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Mac Pro -- all three with the Radeon HD 5870:
http://barefeats.com/wst10g2.html
Who buys a Macpro to play video games :confused: LOL
I personally know a husband and wife (yes, he's a doctor/surgeon) who each bought 8-core Mac Pros primarily to play World of Warcraft (that and also to encode videos to watch on their iPads for trips to europe etc).
I'm hoping when he gets bored of the 8-core he'll sell it to me for a song but I'm not counting on it.
