Add-on Hardware Compatibility
- For 2006 and 2008 models, Apple recommends an Apple-specified heat sink on each memory DIMM for cooling, and the required on-chip thermal manager may shut down memory, or increase fan speed, if it starts to overheat. Several third-party, self-installable memory upgrades that include Apple-specified heat sinks are available. In contrast, the 2009 Mac Pro with Nehalem processors uses unbuffered memory with no heatsinks.
- The Mac Pro, as with other Mac platforms, requires Mac OS X firmware. That is to say, a PCIe video card designed exclusively for other operating systems will not work properly under Mac OS X without appropriate drivers and/or firmware; however, they will work under the operating systems they were designed for, if installed via Boot Camp or other means. Some video cards and other hardware accessories not marketed for Macs can nonetheless be tricked into compatibility through flashing drivers from either similar Mac hardware or with a custom firmware onto non-supported hardware. Also, AMD released the ATI Radeon HD 3870, which is compatible with both Mac Pros and PCs from other manufacturers. The Radeon HD 6XXX series of Graphics Processors (excluding 69XX), also released by AMD in 2010, will work without being flashed under Mac OS X if the user has installed drivers from Mac OS X Lion.
Read more about this topic: Mac Pro
Famous quotes containing the word hardware:
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)