First-Gen Mac Pros Have a Go for NVIDIA's 8800 GT

Mac Pro owners bought their powerful machines for many reasons. One of them primes though: visuals. You gotta have that best-of-breed as a Mac Pro owner. Early Mac Pro adopters have a reason to smile now as NVIDIA has made available its NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT GPU for older Mac Pro systems. Yes, the popular graphics card is finally compatible with early Mac Pros.

"The computer is more visual than ever, and Mac users in particular demand an exceptional visual experience," said Ujesh Desai, general manager of GeForce desktop GPU business at NVIDIA. "Adding a GeForce 8800 GT to the first-generation Mac Pro system will deliver a major graphics boost, resulting in faster processing for a complete range of visual computing applications."

The GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit is now available for $279, allowing first-generation Mac Pro users to push their Macs to the limits only second-generation Mac Pro systems could reach until recently. Designers, photographers etc. will no longer frown at the sight of demanding professional and consumer applications.

The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT graphics card sports a total of 112 processing cores and supports dual 30-inch Apple Cinema HD displays. Compatible with any Intel-based Mac Pro, the GeForce 8800 GT includes NVIDIA's video processing technology which offloads H.264 decode enabling silky smooth playback of high-definition video, according to NVIDIA.

Those interested in purchasing the upgrade kit will gladly notice a substantial price drop from previously available upgrade kits, tuaw.com has discovered, while North American customers can grab their 8800 GT online from NVIDIA's online store or even The Apple Store for the same price ($279). If you're not a US, Puerto Rico or Canada resident, your only option is the Apple Store. Only first-gen Mac Pros with a bus speed for at least 1.33GHz are supported.

At the time NVIDIA introduced its 8800 GT first-gen Mac Pro users were shocked to learn that the cards were only compatible with second-gen Mac Pros. User research at that time showed the card indeed should have been backwards compatible.