The 680MX is surprisingly good, particularly when compared to the Sapphire 7950 Mac Edition. As an owner of the 2010 Mac Pro 3.33Ghz six core, what do you think about the iMac as a replacement, instead of upgrading to the 7950? One benefit is that you end up with a nice display with your upgrade, although obviously no ability to upgrade later.
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Benchmarks done for Radeon HD 7950 for Mac
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The 680MX is surprisingly good, particularly when compared to the Sapphire 7950 Mac Edition. As an owner of the 2010 Mac Pro 3.33Ghz six core, what do you think about the iMac as a replacement, instead of upgrading to the 7950? One benefit is that you end up with a nice display with your upgrade, although obviously no ability to upgrade later.
Not scientific but I had the Sonic Scan app running on my iPhone about 9 inches away from the 7950 with the side cover off of the Mac Pro. When running GPUTest's FurMark at 2560x1440, it averaged 52dB.
Compare that to the Radeon HD 5970 and GTX 285 at 54dB or the Radeon HD 7970 Gigahertz and GTX 580 Classified at 62dB.
Compare that to the Radeon HD 5970 and GTX 285 at 54dB or the Radeon HD 7970 Gigahertz and GTX 580 Classified at 62dB.
It's been mentioned in other threads, but the current 7950 drivers are pretty immature.
It's difficult for me to see the iMac as a Mac Pro replacement. Expansion is difficult and expensive, and it is probably going to be much louder under load.
Let's test Rob'art's famously deep pockets!
How about a Titan? That should pretty much be the ultimate Cuda and Gaming card.
Thanks for doing these tests BTW. Your site has been a favourite of mine for over a decade! Holy cow time flies.
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I'll put my $0.02: stick with the Pro. IMO the 27" is too small for the resolution, too glossy and I don't like the scaling options. I sold my iMac and went back to a MP.
With MP you can have any GPU you want and any monitor.
Unsolicited feedback I know, but just thought I would chime in.
Just my $0.02: all of the drivers for modern Mac Pro GPUs are immature. nVidia's 600-series don't yet support instancing, and all are a long ways behind the Windows drivers.
The Titan won't boot at the present time but MacVidCards is working on it. The Heaven and Valley frame rates under Windows blow all the other GPUs out of the water.
I like the customizability of the Mac Pro though the current iMac is very very good. Thankfully I don't have to choose -- I have both.
As for the drivers, I'm sure improvements will constantly be made. But what we really need to get the GPUs running faster is a new Mac Pro with faster everything -- faster CPU, faster memory, faster PCIe, faster communication between all three.
This is certainly true. I get far better performance out of my NV680 in Windows on the Mac Pro.
Added GeForce GTX 680 Classified to "Sharks" article
I had tested the GeForce GTX 680 Classified under 10.8.2 but not under 10.8.3. It's now added to the "Shootout with the Sharks" page.
I had tested the GeForce GTX 680 Classified under 10.8.2 but not under 10.8.3. It's now added to the "Shootout with the Sharks" page.
Two More GPUs added to the "Sharks" page
I added the full results for the Quadro K5000 for Mac to the "Shootout with the Sharks." Also added results for a flashed HIS Radeon HD 7970 (925MHz) running in PCIe 2.0 mode (versus the Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Gigahertz running in PCIe 1.0 mode).
In a few days I will add results for the newly announced EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition.
I added the full results for the Quadro K5000 for Mac to the "Shootout with the Sharks." Also added results for a flashed HIS Radeon HD 7970 (925MHz) running in PCIe 2.0 mode (versus the Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Gigahertz running in PCIe 1.0 mode).
In a few days I will add results for the newly announced EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition.
PCIE 2.0 vs. PCIE 1.0 quantified
We provided the 7970, as Rob notes in the article.
The 7970 he already had was a Ghz Edition so faster than the regular one I sent.
I think the truly interesting thing is the places where the regular one BEAT the overclocked one.
The ONLY difference being that ours was running at 2.0
In the Civilization V benchmark, the DaVince Resolve Test, The FCPX test and the PS6 test (where our 7970 WON !!!). In all 4 tests, despite running at lower clocks on both RAM and GPU, our card was able to "come from behind" and beat the faster card running at 1.0
So we finally have conclusive proof that there are places where it makes a difference. The results would have been even more dramatic if the 2 cards being compared had been equals to begin with.
(Ours if 7970F, the Gigahertz Edition is 7970G)
We provided the 7970, as Rob notes in the article.
The 7970 he already had was a Ghz Edition so faster than the regular one I sent.
I think the truly interesting thing is the places where the regular one BEAT the overclocked one.
The ONLY difference being that ours was running at 2.0
In the Civilization V benchmark, the DaVince Resolve Test, The FCPX test and the PS6 test (where our 7970 WON !!!). In all 4 tests, despite running at lower clocks on both RAM and GPU, our card was able to "come from behind" and beat the faster card running at 1.0
So we finally have conclusive proof that there are places where it makes a difference. The results would have been even more dramatic if the 2 cards being compared had been equals to begin with.
(Ours if 7970F, the Gigahertz Edition is 7970G)
PCI 3 vs. 2 vs. 1.1 is interesting. I've seen very mixed results all over the internet, where the same card only result in a 1 FPS difference across all 3 interfaces. Or in this case, makes a big difference. I'd love to see 7970F and G tested again in 1.1 and 2.0 modes.
I've assumed that my old MP1,1 is pretty bus bound with the 5770 in there now , and I'd have diminishing returns as I recall putting in a 5870 or better. (not that I would put any more money at it at this point)
As for tests I'd love to see a titan also... even more I'd love to see a mac edition
. Considering the 680 is $600, its not too much of a stretch for this user base that is hungry for all the GPU power it can get. I really wish the 680 was the 4 gig version.
I've assumed that my old MP1,1 is pretty bus bound with the 5770 in there now , and I'd have diminishing returns as I recall putting in a 5870 or better. (not that I would put any more money at it at this point)
As for tests I'd love to see a titan also... even more I'd love to see a mac edition
. Considering the 680 is $600, its not too much of a stretch for this user base that is hungry for all the GPU power it can get. I really wish the 680 was the 4 gig version.
Just installed the 7950 mac edition into my Mac pro 3,1.
issues fixed with turning the switch to mac side. did notice that when screen booted up it was flickered in. also, too bad we dont have a mac tool like the catalyst software.
did notice me Mac LED display only had one resolution was shown at 2560 x 1440 but the other ones are not there like 1920 etc. mmm
issues fixed with turning the switch to mac side. did notice that when screen booted up it was flickered in. also, too bad we dont have a mac tool like the catalyst software.
did notice me Mac LED display only had one resolution was shown at 2560 x 1440 but the other ones are not there like 1920 etc. mmm
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The recent developer release of 10.8.4 indicates developers should test against the latest release. Perhaps there is a good reason why.
Perhaps there is a good reason why.
All fixed above. updated the drivers from the website and flipped the switch on card to Mac
(that explains alot)Also, I was testing few apps like final cut and imovie and all works smoothly. Unfortunately, xplane, changing graphics settings to HDR and under screen anti aliasing, i think the middle one selected, crashes the program due to Open GL issue. The devs have been told about it. I'm not sure how much the game depends on the graphics card and/or the physical ram of the mac pro. But even with settings at max in xplane, the game starts to slow down a bit with high textures etc.
Hopefully with more driver updates, the card will sing. Install was a breeze. Sold the Ati 4870 and 2600xt from it.
All fixed above. updated the drivers from the website and flipped the switch on card to Mac
Also, I was testing few apps like final cut and imovie and all works smoothly. Unfortunately, xplane, changing graphics settings to HDR and under screen anti aliasing, i think the middle one selected, crashes the program due to Open GL issue. The devs have been told about it. I'm not sure how much the game depends on the graphics card and/or the physical ram of the mac pro. But even with settings at max in xplane, the game starts to slow down a bit with high textures etc.
Hopefully with more driver updates, the card will sing. Install was a breeze. Sold the Ati 4870 and 2600xt from it.
I have the 7950 in a Mac Pro 3.1 with 16 GB RAM, OS X 10.8.3.
I sometimes still have screen flickering (one flicker about every 15 mins orso) and play X-Pane 10 a lot, and have experimented with many grfx settings.
X-Plane 10 64 bits running on OS X 10.8.3 works fine over here.
Do you have lots of high-detailed extra scenery loaded? Lots of plug-ins and AI Aircraft? Then the total RAM consumption of the Mac Pro will exceed 10 GB quite easily. VRAM even exceeds 2 GB with some heavy scenery loaded.
It seems that the GPU isn't the bottleneck with X-Plane 10 on my Mac Pro.
Lowering the textures and objects etc. hardly increases FPS on my Mac. I think my CPU / FSB / RAM speed is limiting, not the 7950.
I wish I could test this by putting my HDD (with the OS and X-Plane 10 including my settings) in a 6 core 3.33 with the Radeon 7950. See if the higher CPU / Bus and RAM speed will help...
I don't think the 10.8.4 drivers will help my Mac in this instance.
I'm using the OSx Lion. and yes I think i have too much scenery and planes loaded. My ram is only 10gb. I might get an upgrade to that too. But for now, i haven't noticed flickering. I did upgrade the drivers from the Sapphire ATI website.
I got it for the mac here.
I installed the drivers from the disc that came with the card and from the website noticed more drivers so installed that too.
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/downloads/?pid=1777&psn=0006&lid=1&os=13
I installed the drivers from the disc that came with the card and from the website noticed more drivers so installed that too.
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/downloads/?pid=1777&psn=0006&lid=1&os=13
not sure. I have 10.7.5 still when i installed it. However, when you run it, it will show a setup window showing an upgrade to the existing driver or just uninstall the current driver. It showed as n upgrade for me.
I hope this isn't too far off topic but does anyone know how the HD 7950 mac edition compares to the GTX 680 Mac edition for 3D work?
I have scoured the internet and I can't find a comparison between the two for 3D work, only games :/
I have scoured the internet and I can't find a comparison between the two for 3D work, only games :/
Thanks for the link, I read that one earlier today but unfortunately I'm not too trusting on it since it's almost opposite of what I'm reading on other places including Autodesks own website and Toms Hardware Review.
I'm not saying Barefeats is wrong and Tom's and Autodesk is right but its hard to know which one to go with when they both show opposite things :/
I trust Tom's Hardware bench tests a lot. I've always been suspect of Barefeats - well, for the past 8 years anyway. Some of their opinions and tests don't bare out in actuality.
Just my 2¢
Dunno about this particular case.