Bought a 980 Ti — What am I doing? [Advice Please]

[devynbrew]

I've been deaf to all the users making their Mac Pro's new again with Nvidia 9xxx series cards. I recently purchased a used ("seller refurbished") card off of Ebay from a guy in New York who allegedly buys "off-leased and some from our vendor with flashing service."

I seriously am new to this — but it is my intention to speed up CUDA-based Premiere Pro and After Effects. After looking at used Quadros, I decided that Geforce is good for my needs, but I still have questions:

1. I've read I can buy the same 980 Ti card (like this one from Gigabyte) and put in my Mac Pro, following these instructions by Create.pro — I should be able to get it working, non-flashed. If that's the case, should I be buying used, flashed cards off Ebay?
2. What's a fair price for these used cards, and how big of a risk is it really to buy used? I paid $590 USD for the refurbished card. Am I crazy?
3. I'm having troubles understanding the real-world difference between flashed and non-flashed cards. Will flashed cards save me a whole lot of hassle when it comes to updating Mac OS, or is it simple enough to perform the steps required to keep non-flashed cards working and good?

Thanks in advance for any help with my questions here. I appreciate it!

 

[h9826790]

1) unflashed card can work if you do it properly.

2) it's hard to tell if that's expensive. Value is very personal and the price can fluctuate a lot in different city.

3) the main difference is that a flashed card will provide you the display after an OS upgrade, which allow you to installed Nvidia web driver. That's essential for the card to work properly. Unflashed card will only gives you black screen but nothing else (until Apple add native driver into the OS, which doesn't looks like will happen in short future). Even worse, may cause a black screen boot loop if some setting is wrong. IMO, flashed card is preferable if price is not an issue.

 

[devynbrew]

1) unflashed card can work if you do it properly.

2) it's hard to tell if that's expensive. Value is very personal and the price an fluctuate a lot in different city.

3) the main difference is that a flashed card will provide you the display after an OS upgrade, which allow you to installed Nvidia web driver. That's essential for the card to work properly. Unflashed card will only gives you black screen but nothing else (until Apple add native driver into the OS, which doesn't looks like will happen in short future). Even worse, may cause a black screen boot loop if some setting is wrong. IMO, flashed card is preferable if price is not an issue.

Thanks a lot for your reply here. Very helpful!