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Break through the gloom! Kepler comes to Mac Pro...GTX680!

xav8tor said:
Thanks, I may try that, I have a 10.8.1 backup disk already, but before I do, what are the chances that all of this is for nothing when 10.8.2 officially is released? Will it not overwrite the driver and then everyone would be in the same boat I'm in right now? Aside from the slow speeds my driver shows in CUDA Z as 8.0.55 295.30.20a02 if that sheds any light on the problem.

UPDATE: After further research (like reading all of the release notes) it is apparent this driver will only work on 10.8.1 and any OS update might kill it. Clearly it will defeat the restore process if you update the OS to greater than 10.8.1, which begs the question> Will updating 10.8 require a new Nvidia driver every time Apple updates Mountain Lion?

From the release notes:

"Installing any newer version of the OS over this driver will also invalidate the uninstall/restore process."

I am really, really getting pissed at Apple on the Pro side. Continual headaches keeping even close to the state of the art in Windows machines. I love my iPhone, MBA, ATV, etc., but five grand invested in a box that lags two or three years behind, regardless of how solid it is, is getting more frustrating by the day. I didn't have this many problems on Vista, or DOS, for that matter. The "it just works" moniker does NOT fit the Mac Pro anymore unless you want to walk a mile behind the competition like HP, Dell, much less the boutique builders...or a home built. Rant over. Now I guess I'll get a lecture for complaining about a GPU direct hack not working because I accepted the opportunity to upgrade my OS to the latest build to fix other issues.
Click to expand...

If 10.8.2 kills this, I feel pretty confident that Nvidia will release a fix within 48 hours.

Obviously Apple is intent on dragging out speed increases and kills them whenever they can. They are really getting comfy with that "Big Brother" role they poked fun at in their "1984" ad.
 
MacVidCards said:
If 10.8.2 kills this, I feel pretty confident that Nvidia will release a fix within 48 hours.

Obviously Apple is intent on dragging out speed increases and kills them whenever they can. They are really getting comfy with that "Big Brother" role they poked fun at in their "1984" ad.
Click to expand...

I sure hope Nvidia keeps up, because Apple isn't doing so for us, and it is clearly intentional, or intentional disregard. Over the past couple of years. I've done a ton of beta testing, including for some big name developers like Apple, Adobe, etc. and for some very specialized developers. I learned a lot, including that in every case, one of their primary concerns is what the coders call a "regression." That's when a a fix or addition in a "dot x" update kills something that worked in the prior version. It has almost always been an unintended result in a decimal update. Obviously fully new versions can, and often do, drop prior features/support while adding new ones. That doesn't look like the case here.

As you say, it is readily apparent that Apple, for no good reason, is intentionally sabotaging what is supposed to be their flagship professional product. That is inexcusable, and as a shareholder, I'm going to let them know about it. Of course, it will fall upon deaf ears. If Apple keeps this up, they won't have to drop the Mac Pro. Their pro customers will do it for them.
 
10.8.2

xav8tor said:
Thanks, I may try that, I have a 10.8.1 backup disk already, but before I do, what are the chances that all of this is for nothing when 10.8.2 officially is released? Will it not overwrite the driver and then everyone would be in the same boat I'm in right now? Aside from the slow speeds my driver shows in CUDA Z as 8.0.55 295.30.20a02 if that sheds any light on the problem.

UPDATE: After further research (like reading all of the release notes) it is apparent this driver will only work on 10.8.1 and any OS update might kill it. Clearly it will defeat the restore process if you update the OS to greater than 10.8.1, which begs the question> Will updating 10.8 require a new Nvidia driver every time Apple updates Mountain Lion?

From the release notes:

"Installing any newer version of the OS over this driver will also invalidate the uninstall/restore process."

I am really, really getting pissed at Apple on the Pro side. Continual headaches keeping even close to the state of the art in Windows machines. I love my iPhone, MBA, ATV, etc., but five grand invested in a box that lags two or three years behind, regardless of how solid it is, is getting more frustrating by the day. I didn't have this many problems on Vista, or DOS, for that matter. The "it just works" moniker does NOT fit the Mac Pro anymore unless you want to walk a mile behind the competition like HP, Dell, much less the boutique builders...or a home built. Rant over. Now I guess I'll get a lecture for complaining about a GPU "factory direct" driver not working because I accepted the opportunity to upgrade my OS to the latest build to fix other issues. I know the release says 10.8.1 only, but far more often than not, the implication is that "or later/greater" follows the version number. Doesn't look like it in this case.
Click to expand...

Yeah don't do it - there's a guy over on Netkas's forums who altered the install scripts and installed it anyway = no longer workable copy of 10.8.2 :(

(I'm in the same boat - guess I'm waiting)
 
With the release of the 304.00.00f20 drivers, I was wondering if anyone has a comparison of the GTX 570 vs. either the 670 or 660 TI in OSX 10.8.1 for gaming.

I've been keeping an eye out here, netkas, and tonyosx, but I haven't found any quantitative comparisons, preferably on similarly spec'd Mac Pro's. I apologize if I'm just not looking hard enough--but I figured I'd ask here. Thanks!
 
MacVidCards said:
And before someone asks, the new driver holds no magic for multiple displays. Still limited to 2.
Click to expand...

Just to add some additional information concerning the 304.00.00f20 drivers (maybe this was already mentioned and I missed it): OpenCL works out of the box. Replacing the libclh.dylib file is no longer necessary.

LuxMark 2.0 shows a result of 1207 for my EVGA GTX680.
 
tomvos said:
Just to add some additional information concerning the 304.00.00f20 drivers (maybe this was already mentioned and I missed it): OpenCL works out of the box. Replacing the libclh.dylib file is no longer necessary.

LuxMark 2.0 shows a result of 1207 for my EVGA GTX680.
Click to expand...

Sorry to be dense, but are the drivers reference above a stock item coming from apple via software update or is this something else?

I've not done anything other than installed the CUDA driver and changed the approved video cards text files for AE and premiere on my system.
 
tomvos said:
Just to add some additional information concerning the 304.00.00f20 drivers (maybe this was already mentioned and I missed it): OpenCL works out of the box. Replacing the libclh.dylib file is no longer necessary.
Click to expand...

I posted in the Fermi thread that I can't get Resolve to run after doing the driver update, then I see this and I'm wondering if my modified libclh.dylib file has anything to do about it ?

EDIT: solution is updating CUDA drivers as well. I was sure I had the latest as I downloaded them only last week but it turns out I must have messed up my search. So GTX drivers 304.00.00.f20 + CUDA 5.0.24 did the trick... relief !
 
Last edited:
to all of you with new nvidia cards installed- does the GPU fan speed ramp up in OS X correctly when gaming? thanks
 
10.8.2 and 304.00.00f20 update?

Is the 10.8.2 (final) update killing the 304.00.00f20 driver update?

----------
karsten said:
to all of you with new nvidia cards installed- does the GPU fan speed ramp up in OS X correctly when gaming? thanks
Click to expand...

For me, GTX 680 SC EVGA, it is working fine. Mac Pro 5,1.
 
What about the 660ti

Asgorath said:
My recommendations, in order:

1) 2GB GTX 680 or 2GB GTX 670
2) 2GB GTX 570

The 680 is going to be much more future-proof, since the card only just came out this year. However, they are pretty expensive.

If you need stronger CUDA performance and/or money is a concern, then it's really hard to pass up the GTX 570. All of these options work with 2 6-pin power connectors, so no external power supply needed.

Given all of the problems baked into the OS for cards with more than 2GB of RAM, I think it's safest to just stick with no more than that. Netkas found one case where Apple disabled acceleration for cards with more than 2GB of RAM, but there might be other problems and you might not like having to manually edit the OpenCL framework binary with every Software Update.

The GTX 600 series support is still in the early stages, but I think it's safe to assume it'll only get better from here. That is, performance might not be at 100% yet, but according to testing by MacVidCards it's no slower than the GTX 580 right now (just not faster like you'd expect).

You should be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion using your existing card, and then just swap in the Fermi/Kepler card.

Edit: FWIW I'm going to buy a GTX 680 when I upgrade to Mountain Lion in a few weeks, going to give it some time to settle down in case there are any unforeseen problems with the release.
Click to expand...

What do you think? Now that the GTX 660ti is out where does that fall into your equation. I've got a 3,1 mac pro and am looking for a something in the $300 range.
 
Snow Leopard

I've got an nVidia 680 video card.
My computer is a 2008 Mac Pro.
I frequently need to use Snow Leopard which is in one of my internal hard drives.
The 680 won't work with SL.
I need to put a 2nd video card into either slot 2, 3, or 4. Right?
What is the most powerful video card that will fit into one of those PCIe slots?
 
Topper said:
I've got an nVidia 680 video card.
My computer is a 2008 Mac Pro.
I frequently need to use Snow Leopard which is in one of my internal hard drives.
The 680 won't work with SL.
I need to put a 2nd video card into either slot 2, 3, or 4. Right?
What is the most powerful video card that will fit into one of those PCIe slots?
Click to expand...
I don't know what the most powerful card is for your Mac Pro, I can have both 5870 and 680 installed. I have a mid 2010 Mac Pro and slot 1 and 2 are high enough to fit them both if you use an external PSU. I have my GTX connected to an external PSU to keep the noise down from the PSU fan(s).

However, if you do install them both it will slow down the GTX card. I tried it with x-plane and the drop in fps is significant!
 
Topper said:
I've got an nVidia 680 video card.
My computer is a 2008 Mac Pro.
I frequently need to use Snow Leopard which is in one of my internal hard drives.
The 680 won't work with SL.
I need to put a 2nd video card into either slot 2, 3, or 4. Right?
What is the most powerful video card that will fit into one of those PCIe slots?
Click to expand...

Apple's GT 120 doesn't need any extra power.
 
Best card for CS6

Asgorath said:
Already answered here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1440150/
Click to expand...

Asgorath, a huge thank you for putting together the FAQ. There is one thing I want to double check before I purchase a new card. From what you listed it sounds like the 570 would be the best option for CS6 and Resolve work. Is that correct? And I can assume that with the newest ML it will work out of the box?

This is what I'm looking at getting. With 2.5 gig.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

Will there be any issues being over 2gig?
 
rubefink said:
Will there be any issues being over 2gig?
Click to expand...

The GTX 570 is a great choice for OpenCL/CUDA heavy work, yes. As I understand it, cards with more than 2GB of RAM still need the OpenCL framework binary fix found here, though I need to confirm if this is only required for 10.7.5 or if 10.8.2 needs it as well.
 
over two gig advantage.

Asgorath said:
The GTX 570 is a great choice for OpenCL/CUDA heavy work, yes. As I understand it, cards with more than 2GB of RAM still need the OpenCL framework binary fix found here, though I need to confirm if this is only required for 10.7.5 or if 10.8.2 needs it as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply.

Are there any other disadvantages you can think of in getting the 2.5gig version of this card or is this card the obvious choice over the 1gig if price is not an issue?

Thanks.
 
Smokin' Hot.....

I recently upgraded my 5,1 with the GTX 680 with 4GB and have had NO problems at all running with 10.8.2. All 4GB of memory seems to be recognized without any issues. I run in Bootcamp about half the time using various cadd and rendering programs. Solidworks, Bunkspeed Shot, Adobe everything, etc... The 1536 CUDA cores are a huge boost to the programs that utilize them.

Anyway it's the most awesome card I've ever owned and to have it running in my Mac Pro is very sweet. :D

EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ 4GB w/Backplate
Part Number: 04G-P4-3687-KR
• 4096MB GDDR5 Memory
• PCI-E 3.0 16x
• 1084Mhz GPU Clock Speed
• 6008Mhz Memory Clock Speed
• NVIDIA SLI ready

c0.jpg

c1.jpg

c2.jpg
 
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