Emperor of Mac Pros ;-) Dual GTX 970 GPGPU OS X

[A Hobo]

There's nothing wrong with the gorgeous Sonnet Tempo , Lucas ! It is my understanding Windows 7 / 8 cannot boot from a software RAID device . You are using Mac OS X RAID (software RAID) with the Tempo . I am not even certain hardware RAID will work with Windows booting (no experience with that.) You are required to use just a single drive for Windows booting . Our Macs can boot with RAID , however , in OS X .

Buying an Apricorn will not get you software RAID Windows boot-ability . It's a Windows limitation !

PS ... your score went down :-(

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My Mac boots in 27 seconds in Mac OS X 10.10.1 with the Sonnet . Not bad considering all the hardware that has to go through POST .

I wasn't using softraid. At all. Not sure where you got that from haha.

I was trying to install and boot from a single drive to begin with, the problem is that the sonnet card treats drives as external, while OS X can boot from an external drive fine, windows will not.
The apricorn card presents the drives as mounted to a native sata 3 port, so will work as you'd expect in Mac and windows. Also the tempo isn't a raid card of any kind, that's the tempo pro.

When connected to a internal sata header my boot is less than 20 seconds, around 30 with the sonnet installed. I'm hoping the apricorn card will not affect the boot time much, although reports say they are quick.

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PS ... your score went down :-(

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No, it was always slightly lower than yours, my cards are running reference speeds, I may flash them with a SC profile this weekend to see what I can get away with

 

[Machines]

I wasn't using softraid. At all. Not sure where you got that from haha.

I was trying to install and boot from a single drive to begin with, the problem is that the sonnet card treats drives as external, while OS X can boot from an external drive fine, windows will not.
The apricorn card presents the drives as mounted to a native sata 3 port, so will work as you'd expect in Mac and windows. Also the tempo isn't a raid card of any kind, that's the tempo pro.

When connected to a internal sata header my boot is less than 20 seconds, around 30 with the sonnet installed. I'm hoping the apricorn card will not affect the boot time much, although reports say they are quick.

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No, it was always slightly lower than yours, my cards are running reference speeds, I may flash them with a SC profile this weekend to see what I can get away with

Oh ! I remembered you had two SSDs... I assumed you RAID 0'd them . Yes, I know the Sonnet card has no RAID controller chip. The RAID that can be used is in OSX D.U .

Your Sonnet card looks like the first gen card - does it need the firmware update ? You really should chat with Sonnet tech support .

The single SSD PCIe Apricorns I have used in the past take forever to boot in OS X - over a minute . Good luck with the Duo !

 

[A Hobo]

Oh ! I remembered you had two SSDs... I assumed you RAID 0'd them . Yes, I know the Sonnet card has no RAID controller chip. The RAID that can be used is in OSX D.U .

Your Sonnet card looks like the first gen card - does it need the firmware update ? You really should chat with Sonnet tech support .

The single SSD PCIe Apricorns I have used in the past take forever to boot in OS X - over a minute . Good luck with the Duo !

It's a revision B, spoke to support on Saturday and they gave me an updater, didn't change squat.

The duo doesn't have the same issues as the solo.

 

[Machines]

It's a revision B, spoke to support on Saturday and they gave me an updater, didn't change squat.

The duo doesn't have the same issues as the solo.

The Duo Apricorn is a bit slower than the Tempo , but that Marvell chip is pretty sweet !

I suppose you saw the warning about installing the Card without any SSDs attached to it and running it in a Windows environment . The drivers will auto-install . clever . And it seems to have hard ware RAID 0 support for booting Windows .

I'll keep this card in mind .

But one big negative for us cMP users .... all our slots are filled and you'll have no added eternal ports to plug things into with the Apricorn ... painful (((

 

[scottsjack]

I suppose you saw the warning about installing the Card without any SSDs attached to it and running it in a Windows environment . The drivers will auto-install . clever . And it seems to have hard ware RAID 0 support for booting Windows .(((

Yes, that exact thing happened to me. I installed W8.1 on an SSD in the lower bay. When I mounted the SSD on the Vel Duo nothing happened. I put the Windows SSD back in the lower bay, plugged the Vel Duo in with the Mac Boot SSD still attached and fired up Windows. After that I moved the Win SSD over to the Vel Duo. No problem now, boot screen and dual booting work fine.

 

[RoastingPig]

could osx even run 8 displays at once? i know each card supports up to 4 concurrent displays

 

[Machines]

could osx even run 8 displays at once? i know each card supports up to 4 concurrent displays

I've never tried it , but I'm pretty certain it would . Remember , the limitation in OS X is four video cards (some claim otherwise , but those are very rare configurations .)

It is not video connector limited , to my knowledge . So, Mac OS X should automatically recognize the displays in an extended desktop . Same as it has ever been since 1987 .

If you like , send me some displays and I'll plug 'em in

 

[TheHoff]

Emperor?

I can get closer to 2GB/s if I shut down everything else that is running...

 

[Machines]

I can get closer to 2GB/s if I shut down everything else that is running...

Image

name was a reference to GPGPU capabilities , not sequential speeds of the secondary storage device .

Did you take a look at His Highness' rear , perhaps ? You'll see the issue clearly . Please post again when you've done a deeper dive .

 

[Albert Thurgood]

Hi Machines, can you provide some detail about how you actually connected these cards please?

In your original post, you said "everything powered internally from the factory". But later on you mentioned routing power and ordering a pair of power booster splitter cables.

Obviously, I am not as knowledgeable about this tech as all you guys are, so this sounds pretty daunting.

I work in medical research and want to upgrade my Mac Pro so it can run our custom openCL programs, and would like to know what the best "plug and play" option would be to achieve this.

 

[dingdini]

Reference or Fan

I may need to start this in another thread, but since both Machines and Lucas were on this thread I wanted to post this question...

How do your machines handle cooling the dual 970s? I had 2 570s in my machine and I had to run external fans pushing air in and out of the machine with the side off just to keep them cool when running rendering jobs. I'm asking you because one of you went with the EVGA ACX cooler and the other went with the NVIDIA Reference cooler. The 570s both died, so I'm in the replacement research mode before my next big rendering job starts.

Thanks

 

[A Hobo]

I may need to start this in another thread, but since both Machines and Lucas were on this thread I wanted to post this question...

How do your machines handle cooling the dual 970s? I had 2 570s in my machine and I had to run external fans pushing air in and out of the machine with the side off just to keep them cool when running rendering jobs. I'm asking you because one of you went with the EVGA ACX cooler and the other went with the NVIDIA Reference cooler. The 570s both died, so I'm in the replacement research mode before my next big rendering job starts.

Thanks

I wasn't subscribed to this thread so i missed your question.

The answer is simple really, the mac pro cooling is more than adequate to manage dual 970s (I can only speak for reference cards, Aftermarket coolers are known to dump more heat into the case and therefor may be too much for the mac pro. but YMMV)

i also install macs fan control app/program to fix a silly fan bug where the PCI/PSU fans run at 200-300 rpm higher when booting.

 

[dingdini]

Well, I found a couple EVGA 970 FTWs for < $300 and pulled the trigger on them. I only have one installed at the moment (only had one of the original mac booster cables from my 5770 and the FSP Booster X5 cabling I had for the 570s aren't long enough).

One thing to note for anyone who upgrades and plans to continue using the 5.25" aux psu like the FSP booster X5, is that the 970's don't actually pull any power from the psu until a demand is placed on the card. The psu stays off until any of the benchmarks are started up (Valley, Heaven, Luxmark, CudaZ) or programs that use it such as Motion, FCP X... are running. This threw me for a loop the first several times I started up the system. I knew about the card not turning on the fans but, not starting power supply??? I didn't know about that. So after checking all of my cables, unwiring, rewiring, pulling and replugging, I finally tried one of the 570s just to see if it would turn on. It did, so I thought I'd try the 970 again. Still wouldn't come on. So I turned on CudaZ with the 970 installed and it finally started up the power supply. It shutdown the power supply after I quit CudaZ as well. Whew, crisis averted. Been running Motion pretty hard on it and the benchmarks since and everything seems to be good. It's great that one 970 is essentially faster that 2-570s.

Thanks for replying to me about the heat. So far with both the 5770 (original card I've been using until I could get the new ones) and the 970, I haven't had any problem with heat. I have been running with the side off, but even with that I can tell that there is a huge difference in heat coming from the computer. With the 570s, they could easily warm up my entire office and I would have to turn on the ceiling fan and setup extra fans just to get the heat out of the case. The 970 hardly makes a dent in the temperature of my room.

 

[The-Pro]

lovely to hear so many people getting it working.
I am interested in this upgrade myself however with only one card.
I am currently running 3 displays from the 5770.
Some time ago I heard that you can only run 2 displays from nvidia cards. Is this still the case or could I run all 3 screens from 1 nvidia card now?

thanks

 

[jimhigh]

Looking for a sraight answer here. I use windows 8.1 via bootcamp. I have a 2010 Mac pro 5,1 and it has 2 16x PCI slots. I have a gtx 970 running just fine. If I get another of identical brand, and power it sufficiently (let's not go there please), will nvidia config allow sli to be enabled?

The owner of dual gtx970 cards seems to make no mention of it. I'm stumped. Why not at least try...

Well last night I did. I put in a name brand nvidia gtx 970 reference card. (The one sold on their website and best buy). So I have a zotac 970, and an nvidia 970, and they were both recognized as gtx 970 (1) and gtx 970 (2). There real kicker is I read that none of the zotac brand 970s will allow sli to be enabled. Reasons aside, this is true. There are many forum posts about this. The solution is to run identical brand cards.

For me the question still remains, CAN you sli two identical brand gtx 970 in a Mac pro (5620 Xeon 8 core 2010 model) in windows.

 

[jimhigh]

lovely to hear so many people getting it working.
I am interested in this upgrade myself however with only one card.
I am currently running 3 displays from the 5770.
Some time ago I heard that you can only run 2 displays from nvidia cards. Is this still the case or could I run all 3 screens from 1 nvidia card now?

thanks

Yes. I currently do that exactly. It also run oculus rift dk2 extremely well. Make sure to take a look at the card before buying it. Many of them have different output options. Check and make sure your three monitors will hook up properly without having to buy a bunch of extra cables needlessly. I like my zotac (not the overclocked edition) (but u can still overclock it) because it is smaller than the others and fits nicely and I got it for 300$. The other brands are all good too.
Make sure to buy a second cable like the one currently in your rig powering the ati card. Its a mini mac pro pci to regular 6 pin cable. Your Mac pro should run the card just fine with no issues with those two cables connected. Firestorm software oc utility allows power draw 6% above normal, which is the max allowance for the 2x 75w mini connectors right by the video card slot.

 

[MacVidCards]

SLI is restricted by NVIDIA to only run on "SLI certified" boards.

The cMP isn't one of them.

For awhile you could use "Hyper SLI" rather easily to bypass. That developer got tired of working for free and the new means of doing this requires more steps. Last I checked it was called "different SLI"

Good luck, let us know your results.

 

[The-Pro]

Yes. I currently do that exactly. It also run oculus rift dk2 extremely well. Make sure to take a look at the card before buying it. Many of them have different output options. Check and make sure your three monitors will hook up properly without having to buy a bunch of extra cables needlessly. I like my zotac (not the overclocked edition) (but u can still overclock it) because it is smaller than the others and fits nicely and I got it for 300$. The other brands are all good too.
Make sure to buy a second cable like the one currently in your rig powering the ati card. Its a mini mac pro pci to regular 6 pin cable. Your Mac pro should run the card just fine with no issues with those two cables connected. Firestorm software oc utility allows power draw 6% above normal, which is the max allowance for the 2x 75w mini connectors right by the video card slot.

Thanks. Solves my confussion here. I was thinking I had to buy 2 nvidia cards to get 3 screens to work, making me htink about just getting an old HD5870

 

[imayellowfellow]

Lucas is in the UK and I'm in the Midwest (USA) . I don't know where he grabbed his PCIe booster cables , but I just ordered a pair of them from an eBay seller located in the state of Indiana . They have not arrived yet , so i don't know their quality . They are long (14.5 inches / 37cm) and made of proper guage wire and should be usable for a wide varity of card lengths . I've had rejects from this seller before with other cables , so carefully examine the cable connector ends to verify they've been made properly . Problem is, not many firms make custom cables for our cMP . Ones approved in my builds are always good .

Here's the link : http://www.ebay.com/itm/141446625803?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

eBay item number 141446625803 if the link is dead .

Where/who was the supplier for the Sata to 6 Pin power cables that you're using? Thanks!

 

[bladerunner2000]

SLI is not supported in OS X

And it's not supported in Windows on any Mac Pro either; the motherboard doesn't have the capability.

The only GPUs that the Mac Pro had capability of SLI were Dual Geforce 7300 GTs as those could use hacked drivers with software SLI.... but ONLY those.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

And it's not supported in Windows on any Mac Pro either; the motherboard doesn't have the capability.

The only GPUs that the Mac Pro had capability of SLI were Dual Geforce 7300 GTs as those could use hacked drivers with software SLI.... but ONLY those.

If you have a dual GPU card then SLI should run on a single slot in Windows. In OS X I don't know because the OS has no SLI support except for GPGPU apps

 

[bladerunner2000]

If you have a dual GPU card then SLI should run on a single slot in Windows. In OS X I don't know because the OS has no SLI support except for GPGPU apps

That's not how it works. You need the SLI ribbon interconnect for SLI and you'll be using two PCI slots. While both cards will be active, you'll only be using the power from whichever card is connected to the monitor, rendering the second card useless. This goes for both Windows and OS X on any Macintosh.

The only way around this is to use ATI Radeons as they don't require motherboards to be 'crossfire ready'. Either that, or just get a Hackintosh and get like triple the horsepower for 1/3 the price.

 

[A Hobo]

I was only able to get sli working using hyper sli, and i found it to be quite buggy, sometimes it would blue screen on boot. other times it would just freak out for no damn reason. id say its better to just go for a powerful single gpu solution like a 980ti

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

That's not how it works. You need the SLI ribbon interconnect for SLI and you'll be using two PCI slots. While both cards will be active, you'll only be using the power from whichever card is connected to the monitor, rendering the second card useless. This goes for both Windows and OS X on any Macintosh.

The only way around this is to use ATI Radeons as they don't require motherboards to be 'crossfire ready'. Either that, or just get a Hackintosh and get like triple the horsepower for 1/3 the price.

And dual GPU GTX 690 and Titan Z are what?

 

[bladerunner2000]

And dual GPU GTX 690 and Titan Z are what?

...are very powerful GPUs.