Fastest Mac GPUs with full EFI boot screens, etc, GTX570 & GTX580

[florianuhlemann]

The thing is: what do those extra 2 pins do? They are just an additional 2 ground leads. PSU manufacturers hook their 8pin pcie up with a 12pin connector - for two 8pin pcie connectors. It just loads the +12V leads a bit more. And a graphics card that has 2 6pin is not much less than a card with 2 8 pins! In fact - these lightning cards only carry those additional pins for liquid nitrogen overclocking when going to voltages like 1.300-1.500v on the gtx580!

I'm not saying you should use a 580 with 8pins in a Mac Pro, I'm just saying it won't really harm it. And the horse power comparison is a bit biased here I think. Let's say you put a 240hp engine in a car that used to have 225hp. That's more like it when comparing a gtx570 to a 580

I would even say a lightning 580 uses less power compared to a reference design with both at stock clocks - due to better and more efficient hardware.

 

[xav8tor]

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like I should go with the EVGA 2GB 570. I live near Hollywood, can you PM me (I'm too new to PM)? I would like to get a flashed card.

I googled 4GB vs 2GB issue before I posted but all of the info seemed to be for PC and there is confusion over the issue even these forums. I work with 5K Red Epic files and thought the extra vram might help Premier. I swear I tried to find the info my own

MacVidCards' 570 is probably the right choice for you in your line of work. MVC's cards are very highly regarded in the COW forums. The 670 is sort of a PITA to get fully functional and ML updates may break some of the fixes. CUDA fix was easy once you find it. Copy/rename an lib file and you're done. OpenCl on the 4 GB is a different animal. Two fixes are required and there is no "Enable OpenCL for Dummies" thread out there. I speak two languages, but the one spoken over on netkas org isn't one of them! I finally got it (sort of), after bugging the heck out of MVC and netkas, but haven't attempted it yet because I don't really need it at this point in OS X and one of fixes seems a little hinky. They've been helpful though, to say the least. They do some great work to help us neglected Mac Pro users.

Ref the speed issue on Macs, it is all too real. My 670 gave me at least a 50% percent frame rate boost under OS X ML, and let me enable all sorts of additional eye candy, again by about 50% or more. But in Windows, that card is absolutely screaming fast and I can almost max out any and every option I choose.

 

[Asgorath]

The thing is: what do those extra 2 pins do? They are just an additional 2 ground leads. PSU manufacturers hook their 8pin pcie up with a 12pin connector - for two 8pin pcie connectors. It just loads the +12V leads a bit more. And a graphics card that has 2 6pin is not much less than a card with 2 8 pins! In fact - these lightning cards only carry those additional pins for liquid nitrogen overclocking when going to voltages like 1.300-1.500v on the gtx580!

I'm not saying you should use a 580 with 8pins in a Mac Pro, I'm just saying it won't really harm it. And the horse power comparison is a bit biased here I think. Let's say you put a 240hp engine in a car that used to have 225hp. That's more like it when comparing a gtx570 to a 580

I would even say a lightning 580 uses less power compared to a reference design with both at stock clocks - due to better and more efficient hardware.

The TDP of a GTX 580 is 240-245W. The Mac Pro is specced to deliver 225W (75W from slot, 2x75W from the 2 6-pin power cables). Since 245 > 225, the card will pull more power than the system is specced to deliver. Nobody will stop you from trying, but MVC's main point is that don't come back and complain if you burn traces on your motherboard after playing WoW for 12 hours straight.

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The 670 is sort of a PITA to get fully functional and ML updates may break some of the fixes.

Highly unlikely, FWIW. If anything, it'll only get easier/better as time goes on.

 

[mr.garon]

@gegagome

My question is: I got a 2,1 and i would love to run Cuda in After Effects, have you ever try it ? Does it work ? Can you use Ray Tracer function and Mercury Playback Engine ? Anyone have try ?

Thx
jugalrico

I currently have a Radeon HD 4870. It was unbearable with After Effects Raytracing. Literally 20 seconds to preview one frame of extruded text. I put in a Quadro 4000 and it was incredibly fast, 3D and Mercury worked perfectly. The only problem was the fans on the Quadro(and possibly mac) would ramp up to full speed with in a few minutes and they were unbearably loud. My ears were ringing from the noise, and I had to get rid of the card. I plan on getting a GTX 570 because I can not use 3D in After Effects without CUDA.

 

[mr.garon]

Highly unlikely, FWIW. If anything, it'll only get easier/better as time goes on.

I agree, I really want the 670, and I bet it will get better over time but since I need the card for work the 570 seems like the safer and better choice. I poked around on Netkas.org but it was *way* over my head. I can see getting myself in trouble messing around there.

 

[jhero]

Just curious that if I get a off the shelf gtx570, do I need to keep my current 5770 plugged in to get it to boot into bootcamp just once and then remove the 5770? Or can I simply install the GTX570 and get it over with? Also, I hear slot 2 is the best slot to put it in?

 

[Jonez1]

does anyone know is working nvidia gtx 560 in mac pro (10.8)

 

[Asgorath]

Just curious that if I get a off the shelf gtx570, do I need to keep my current 5770 plugged in to get it to boot into bootcamp just once and then remove the 5770? Or can I simply install the GTX570 and get it over with? Also, I hear slot 2 is the best slot to put it in?

You don't need to keep the 5770 installed, as long as you switch boot partitions using the OS control panels (i.e. not holding Option on reboot). The no-EFI GTX 570 won't display the boot screen, but everything else works fine.

does anyone know is working nvidia gtx 560 in mac pro (10.8)

Yes, it works out of the box.

 

[jhero]

Thanks, I got the gtx 670 and yes indeed it booted into windows no problem. Interesting thing is that I have 2 displays connected to it (one via dvi dl and the other via display port) and when I boot into windows, I see the boot screen for windows on the display connected via dvi but not display port. On the apple 5770, it showed on both screens. I was expecting to not see anything with the 670 so that was a pleasant surprise

 

[netkas]

Thanks, I got the gtx 670 and yes indeed it booted into windows no problem. Interesting thing is that I have 2 displays connected to it (one via dvi dl and the other via display port) and when I boot into windows, I see the boot screen for windows on the display connected via dvi but not display port. On the apple 5770, it showed on both screens. I was expecting to not see anything with the 670 so that was a pleasant surprise

efi/bootcamp initializes the card when booting legacy os (windows) with videocard's bios, in same maner normal system bios does it....

That's normal behavior for any videocard on macpro.

 

[droidonthemoon]

nvidia quadro 4000/cuda on a mac

okay, how is this for stumpers? anyone with advice, I'd really appreciate it.

I have 2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon Mac running OS 10.8 with 24 GB of mem and running both NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2048 MB and ATI Radeon HD 5770.
I have also downloaded the latest CUDA driver. I do not have Bootcamp though.

ANY VERSION of Blender I run, and I have several versions for different purposes (cell fracture, tracking, etc) when I go into Cycles to render with the CUDA the screen goes black. Says its rendered. Apparently just rendered it black. What is up with this?
CUDA seems to be working by way of testing on Terminal - CUDA-Z is only for Windows.

HEEEELP PLLLEEEAASE!

 

[MacVidCards]

CUDA-Z is only for Windows.

HEEEELP PLLLEEEAASE!

look harder

 

[droidonthemoon]

CUDA-Z for mac

look harder

OK, found it. But still hasn't fixed my problem. Says CUDA is running fine.
Blender still renders a black screen. Any advice?

 

[MacVidCards]

If cuda is functional then it is blender problem and you Need to talk to them

Perhaps there is a supported card list like cs6 or they have turned off cards that apple doesn't list. Check on related forums and see if q4000 working

 

[El Awesome]

Just got my GTX570 2.5GB from MVC. Installed, running fine.
Told AE to support the cars, norw raytracing with the GTX 570.

I'll check the gaming performance later on...
Thank you very much MVC!

 

[El Awesome]

I'll check the gaming performance later on...

Battlefield 3: Mixutre between High and Ultra (if you go full Ultra it is slightly laggy in heavy situations.Acutally High/Ultra is very little difference.)

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Everything maxed and not laggy at all.

 

[The-Pro]

Is there support for a 550 or 550 Ti?

cheers

 

[Asgorath]

Is there support for a 550 or 550 Ti?

cheers

Are you asking about the EFI cards or just regular PC cards? The latter will work, with the usual note about no boot screens etc. Basically any Fermi or Kepler generation card will work, especially with Mountain Lion.

 

[The-Pro]

Are you asking about the EFI cards or just regular PC cards? The latter will work, with the usual note about no boot screens etc. Basically any Fermi or Kepler generation card will work, especially with Mountain Lion.

Ok great. Well would be great to have a boot screen, but not necessary.
Im using Snow Leopard, would it they work with that? Anyone know how the performance is?
cheers

 

[Asgorath]

Im using Snow Leopard, would it they work with that?

As discussed many times in several different threads, no, there is no support for SnowLeopard. The PC cards work out-of-the-box with Mountain Lion (and 10.7.5 when it ships), and need the 270.00.00f06 driver from NVIDIA for 10.7.4 in order to work.

 

[The-Pro]

As discussed many times in several different threads, no, there is no support for SnowLeopard. The PC cards work out-of-the-box with Mountain Lion (and 10.7.5 when it ships), and need the 270.00.00f06 driver from NVIDIA for 10.7.4 in order to work.

Great thanks, I forgot about that.
So the performance should be good with those drivers?

 

[skippyfx]

Has anyone done tests in Mountain Lion with their flashed nvidia cards? Any improvements or problems?

 

[MacVidCards]

Has anyone done tests in Mountain Lion with their flashed nvidia cards? Any improvements or problems?

Barefeats.com has done some tests and will be adding more.

All of our cards work as well or better than they did in Lion.

 

[ekwipt]

MacVidCards what's currently the best Nvidia card working with Avid Media Composer 6 and Mountin Lion?

And then what do you think the best card would be for separately and combined for:

Avid Media Composer
FCPX
Adobe Creative Suite 6

In that order?

 

[Henahn]

I'm running a EVGA GTX 570 1.2 GB on a MacPro 3,1, in OSX 10.8.
I read this whole thread, so I just plugged it in SLOT 2 and got it working, with no EFI.
Since I have my system on SSD, it's not much a problem because it boots in 15s. But I still have a few questions:

1. If I use a bootloader like "rEFIT", will I be able to see the boot screen?
   
2. Do you have to modify the hardware to flash the modded ROM, or that's just for the bandwidth problem in PCIE 1.0?