Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards

[FrenchKheldar]

Advice for quiet card MP4,1

First of all, thanks for this wonderful work, you are making this so much easier than it used to be.

I have a MP4,1 with the stock GT120. I'd like a middle of the road upgrade that above all keeps my Mac Pro silent. Am I right to think that a stock GTX 660, without OC and the stock 2GB of memory, will not break the bank ($230ish), will not make my MP noisier, will be very easy to install (no additional power cable, good support in Mountain Lion), will be a wonderful upgrade over my GT120 for moderate gaming (Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Civ 5) and will allow me to do some CUDA work in double precision.

Thanks in advance for your advice !

 

[Asgorath]

Hi yes I am running Lion, so pretty much just in play and they should work out of the box? Wow thanks I would sure like some more details this is my first Mac Pro

Please read the first post, it covers pretty much everything you need to know.

Just picked up a Reference Zotac GTX670 2GB... It's running at PCI-E x16 v1.1 in Windows aka not at full speed.

ANY FIX FOR THIS? GTA IV and NFS The Run seems to Bench 60FPS SOLID everything maxed out at 2560x1440 and Heaven gets 27FPS maxed out totally. Not sure what performance increase I could see except for Heaven. Though while playing GTA IV I think it drops to 30-50fps on average.


No EFI so no boot screen but with my SSD in the Pro it's okay.

Please read the first post, it covers the PCIe speed issue. The latest NVIDIA drivers for OS X have a workaround, but the Windows drivers do not (and probably never will).

 

[Asgorath]

First of all, thanks for this wonderful work, you are making this so much easier than it used to be.

I have a MP4,1 with the stock GT120. I'd like a middle of the road upgrade that above all keeps my Mac Pro silent. Am I right to think that a stock GTX 660, without OC and the stock 2GB of memory, will not break the bank ($230ish), will not make my MP noisier, will be very easy to install (no additional power cable, good support in Mountain Lion), will be a wonderful upgrade over my GT120 for moderate gaming (Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Civ 5) and will allow me to do some CUDA work in double precision.

Thanks in advance for your advice !

Yes, the GTX 660 looks like a great option for you. If you are running 10.8.2 with the latest NVIDIA driver, it should just work.

 

[akubikm]

MP1,1 and slot 1

Hi. I've read through this thread, but am still wondering...

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 running 10.7.5, using an EVGA GT520 01G-P3-1526-KR and its working in slot 4. Took me a while to figure out I needed to move it. The 1,1's only have one x16 slot, slot 1. I've installed the latest nvidia driver.

1. Is there a noticeable performance benefit to using the x16 slot 1?
2. Is there any work around to make it work in slot 1?
3. If I upgrade to 10.8 do these cards work in slot 1? (I know I've got to do the plist thing to make 10.8 work on this machine...)

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[golpa]

gtx 650

Thanks for this excellent post. It has been very helpful so far.

I have a MP 3,1 whose original 2600 card is giving me problems. Based on the recommendation on the first post I just bought a GTX 650. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work. I get the boot chime but display stays blank. I'm running ML 10.8.2 and tried it with the drivers that came with it as well as upgraded to the nvidia web drivers linked in the first post.

I tried putting the GTX 650 in both slot 1 and 2 with no luck. I tried booting in safe mode with no luck either.

I apologize if this has been covered somewhere. I've tried my best to search the forums but so far haven't found anything.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[sarthak]

Please read the first post, it covers pretty much everything you need to know.



Please read the first post, it covers the PCIe speed issue. The latest NVIDIA drivers for OS X have a workaround, but the Windows drivers do not (and probably never will).

I did. Just wondering if someone found a hack or a way of making pic-e 2.0 work under windows. Since there are very little games in OS X, do you think a GTX670 that I got was overkill? I'm in Canada so with taxes it came out to $486.xx, would a GTX660 or GTX660 Ti give me equivalent gaming performance in windows with PCIEv1.1 (x16 slot). I'm thinking of sticking with the 670 and selling the GT120 afaik Resolve can run with a single card like the 670. For resolve lite should I keep the GT120 or eBay it.

FPS isn't as good as expected with gaming on the MacPro. I don't have room for two machines otherwise I would build a 3930k+GTX680 rig just for gaming. I sold my 2600k+580 rig to buy the MacPro.

 

[Asgorath]

I did. Just wondering if someone found a hack or a way of making pic-e 2.0 work under windows. Since there are very little games in OS X, do you think a GTX670 that I got was overkill? I'm in Canada so with taxes it came out to $486.xx, would a GTX660 or GTX660 Ti give me equivalent gaming performance in windows with PCIEv1.1 (x16 slot). I'm thinking of sticking with the 670 and selling the GT120 afaik Resolve can run with a single card like the 670. For resolve lite should I keep the GT120 or eBay it.

Right, the FAQ post contains all we know about NVIDIA non-EFI cards. If it doesn't mention a way to enable PCIe 2.0 under Windows, it's because we don't know of any way to do that (yet). If MacVidCards ever figures out how to make an EFI for those cards, he'll probably be able to enable PCIe 2.0 for both Mac and Windows, but for now you'll just have to live with PCIe 1.0 speeds under Windows.

For gaming, PCIe speeds have very little effect on performance (low single-digit percentage deltas). The bandwidth is more noticeable for certain compute workloads.

If you're using a non-EFI card, I highly recommend keeping an EFI card as a backup in case you ever need a boot screen. The GT 120 won't sell for that much, and if anything ever goes wrong you'll be kicking yourself for getting rid of it.

 

[Enny5]

hm

gtx 550ti works on my mac pro 2009 like a champ

 

[sarthak]

Excellent Point.

 

[skippermonkey]

Hi. I've been trying get hold of a GTX 570 but to no avail, sadly the EVGA unit is EOL and there are just none about (here in the UK).

Anyhoo, my question is: can I fit a GTX 570 in the same case as a my ATI HD 5870? Will I have cooling issues, will it have enough power to drive them both, and will I need those molex Y-splitter cables?

The reasoning is that I'd keep the ATI to boot up and drive the display and OpenGL and simply use the CUDA cores for CG applications (thus avoiding any potential display issues).

Will this work? Assuming I can find one of the damn things, of course...

 

[sarthak]

570 is a nice card.

 

[skippermonkey]

It's a 2010 dual-hexacore, Mac 5,1.

How do the 660 and 660 Ti compare to the GTX 570?

[EDIT] Actually, the 6xx cards aren't double precision and the GPGPU performance is not great by all accounts. Looks like I'll just have to track the elusive 570 down...

 

[Asgorath]

What model (year) ir your MacPro? You can fit a 570&5870 in the same case. You could use mini 6pin to dual 6pin adapters. If the pro can power two 5870 it should be able to do 570 as well.

Apparently I was not clear enough in the power consumption section of the FAQ. Each of those cards needs 225W (75W from PCIe slot, 2 x 75W 6-pin cables). Splitting one 6-pin into 2 6-pin connectors will mean the system could be drawing 150W more than it's designed for, which could permanently damage the cards and/or motherboard. So, in other words, I highly recommend that you do not attempt to power these cards from the Mac Pro's power supply alone. If you really need 2 cards that both require 225W, then your only safe option is an external power supply.

There's no reason to run them both, the GTX 570 can handle compute and graphics just fine. Keep the EFI card as a backup if needed.

 

[skippermonkey]

Okay - but in that case, what about a 680? Because I cannot find a GTX 570 2.5GB (and I need the VRAM for simulations) anywhere...

 

[Asgorath]

Okay - but in that case, what about a 680? Because I cannot find a GTX 570 2.5GB (and I need the VRAM for simulations) anywhere...

A GTX 680 is a fine choice, that's what I'm using right now.

Edit: And obviously, my comments about power consumption still hold for that card. Don't try and power 2 cards that both require 2 6-pin connectors from the Mac Pro power supply alone.

 

[skippermonkey]

I gather there are GTX680s with six-pin power sockets - would these be the ones to go for?

 

[Asgorath]

I gather there are GTX680s with six-pin power sockets - would these be the ones to go for?

Yes, most have 2 6-pin power connectors. It's only the super-overclocked ones that have one or more 8-pin connectors, you should avoid these ones.

 

[skippermonkey]

Right, enough prevaricating. I'm buying a GTX 680. Thanks Asgorath for all your help.

One final question: any particular brand/edition you'd recommend?

 

[MDangerous]

Is there anyway to uninstall the official nVidia drivers so that I can run off of the Apple nVidia drivers in 10.8.2? I mean without reinstalling OS X.

 

[MDangerous]

My GTX 470 seems not to like Google Earth. The GTX freezes when trying to run the latest Google Earth 7.0.1.8244 (beta). Anyone else seeing this?

When posting problems like this, please include:

- Model of Mac Pro.
- OS and driver version.
- Any messages from "NVDA" in /var/log/system.log or elsewhere.

Otherwise, we have no idea what's going on.

Gotcha!
1. Mac Pro 3,1
2. 10.8.2 and 304.00.05f02
3. What exactly am I looking for in /var/log/system.log? I went to Console and System Logs and filtered NVDA. I see the following error repeated over and over but not sure if this is what I'm looking for....

Nov 1 20:57:18 my-name-mac-pro-2 kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! exception type = 0x1f = Fifo: MMU Error

Edit: I also see these...
Oct 31 15:55:14 my-name-mac-pro-2 kernel[0]: NVDA: Unable to use shared channel!
Oct 31 15:55:14 my-name-mac-pro-2 kernel[0]: NVDA: Calling glrKillClient for task 0xffffff802eb4d1a8


Oct 31 18:30:28 my-name-mac-pro-2 kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel timeout!
Oct 31 18:30:28 my-name-mac-pro-2 kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! exception type = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error

The some more errors I got this morning after trying to run Google Earth 7.0.1.8244 (beta) again.

Right, so there's definitely something going wrong, all of those errors point to memory access problems by the GPU. Could be an app bug, a driver bug, who knows.

UPDATE With Resolution!

It was the nVidia web driver causing the problem. I downloaded the 10.8.2. combo update, installed it over my existing 10.8.2. install which set my nVidia driver back to the Apple supplied one (8.0.61 295.30.20f02). Google Earth works fine under the GTX 470 now.

Now, my next task is to see if this stops FCP X from freezing as well.

 

[jayfunk]

Mac Pro 4,1 running GTX470 under 10.7.5.
Huge thanks for the FAQ and everyone who's posted helpful stuff here.

I have a problem with waking from sleep but hopeful updating to 10.8.2 or the latest web drivers for ML will fix it.

Also, this card is loud so I want to install a 3rd party cooling system. They normally say something like "attach to a free 3 pin power header on your motherboard". I don't see anything like this on my Mac, any solutions around?

 

[MDangerous]

Another note: I'm also testing to see what happens when I remove the Apple Graphics Power Management kext (after making a copy, of course). Some of the Hackintosh people have had success with this.

 

[flowrider]

UPDATE With Resolution!

It was the nVidia web driver causing the problem. I downloaded the 10.8.2. combo update, installed it over my existing 10.8.2. install which set my nVidia driver back to the Apple supplied one (8.0.61 295.30.20f02). Google Earth works fine under the GTX 470 now.

Now, my next task is to see if this stops FCP X from freezing as well.

I am also on a 3,1 Mac Pro. I have a Gigabyte GTX570 with the EFI modified by MacVidCards. I am using the Nvidia 304 drivers and have not experienced any of the issues you are noting. My card tests slightly faster with the Nvidia vs. the Apple drivers in OS 10.8.2.

Lou

 

[MDangerous]

I am also on a 3,1 Mac Pro. I have a Gigabyte GTX570 with the EFI modified by MacVidCards. I am using the Nvidia 304 drivers and have not experienced any of the issues you are noting. My card tests slightly faster with the Nvidia vs. the Apple drivers in OS 10.8.2.

Lou

That's interesting. Do you use FCP X by chance?

 

[flowrider]

^^^^No, sorry I don't.

Lou