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

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Just a quick update to say I installed my 680 with absolutely no issues at all - my mac sees it as a GTX680 in system info and its all working great - in bootcamp Bioshock Infinite running like a dream at 2560x1600 on my 30' cinema display with everything on ultra (which has suprised me!) no slow down yet although I have only played for a few hours.

Very easy to install and extremley quick card :D
 
Hello, everyone! How’s everybody doing?

Recently I purchased a Mac Pro (4.1, early 2009 model) with the following technical specifications: 2x Intel Xeon Quad 2,26ghz, 16gb RAM, 2 GeForce GT 120 graphics cards, both with 512MB each. It is running the current OSX 10.8.3 version.

I work mostly with FinalCut 7, Final Cut X and After Effects CS6. But with my GT120 graphics cards, things can get quite difficult. I think they’re extremely slow for what the kind of work I need to do.

I have been searching for a better upgrade for my 2 current graphics cards. Should I upgrade them for another two better cards, or just one much better one? I have come across the 2GB EVGA GTX 660.

But I still have lots of questions and I am not sure the process would work. From what I have read so far, it should work, but I wanted a few more opinions before I make my final decision.

Would my internal power supply be able to support new graphic card?
Would it be enough to install this new driver - http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-5.0.45-driver.html - and install the graphics cards and have it all work perfectly?

Is this the PCIE cable I need to buy?https://www.balaodainformatica.com.br/site/index.asp?prod_id=47807

I appreciate the help! Thank you so much!
 
adrianortv said:
Hello, everyone! How’s everybody doing?

Recently I purchased a Mac Pro (4.1, early 2009 model) with the following technical specifications: 2x Intel Xeon Quad 2,26ghz, 16gb RAM, 2 GeForce GT 120 graphics cards, both with 512MB each. It is running the current OSX 10.8.3 version.

I work mostly with FinalCut 7, Final Cut X and After Effects CS6. But with my GT120 graphics cards, things can get quite difficult. I think they’re extremely slow for what the kind of work I need to do.

I have been searching for a better upgrade for my 2 current graphics cards. Should I upgrade them for another two better cards, or just one much better one? I have come across the 2GB EVGA GTX 660.

But I still have lots of questions and I am not sure the process would work. From what I have read so far, it should work, but I wanted a few more opinions before I make my final decision.

Would my internal power supply be able to support new graphic card?
Would it be enough to install this new driver - http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-5.0.45-driver.html - and install the graphics cards and have it all work perfectly?

Is this the PCIE cable I need to buy?https://www.balaodainformatica.com.br/site/index.asp?prod_id=47807

I appreciate the help! Thank you so much!
Click to expand...

just get 1 powerful video card, macvideocards on ebay sells a GTX 570 which is great for CUDA
 
The EVGA GTX 570 is better than the EVGA GTX 660??
And for what I need, the GTX 660 is better than the Geforce GT 120??
Because here in Brazil, the EVGA GTX 660 is a good price, and I thought it would be better ....
 
The EVGA GTX 570 is very hard to find here in Brazil for a good price.
The EVGA GTX 660 is much easier to find, and has a lower price.
The only question that remains is: The GTX 660 will have a better performance than the GT 120 I have in cases of rendering and exporting files in Final Cut 7, X and After Effects CS6?
And the 6-pin PCIE cable I need to buy is this right here?

https://www.balaodainformatica.com.br/site/index.asp?prod_id=47807
 
adrianortv said:
The EVGA GTX 570 is very hard to find here in Brazil for a good price.
The EVGA GTX 660 is much easier to find, and has a lower price.
The only question that remains is: The GTX 660 will have a better performance than the GT 120 I have in cases of rendering and exporting files in Final Cut 7, X and After Effects CS6?
And the 6-pin PCIE cable I need to buy is this right here?

https://www.balaodainformatica.com.br/site/index.asp?prod_id=47807
Click to expand...

The GTX 570 is indeed getting difficult to find new - it is a 2y old card and most shops will no longer carry it (same where I live). It can be found used on eBay, but prices tend to be high - I missed a great deal at 90€ but most go for above 200€...

Still a good price/performance ratio.

As I understand it, newer Kepler-based cards (most GTX6xx > 640) have a new architecture which would require software to be optimised for to get full benefit. That's why, currently, many older Fermi based cards (such as the GTX570) offer better performance in CUDA accelerated softs. Not sure whether this will remain true in the future, as software is updated.

With regard to the two cards mentionned, the GT 640 with GDDR3 is actually a rebranded GT 545, and therefore Fermi based. The GTX660 is Kepler based. Difficult to tell which one will be faster in CUDA apps, but both should be much faster than the GT120, but still slower than the GTX570...
 
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adrianortv said:
Last question:

I work with Final Cut 7, X and After Effects CS6. What would be the best choice for my type of work?
Click to expand...

There is no definite answer.

IMHO,

Final Cut, as all Pro Apps from Apple, does not use Cuda but only OpenCL. For those the Radeon 7970 or even the 7950 will be a better choice than the NVIDA cards. From the NVIDIA cards the 680 might be a bit faster than the 570 according to Luxmark benchmarks.


AE can use both CUDA and OpenCL but CUDA gives better performance. Thus the GTX 570 might be your best choice for AE (or Premiere).

It depends which app you use more.


In general, I'd boil it down to:

FCP / Aperture user: Radeon 7970/7950
FCP / Aperture + Premiere / AE user: GTX680
Premiere / AE user: GTX570
Only Gaming: GTX680

There are other non-gaming apps utilizing the GPU heavily (i.e. Da Vinci), that I don't know, so can't comment on these. Anybody feel free to add those to the list above.
 
Interesting .... thank you all for the great responses!!
I need a graphics card to accelerate even in my time working with Final Cut, mostly!!
Thinking about it, I got 2 possible choices!! I have a Geforce GT 120 installed here, and used it as a basis of comparison. What would be the best choice for my type of work?

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-660-vs-ATi-Radeon-HD-5870-850-MHz-1-GB-specs

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Nvidia-GeFo...2-MB-vs-ATi-Radeon-HD-5870-850-MHz-1-GB-specs

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Nvidia-GeForce-GT-120-Mac-Edition-550-MHz-512-MB-vs-GeForce-GTX-660-specs
 
fiatlux said:
As I understand it, newer Kepler-based cards (most GTX6xx > 640) have a new architecture which would require software to be optimised for to get full benefit. That's why, currently, many older Fermi based cards (such as the GTX570) offer better performance in CUDA accelerated softs. Not sure whether this will remain true in the future, as software is updated.
Click to expand...

This is not quite true, in my opinion. The Kepler GPUs, outside of Titan, were optimized for gaming at the hardware level. That is, they have fewer hardware GPGPU compute resources per capita than the Fermi GPUs did. The link to the AnandTech review in the OP goes into this in more detail, but I think what this basically means is that GPGPU workloads did not see the same kind of performance increase going from Fermi to Kepler as the gaming workloads did, and in some cases the high-end Fermi GPUs were a little faster.

Titan, on the other hand, is in a league of its own in terms of performance, both for gaming and GPGPU work. Hopefully we'll see this card start working with the next NVIDIA web driver, we'll just have to be patient.

TBH at this stage, given how hard it is to find a GTX 570, how cheap the GK104-based GPUs are getting and the fact that there's an official Mac edition of the GTX 680, I have a hard time continuing to recommend the GTX 570 as a CUDA/OpenCL card.
 
Asgorath said:
TBH at this stage, given how hard it is to find a GTX 570, how cheap the GK104-based GPUs are getting and the fact that there's an official Mac edition of the GTX 680, I have a hard time continuing to recommend the GTX 570 as a CUDA/OpenCL card.
Click to expand...

So you might edit your first post to reflect this. No everybody is reading through this meanwhile 28 pages long thread.
 
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adrianortv said:
For my type of work (Final Cut and After Effects), the GTX 570 would be the best then?
Click to expand...

Have a look at http://www.barefeats.com/gpu7950c.html and decide yourself. There are benchmarks for FCPX and Premiere.

I'd would go with a 7950 or a GTX 680 both you can get as official Mac cards now/soon (aka with boot screen, full PCIe 2.0 speed).

As PC cards they work out of the box in 10.8.3 without boot screen.

You can already flash a PC 7950 with an EFI ROM to get boot screen.

It is not unlikely this will be true as well for the GTX 680 once the EVGA Mac version is available.

For full PCIe 2.0 speed you have to buy the official Mac versions so far. But the slowdown is almost negligible in real world apps.

That said I have a 570 in my Mac Pro, but that was before Asgorath changed his mind ;-)

I might switch to a 7950 but mainly to save power (and have slightly lower fan speeds/noise), probably slightly better performance in Aperture, which is my main GPGPU utilizing app, and to regain PCIe Slot 2, which is now blocked by my 2.5 slots high GTX 570.
 
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I've been mostly confused with drivers downloaded from Nvidia's website. Does not mention directly the GTX Mac versions. Have to go to Quattro Mac OSX to download them. Does not always seem to have all the supported cards listed even if it supports them. I'm going to put in Nvidia GTX 570 on Mac OSX 10.8.3. What is the correct versions to use? I know you are not suppose to use older Mac OSX versions then the one you are using. Thanks
 
linuxcooldude said:
I've been mostly confused with drivers downloaded from Nvidia's website. Does not mention directly the GTX Mac versions. Have to go to Quattro Mac OSX to download them. Does not always seem to have all the supported cards listed even if it supports them. I'm going to put in Nvidia GTX 570 on Mac OSX 10.8.3. What is the correct versions to use? I know you are not suppose to use older Mac OSX versions then the one you are using. Thanks
Click to expand...

I don't have any drivers downloaded from nvidia for my 570.
 
I have the same question. Some say the driver is already included in OSX 10.8.3, and other people say to download the NVIDIA site. But the site does not meet the specific option for the GTX 660 ...
The CUDA driver I could download ....

HELP!!
 
Cecco said:
So you might edit your first post to reflect this. No everybody is reading through this meanwhile 28 pages long thread.
Click to expand...

The GTX 680 Mac Edition was only just announced, and I haven't made up my mind yet. Was just sharing some thoughts on the matter.

linuxcooldude said:
I've been mostly confused with drivers downloaded from Nvidia's website. Does not mention directly the GTX Mac versions. Have to go to Quattro Mac OSX to download them. Does not always seem to have all the supported cards listed even if it supports them. I'm going to put in Nvidia GTX 570 on Mac OSX 10.8.3. What is the correct versions to use? I know you are not suppose to use older Mac OSX versions then the one you are using. Thanks
Click to expand...

As the OP clearly states, non-EFI cards are not officially supported. That is, you won't see them in the list of supported cards anywhere. The non-EFI cards might work with the drivers, but that functionality is unofficially included in the drivers. The stock drivers that come with the OS have included this for a while now, but in general it's always better to run the NVIDIA driver if there is one available for the OS version you are running.

This is why I have a link to the NVIDIA web drivers for all OS versions that included this stuff. If you don't see a link in the OP, then there isn't a driver yet. No matter what, it's never going to list stock PC cards in the list of supported cards.

adrianortv said:
I have the same question. Some say the driver is already included in OSX 10.8.3, and other people say to download the NVIDIA site. But the site does not meet the specific option for the GTX 660 ...
The CUDA driver I could download ....

HELP!!
Click to expand...

Check the OP please, I explain this in detail.
 
Asgorath said:
The GTX 680 Mac Edition was only just announced, and I haven't made up my mind yet. Was just sharing some thoughts on the matter.



As the OP clearly states, non-EFI cards are not officially supported. That is, you won't see them in the list of supported cards anywhere. The non-EFI cards might work with the drivers, but that functionality is unofficially included in the drivers. The stock drivers that come with the OS have included this for a while now, but in general it's always better to run the NVIDIA driver if there is one available for the OS version you are running.

This is why I have a link to the NVIDIA web drivers for all OS versions that included this stuff. If you don't see a link in the OP, then there isn't a driver yet. No matter what, it's never going to list stock PC cards in the list of supported cards.



Check the OP please, I explain this in detail.
Click to expand...

Thanks, must of missed the non-EFI cards in general.
 
I'm sorry ... but still lost!! I read almost the entire post, and I did not find where to download the NVIDIA driver for OSX 10.8.3
 
linuxcooldude said:
Thanks, must of missed the non-EFI cards in general.
Click to expand...

Right, I tried to explain all of this in the OP. Basically, they work now, but the fact that they do is completely unofficial and thus completely unsupported.

adrianortv said:
I'm sorry ... but still lost!! I read almost the entire post, and I did not find where to download the NVIDIA driver for OSX 10.8.3
Click to expand...

There isn't one yet. Please be patient. As soon as it's released, I'll update the OP with a link.
 
Ahhhh ok! But I can buy the EVGA GTX 660 and install this driver before being released? Will it work? Or to wait for the right driver?
 
adrianortv said:
Ahhhh ok! But I can buy the EVGA GTX 660 and install this driver before being released? Will it work? Or to wait for the right driver?
Click to expand...

A GTX 660 card will work just fine with the stock 10.8.3 drivers, in fact I just bought one for my wife's MacPro3,1 system. When NVIDIA releases a new web driver for 10.8.3, you can install that and hopefully get better performance etc.

I cover all of this in detail in the OP, so it might be worth re-reading that post. Basically, back before 10.7.5 and 10.8, you had to be careful because the stock Apple drivers did not let these cards work. Since then, the cards work fine with the stock Apple drivers in general (with obvious exceptions for brand new cards like the GeForce Titan).

I'm probably going to start listing the OS or driver version where each card starts working, to avoid confusion.
 
adrianortv said:
Ahhhh ok! But I can buy the EVGA GTX 660 and install this driver before being released? Will it work? Or to wait for the right driver?
Click to expand...

Buy it, install it, use it. Install the Nvidia drivers for 10.8.3 later once they are released.
 
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