GTX 460 SLI in Mac OS X? Or only in Bootcamp Windows

[ORTOX]

So, I'm going to purchase a GTX 460 after work to throw into my Mac Pro 1,1. I currently have a GTX 470 working fine but I'm borrowing it so I'll be purchasing a GTX 460 and giving the 470 back to its rightful owner.

I'm also eying a second GTX 460 on ebay to SLI with. First of all, I know I'll need an additional power supply.

From my understanding after lots of reading from posts on this forum and posts and articles on other websites, SLI will not work in Mac OS X and it should work in bootcamp with these cards in SLI.

So basically I just want to confirm that this is the case. Will they not work in SLI in Mac OS? If not, why not? And if not, if they are bridged, what will my limitations be? Will they just work as two separate cards?

Thanks guys for your help. I know MacVidCards will come to my recue

I figured you guys could use a post to get away from the "where's the new Mac Pro" monotony...

 

[derbothaus]

No dual card support in OS X. Be it Xfire or SLI. Reason is drivers. They will act like 2 separate cards. At least for the last 10 years.

 

[MacVidCards]

Onlu using OpenCl or CUDA can you benefit from multiple GPUs and then only in apps that support it.

A GTX470 is a much faster card than 460.

There is NOT enough power for 2 @ 460s.

In addition, the GTX460 and GTS450 both suffered from the "Fermi Freeze" in 10.6. (Google this). This is why I never bother pushing those much. I THINK it might have been fixed in 10.7 but some Hackintoshers say otherwise.

I have worked out a deal with another vendor who is going to be further developing GTX460 for Mac. Hopefully he will be able to figure out exactly what OS revision fixed the issue. But if you are in 10.6 I would strongly advice against 450 or 460.

 

[ORTOX]

Onlu using OpenCl or CUDA can you benefit from multiple GPUs and then only in apps that support it.

A GTX470 is a much faster card than 460.

There is NOT enough power for 2 @ 460s.

In addition, the GTX460 and GTS450 both suffered from the "Fermi Freeze" in 10.6. (Google this). This is why I never bother pushing those much. I THINK it might have been fixed in 10.7 but some Hackintoshers say otherwise.

I have worked out a deal with another vendor who is going to be further developing GTX460 for Mac. Hopefully he will be able to figure out exactly what OS revision fixed the issue. But if you are in 10.6 I would strongly advice against 450 or 460.

Thanks for the advice!

Yeah ideally I would have gone with a GTX 570 but funds are tight currently. I know I'm downgrading from the GTX 470 but I felt the need to give it back to who it belongs to. I did pick up the gtx 460 xlr8 edition yesterday for $70 bucks. Popped it in and booted into mac with both displays working.

I haven't had a chance to run any games or CS5 yet, but I'll be sure to look up the fermi freeze.

 

[MacVidCards]

please post about how this works out for you

which OS, how it runs, etc

The "Fermi Freeze" typically happened to 450 or 460 cards when web browsing.

The desktop would look normal and just stop responding. Similar error logs from multiple people.

 

[ORTOX]

So after a couple of hours using the GTX 460 in Lion, I never experienced the freeze. Everything seemed to run just fine!

I've since pulled the card out since I'm preparing to sell my Mac Pro, but I had no issues with that card for the short time I've used it.

 

[DJenkins]

I hope this isn't too off topic... but is it only on genuine mac pro machines in OSX that SLI won't work?

I'm thinking of trying 2 x GTX 570 cards in a hackintosh OSX... would SLI work?

 

[derbothaus]

It's the OS that is the problem NOT the hardware. So other way around unfortunately. A hackintosh would have the same limitations if it was running OS X as a Mac does.