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GTX 670 or 660 Ti?

X

Xeocon

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 15, 2006
58
0
Hello all,

I have a 2.66ghz Quad-core 4.1 Mac Pro with 10GB RAM and a ATi 5770. I am looking to upgrade to either a 660Ti or a 670. Basically I want to improve my gaming experience in Boot Camp, and play at decent settings for the next 2 years. I currently play at 1920 x 1200, but may wish to increase this in the future.

As far as I know, the 660 Ti with its 192-bit memory bus is optimal to handle current games at 1920 x 1200, but may struggle in the near future, meaning that the 670 (with its 256-bit bus) might be the better option for future proofing.

But am I bottle-necked by my CPU anyway? If I am upgrading purely for gaming, would the 660Ti be the better choice as the extra money on a 670 would be wasted if I would not see in any benefits?

And please, no comments in the vain of "why did you buy a mac pro to game on?" I didn't :) I am simply looking for the best way to spend my money on pro-longing the gaming options on my machine.

Thanks for any advice!
 
go for the 670

for 100 bucks more you're getting a lot more bang for your buck, especially in a year or 2. I just got mine, its awesome :)
 
Hey Feguson,

Awesome, great to hear you are enjoying it :) What specs are you running? Are you also planning on getting a couple of years out of it? Cheers.
 
hells yea, I just upgraded from my 8800gt that had been good since 2008, and really it was still running everything great until it died on me. I've got a 2008 macpro 3,1 with 8gb ram and a new kickass gfx card. this will def be good for at least 3 years I'd say.
 
fergusonbk said:
hells yea, I just upgraded from my 8800gt that had been good since 2008, and really it was still running everything great until it died on me. I've got a 2008 macpro 3,1 with 8gb ram and a new kickass gfx card. this will def be good for at least 3 years I'd say.
Click to expand...

This is a bit late but, i have a mac pro 3,1 and am using a apple certified gtx 285. I want to upgrade for more power and direct x 11. Is the GTX 670 still optimal for mac pro? Did your GTX 670 just plop in and work? Or did you need to do stuff to get it to work? I read that you have to do something with a kext file but I have no idea where that is or what I need to do to it. Thanks
 
Bloodklot said:
This is a bit late but, i have a mac pro 3,1 and am using a apple certified gtx 285. I want to upgrade for more power and direct x 11. Is the GTX 670 still optimal for mac pro? Did your GTX 670 just plop in and work? Or did you need to do stuff to get it to work? I read that you have to do something with a kext file but I have no idea where that is or what I need to do to it. Thanks
Click to expand...

The GTX670 works just fine. I am using the Reference design with 2x6pin. There is nothing you need to do aside from installing the NVIDIA CUDA driver (simple install just like any other Mac app). You may have to mess around with the system files if you get one that has greater than 2GB of VRAM.
 
mseth said:
The GTX670 works just fine. I am using the Reference design with 2x6pin. There is nothing you need to do aside from installing the NVIDIA CUDA driver (simple install just like any other Mac app). You may have to mess around with the system files if you get one that has greater than 2GB of VRAM.
Click to expand...

Also, keep in mind that unless you use CUDA apps, you don't need CUDA at all.

Has nothing to do with games or general use, CUDA apps use CUDA to do GPGPU stuff.
 
MacVidCards said:
Also, keep in mind that unless you use CUDA apps, you don't need CUDA at all.

Has nothing to do with games or general use, CUDA apps use CUDA to do GPGPU stuff.
Click to expand...

That is true, not everyone uses a Mac Pro for media work.
 
lewdvig said:
I am curious, why did you keep your 120 GT?
Click to expand...

I was initially using it as a GUI card and letting the GTX 670 do all the processing with DaVinci Resolve. I removed it from my system and put it back in the Mac Pro box. I still keep it in case I ever need to boot into Recovery Mode (w/o EFI you can't do that). However, I am doing more plot/script writing currently so, I moved from using 27" 2560x1440 monitors to using 4x 24" displays (1080p) in portrait orientation. Just having the GT120 card installed seems to cause all sorts of problems when using multiple video cards and multiple displays in portrait mode.
 
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