GTX 690 in a 2012 Mac Pro

[GermanyChris]

Ah I see, you come across as a spec enthusiast. I'll be sure to let you know - Am I in for a disappointment with my setup and a 690? Seems to me i'll be able to play my games at their best settings for the foreseeable future.

The point difference between 1300 and 1500, does it make for a noticeable difference in gameplay to the average joe pick up a play type? I sure want a 690 and know the gameplay will be better than 680 long term but i'm not interested in 7 FPS difference because of CPU clock speed.

I can't remember what the average frames were, when I get back home I'll look.

My gut says the FPS between the 680 and the 690 aren't going to be that much different because of the CPU but my gut isn't as wise as some of the heads here.

 

[All Taken]

I can't remember what the average frames were, when I get back home I'll look.

My gut says the FPS between the 680 and the 690 aren't going to be that much different because of the CPU but my gut isn't as wise as some of the heads here.

The 690 is the equivalent of 2x 680 -5%. If the FPS between a 680 and 690 are not much different i'd be inclined to put the current generation of games as the culprit, 6 months or so will solve that gap. I would doubt the CPU would be that responsible for the bottleneck in the 690 vs 680 FPS difference. I'd love an answer on this though, if you could let me know it would be great.

EDIT: Found a relevant benchmark:


"Before we start of our regular benchmark run I decided to try the GeForce GTX 690 on a couple of platforms. Mind you that we had roughly a day to do this entire article so really this was the maximum I had time for.

In our recent GeForce GTX 680 SLI article we already mentioned that as long as you have a modern age processor, preferably Intel Core i7 based, then it really doesn't matter that much what kind of processor you have and how high it's overclocked, unless you want an influence on the 3DMark series."

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_690_review,12.html

EDIT 2:

More research and it turns out the x58 chipset being PCI-E 2.0 limits the 680 and 690 by about 1% on average because of the extra bandwidth of a PCI-E 3 slot not being available. That is not anything to be concerned with.

The CPU bottleneck appears in something like Battlefield 3 where the game is quite CPU intensive. Running a 3.33Ghz w3680 appears to bottleneck performance in these types of games. Have I hit a wall? Many people are saying they overclocked their stock i7-980x to 3.7Ghz and the bottleneck is solved. Does anyone know the real world performance hit? CPU bottlenecks become non-existent at higher clocks, 3.7Ghz seems to be the sweet spot right now for removing that limit, my processor is around about 400Mhz below this, could 400Mhz make that much of a difference? The turbo on my processor is 3.6Ghz on a single core, I believe. 3.46Ghz on all 6 cores? Can a game utilise more than 4 cores?

I guess what i'm asking is, will my 3.33Ghz processor paired with a GTX 690 = incredible performance? Does 400Mhz and upwards make that much difference? The article I linked to says at a certain point it doesn't, 400Mhz??

 

[Inconsequential]

Do I need to allow for overheads? Those overheads being the PSU not supplying the full rated 450w performance? Is this still a concern with a modern PSU?

If power draw spikes, say for instance at startup, would it ever try and draw more than 300w? If these are non-issues then i'm set.

This is the supply I have in mind:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817206001

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Back in 2011 a user mentioned his Mac would not boot without the help of a native Mac GPU.

The user was using a 570, would the issue be present in my system with a 690? Would I need to retain a 5770 for instance? I'm fine without boot screens but wouldn't want to have an unbootable system with just a 690.

Unlike HDDs, GPUs don't draw high loads at startup.

Peak load is peak load. 300W is based on a theoretical calculation or testing that loads every single transistor in the GPU and memory.

In reality, you hit 90-95% of that max.

Besides, if a 450W PSU can't deliver 450W continuously then it is false advertising.

All in all your drawing half the required wattage so you will be fine.

Pain in the backside routing all the cables tho...

 

[All Taken]

Unlike HDDs, GPUs don't draw high loads at startup.

Peak load is peak load. 300W is based on a theoretical calculation or testing that loads every single transistor in the GPU and memory.

In reality, you hit 90-95% of that max.

Besides, if a 450W PSU can't deliver 450W continuously then it is false advertising.

All in all your drawing half the required wattage so you will be fine.

Pain in the backside routing all the cables tho...

Isn't it just, I can attest to that, you thought 2x SATA was bad? I had to route 2 SAS to SATA breakout cables (8x SATA) the same way as you did but I ran mine under the PCI bay fan. Running the 2x 8 pin cables neatly and the power cable from the internal PSU to the PCI-E top slot cover is going to take some imagination. I have seen people take them out the back of the optical bay leaving a slight gap but I want the side to go back on snug.

I'm going to move my 8x SSD's to a DX4 and the 4 remaining will go beside the CPU heat sink (Nice gap in a SP system). It really will be a full case.

 

[GermanyChris]

The 690 is the equivalent of 2x 680 -5%. If the FPS between a 680 and 690 are not much different i'd be inclined to put the current generation of games as the culprit, 6 months or so will solve that gap. I would doubt the CPU would be that responsible for the bottleneck in the 690 vs 680 FPS difference. I'd love an answer on this though, if you could let me know it would be great.

EDIT: Found a relevant benchmark:


"Before we start of our regular benchmark run I decided to try the GeForce GTX 690 on a couple of platforms. Mind you that we had roughly a day to do this entire article so really this was the maximum I had time for.

In our recent GeForce GTX 680 SLI article we already mentioned that as long as you have a modern age processor, preferably Intel Core i7 based, then it really doesn't matter that much what kind of processor you have and how high it's overclocked, unless you want an influence on the 3DMark series."

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_690_review,12.html

EDIT 2:

More research and it turns out the x58 chipset being PCI-E 2.0 limits the 680 and 690 by about 1% on average because of the extra bandwidth of a PCI-E 3 slot not being available. That is not anything to be concerned with.

The CPU bottleneck appears in something like Battlefield 3 where the game is quite CPU intensive. Running a 3.33Ghz w3680 appears to bottleneck performance in these types of games. Have I hit a wall? Many people are saying they overclocked their stock i7-980x to 3.7Ghz and the bottleneck is solved. Does anyone know the real world performance hit? CPU bottlenecks become non-existent at higher clocks, 3.7Ghz seems to be the sweet spot right now for removing that limit, my processor is around about 400Mhz below this, could 400Mhz make that much of a difference? The turbo on my processor is 3.6Ghz on a single core, I believe. 3.46Ghz on all 6 cores? Can a game utilise more than 4 cores?

I guess what i'm asking is, will my 3.33Ghz processor paired with a GTX 690 = incredible performance? Does 400Mhz and upwards make that much difference? The article I linked to says at a certain point it doesn't, 400Mhz??

Remember thats 400mhz x 12 which if scaled linearly (not likely) is 4.8 Ghz. The person is also most likely running that turbo on all 12 virtual cores you don't turbo that high on 1.

 

[All Taken]

Remember thats 400mhz x 12 which if scaled linearly (not likely) is 4.8 Ghz. The person is also most likely running that turbo on all 12 virtual cores you don't turbo that high on 1.

Any idea on what the real world hit will be? I'm having a hard time finding any bench for a 690 in a 3.33Ghz system.

Is performance on a 680 in a 3.33 bottlenecked in comparison to higher clocked processors? I'm sure it is but is it more than negligible?

 

[Inconsequential]

At 2560x1440 the GPU will struggle in complex games before the CPU will.

The lower you go the more CPU bound it will become.

Nothing you can do about it so forget about CPU bottlenecks.

 

[Asgorath]

The 580? This is a 690 i'm talking about. You mentioned the card died, what happened? Are you just making a best guess as to why it died?

The GTX 580 requires ~244W by default, which is more than the 225W the Mac Pro can supply. Thus, an external power supply is needed, just like it is for your GTX 690 (this is all covered in detail in my FAQ thread).

The card died because the internal circuitry most likely got fried (there is no way we can know for sure, since we're not hardware engineers that work for NVIDIA). We do know for sure that the card is a brick now, i.e. completely non-functional. This is the worst-case scenario when using two different power supplies, and is what I keep trying to warn you about. You have to be really careful when driving the card from two power supplies, it sounds like MVC has first-hand experience with what can go wrong if you use cords from different power supplies (i.e. one from the Mac Pro itself, and one from an external PSU).

The point we're all trying to make is that it really is pretty easy to damage your card if you do something wrong, and since the 690 is such an expensive card, you'll want to be as careful as possible. I know I've said it many times, but this is basically why I won't use a card that requires more than 225W, but to each their own.

 

[El Awesome]

It seems that All Takes has enough money anyway, so we can leave him trying...
Look, we don't know more that Google does. If you don't belive us, please belive Google.
A Mac Pro is NOT built for a GTX690 or 2 GTX 680s. You need a big external power supply that you can place behind your Mac.


The CPU bottleneck is maybe a few seconds while CPU heavy situations.
Although I game BF3 on Ultra /1920x1200 on my GTX570, and my CPU load is about 50-85% (with the 2.66 Quad W3520), I never saw it going 100%.

 

[All Taken]

It seems that All Takes has enough money anyway, so we can leave him trying...
Look, we don't know more that Google does. If you don't belive us, please belive Google.
A Mac Pro is NOT built for a GTX690 or 2 GTX 680s. You need a big external power supply that you can place behind your Mac.


The CPU bottleneck is maybe a few seconds while CPU heavy situations.
Although I game BF3 on Ultra /1920x1200 on my GTX570, and my CPU load is about 50-85% (with the 2.66 Quad W3520), I never saw it going 100%.

I asked here because many do know more than google, this is a Mac forum after all. The BF3 info is very helpful thank you.

I've decided to use a 5.25 juicebox to power the card and will update the thread if it's viable.

 

[slughead]

Has anyone gotten a GTX690 to work yet? I'm interested in the OS X functionality (I game in windows, I would like to use my mac though). I heard some people were having problems but can't find the post.

 

[El Awesome]

Has anyone gotten a GTX690 to work yet? I'm interested in the OS X functionality (I game in windows, I would like to use my mac though). I heard some people were having problems but can't find the post.

Maybe you're better off in a hackintosh forum.
But it seems to work:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...3770k-ga-z77x-up5th-geforce-gtx-690-16gb.html

One guy said this:

RE: nVidia GTX 690 - This will only function as two separate 680s. The SLI will not work under OSX and there's basically no prospects of it ever working (Who knows why).

Another one that:

Just an update for the op: GTX 690 is working like a charm including Full Graphics Support, OpenCL (pached), OpenGL (Out of Box) and HDMI audio(edited DSDT).

So I guess if you're runing an external PSU you'll be fine.

 

[slughead]

Maybe you're better off in a hackintosh forum.
But it seems to work:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...3770k-ga-z77x-up5th-geforce-gtx-690-16gb.html

One guy said this:



Another one that:

So I guess if you're runing an external PSU you'll be fine.

Holy cow, there are people that don't run it with an external PSU? Nunsane.

I don't care that it's 1 core in OSX, as long as it works in Windows and that it has no stability issues in OS X. Seems like Netkas forums had mostly good luck with the card

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,3850.15.html

Now all I need is $1000!

 

[El Awesome]

Holy cow, there are people that don't run it with an external PSU? Nunsane.

I don't care that it's 1 core in OSX, as long as it works in Windows and that it has no stability issues in OS X. Seems like Netkas forums had mostly good luck with the card

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,3850.15.html

Now all I need is $1000!

It seems to be 2x 1 core, OS X thinks it's two seperate cards.

I decided to get a GTX680 and later one (if I need more power) I'm simply gonna add a second one or buy a completely new card. If you're not gaming on multiple monitors, there are actually no games that a GTX680 can't handle on max settings. And my EVGA Gtx680 SuperClocked was only 500$

 

[All Taken]

It seems to be 2x 1 core, OS X thinks it's two seperate cards.

I decided to get a GTX680 and later one (if I need more power) I'm simply gonna add a second one or buy a completely new card. If you're not gaming on multiple monitors, there are actually no games that a GTX680 can't handle on max settings. And my EVGA Gtx680 SuperClocked was only 500$

Actually it can't run every game on its highest settings, it's dependant on what resolution you're running.

I decided to get a 680 in the end and will build myself a Hackintosh rig when the new Mac Pro is released.

 

[El Awesome]

Actually it can't run every game on its highest settings, it's dependant on what resolution you're running.

I decided to get a 680 in the end and will build myself a Hackintosh rig when the new Mac Pro is released.

Well, 1920x1200 shouldn't be any problem for the GTX 680.
I meant it can handle every game max settings on single monitor

Why do you wait for the new Mac Pro?
If it will be released the selling value for your current will drop.

 

[All Taken]

Well, 1920x1200 shouldn't be any problem for the GTX 680.
I meant it can handle every game max settings on single monitor

Why do you wait for the new Mac Pro?
If it will be released the selling value for your current will drop.

Single monitor at 2560....

If it is released before I'll take the hit. The reason behind waiting is to see what hardware the new 2013 pro is using, it will affect my build of hackintosh.