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GTX 770... Possible in current Mac Pros?

S

scottrichardson

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 10, 2007
718
297
Ulladulla, NSW Australia
Anyone taken a solid look into the new GTX770... not the 780 which we know is too powerful to work in a Mac Pro without an additional power supply.

I mean to ask - can we put a gtx 770 in current mac pros without extra power? Any of the branded cards only have 2 x 6pin connectors? Gigabyte possibly?

Be cool if we can since the performance of this lower tier card is actually more powerful than the outgoing GTX 680. (anandtech)

Scottie
 
Yes! You can definitely install your GTX 770 into a Mac pro 3.1 above. No driver's needed. I'm running NVIDIA GTX 770 Mac edition in my mac and, everything works perfectly. No extra power is needed.
 
I just installed my GTX 770 that was flashed to Mac in my macpro 3,1. The DVI-I port works, but I'm not getting anything on the DVI-D port while using a 30" Cinema Display.

Any idea why is that? Isn't the 30" cinema display compatible with the DVI-D port from the new GTX 700 series?

Thanks.
 
Well here is the reponse to my own question. Basically the issue came from the new update from Mavericks 10.9.3 and 10.9.4 which created these problems.

Now I have a great working EVGA GTX 770 4GB in my early 2008 macpro 3,1. Both Dual DVI-I and DVI-D links are working great with my 2 30inch cinema displays.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/25809905#25809905

- download kext utility here http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Kext-Utility.shtml
- download Kexts here https://www.dropbox.com/s/a510p6a9immdboc/Kexts.zip
- unzip the file
- delete all Geforce and NVDA kexts located in your system/library/extensions
- open kext utility and drop the all the kext files you downloaded on the window
- wait till complete
-reboot
-now all monitors working again!
 
I'd strongly advise against this. Firstly, there is no NVidia GeForce 770 Mac Edition.

Secondly, the Mac Pro (as stated many, many times here) is only capable of supplying 225w (3x75w) from the PSU; 75w from the PCIe port, and 75w from each 6-pin power cable.

The TDP of the 770 is 230w, which although only 5w over, is not always drawn evenly across all three connections.

Basically, there's nothing stopping this card trying to pull 150w from any one of these three connections, severely damaging the PSU and/or the Logic Board.

If you can still find one, go for the EVGA 680 Mac Edition. It's under 225w TDP, should draw power evenly, already has EFI so you get boot screens, and will work out of the box.
 
maniaco007 said:
Well here is the reponse to my own question. Basically the issue came from the new update from Mavericks 10.9.3 and 10.9.4 which created these problems.

Now I have a great working EVGA GTX 770 4GB in my early 2008 macpro 3,1. Both Dual DVI-I and DVI-D links are working great with my 2 30inch cinema displays.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/25809905#25809905

- download kext utility here http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Kext-Utility.shtml
- download Kexts here https://www.dropbox.com/s/a510p6a9immdboc/Kexts.zip
- unzip the file
- delete all Geforce and NVDA kexts located in your system/library/extensions
- open kext utility and drop the all the kext files you downloaded on the window
- wait till complete
-reboot
-now all monitors working again!
Click to expand...

You have probably exposed a lazy card flasher.

Some Nvidia GT6xx cards contained a bug that got exposed with the 10.9.3 update. In their eagerness to write a working GTX770 rom, some cut corners and instead of writing one using the 770 base they instead just relabeled a GTX680 rom, bringing the bug with it. This seemed a good idea since 680 and 770 are based on same basic chip.

Sadly, this also means that your card isn't running at full Boost 2.0 levels. This was also something that came out with the GTX7xx cards. We initially tested using GTX680 roms modded to run the 770, and found that they hamstrung the cards by 10-15%. (Boost 2.0 is different than PCIE 2.0) You can verify this in Windows and watch the speeds your card runs at during a benchmark versus what the specs say it should run at.

And when Yosemite comes out there won't be a way to use old kexts to keep that port working. I recommend that you contact your flasher and ask for a proper flash job. We have re-written our GT640 rom to fix this and will hopefully have a GTX680 4GB fix soon too. But I don't believe any of our 770 cards had the issue, though it is possible that early cards may have still had bug in their PC roms, we always make rom from original card.
 
MacVidCards said:
You have probably exposed a lazy card flasher.

Some Nvidia GT6xx cards contained a bug that got exposed with the 10.9.3 update. In their eagerness to write a working GTX770 rom, some cut corners and instead of writing one using the 770 base they instead just relabeled a GTX680 rom, bringing the bug with it. This seemed a good idea since 680 and 770 are based on same basic chip.

Sadly, this also means that your card isn't running at full Boost 2.0 levels. This was also something that came out with the GTX7xx cards. We initially tested using GTX680 roms modded to run the 770, and found that they hamstrung the cards by 10-15%. (Boost 2.0 is different than PCIE 2.0) You can verify this in Windows and watch the speeds your card runs at during a benchmark versus what the specs say it should run at.

And when Yosemite comes out there won't be a way to use old kexts to keep that port working. I recommend that you contact your flasher and ask for a proper flash job. We have re-written our GT640 rom to fix this and will hopefully have a GTX680 4GB fix soon too. But I don't believe any of our 770 cards had the issue, though it is possible that early cards may have still had bug in their PC roms, we always make rom from original card.
Click to expand...

Which is exactly why I bought mine from you! Still running excellently (apart from PCI fans revving while viewing pictures).
 
MacVidCards said:
You have probably exposed a lazy card flasher.

Some Nvidia GT6xx cards contained a bug that got exposed with the 10.9.3 update. In their eagerness to write a working GTX770 rom, some cut corners and instead of writing one using the 770 base they instead just relabeled a GTX680 rom, bringing the bug with it. This seemed a good idea since 680 and 770 are based on same basic chip.

Sadly, this also means that your card isn't running at full Boost 2.0 levels. This was also something that came out with the GTX7xx cards. We initially tested using GTX680 roms modded to run the 770, and found that they hamstrung the cards by 10-15%. (Boost 2.0 is different than PCIE 2.0) You can verify this in Windows and watch the speeds your card runs at during a benchmark versus what the specs say it should run at.

And when Yosemite comes out there won't be a way to use old kexts to keep that port working. I recommend that you contact your flasher and ask for a proper flash job. We have re-written our GT640 rom to fix this and will hopefully have a GTX680 4GB fix soon too. But I don't believe any of our 770 cards had the issue, though it is possible that early cards may have still had bug in their PC roms, we always make rom from original card.
Click to expand...

So where do I get the right firmware for the GTX770 to make it work properly. Can you please point me to instructions?

Also how could I check what the firmware from the card I have is, and what clock speed it runs at, etc...

Thank you.
 
Last edited:
230w TDP.

Draeconis said:
I'd strongly advise against this. Firstly, there is no NVidia GeForce 770 Mac Edition.

Secondly, the Mac Pro (as stated many, many times here) is only capable of supplying 225w (3x75w) from the PSU; 75w from the PCIe port, and 75w from each 6-pin power cable.

The TDP of the 770 is 230w, which although only 5w over, is not always drawn evenly across all three connections.

Basically, there's nothing stopping this card trying to pull 150w from any one of these three connections, severely damaging the PSU and/or the Logic Board.

If you can still find one, go for the EVGA 680 Mac Edition. It's under 225w TDP, should draw power evenly, already has EFI so you get boot screens, and will work out of the box.
Click to expand...

I think you are a little overcautious, a stock GTX 770 has a TDP of 230w http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1856/geforce-gtx-770.html

A stock 5870 Mac edition has a TDP of 228w http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2189/radeon-hd-5870-mac-edition.html
I have run a Sapphire Vapor-X HD5870 in a 3,1 without any hiccups for 4 years but it is a more efficient card only drawing 188w max. http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b201/sapphire-hd-5870-vapor-x-oc.html

I think a standard GTX 770 would be fine but an overclocked monster may not be.
 
Last edited:
gpzjock said:
I think you are a little overcautious, a stock GTX 770 has a TDP of 230w http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1856/geforce-gtx-770.html

A stock 5870 Mac edition has a TDP of 228w http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2189/radeon-hd-5870-mac-edition.html
I have run a Sapphire Vapor-X HD5870 in a 3,1 without any hiccups for 4 years but it is a more efficient card only drawing 188w max. http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b201/sapphire-hd-5870-vapor-x-oc.html

I think a standard GTX 770 would be fine but an overclocked monster may not be.
Click to expand...

Overcautious, with a machine that's cost me an awful lot of money.. not sure that's possible.
 
If you are that concerned about the peak wattage I guess a GTX760 would be a safer bet; 177w TDP, below the Sapphire by 11w. :)

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1857/geforce-gtx-760.html

----------
h9826790 said:
http://gpuboss.com/graphics-card/Sapphire-Radeon-HD-5870

Be careful, this card actually draw more than 350W when fully loaded. Much more than the Mac Edition.
Click to expand...

This guy clocked the Mac 5870 at 339w peak so it isn't that much more tbh.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1560231/

But I take your point m8. :)

Another factor may be the Mac OS X BIOS ROM I flashed the Sapphire with, it may have set the card to Mac version clock speeds and reduced peak consumption in the process.
I have caned this card for 4 years and it doesn't even get noisy.
 
Last edited:
maniaco007 said:
So where do I get the right firmware for the GTX770 to make it work properly. Can you please point me to instructions?

Also how could I check what the firmware from the card I have is, and what clock speed it runs at, etc...

Thank you.
Click to expand...

You need to contact whoever you bought it from. To check boost state you will need to run windows and get the bios off the card and open it up in Kepler Bios Tweaker. You could also use a hex editor. Compare the one on the card to the one listed on back of card. All EVGA cards have a sticker with BIOS version.
 
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