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Gtx 770 question

W

w33z3r

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
43
2
Been debating whether to get a 4gb 680 or 4gb 770 for a couple weeks now.

I like the fact that I can flash the 680 to get boot screens but I don't totally need them. Was wondering if this GTX 770 would pull too much power running without an external power source?

Thanks!
 
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It is a 6+8-pin power requirement but it is only just outside the Mac Pro's specified limits.

According to TomsHardware, it will hit 225W often but can peak at about 250W for brief periods when cool.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-770-gk104-review,3519-25.html

If you were to overclock you would certainly exceed the power requirements. Given how much you are proposing to spend on the card, is there a reason you are not paying for an additional power supply to run it properly?
 
DanielCoffey said:
It is a 6+8-pin power requirement but it is only just outside the Mac Pro's specified limits.

According to TomsHardware, it will hit 225W often but can peak at about 250W for brief periods when cool.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-770-gk104-review,3519-25.html

If you were to overclock you would certainly exceed the power requirements. Given how much you are proposing to spend on the card, is there a reason you are not paying for an additional power supply to run it properly?
Click to expand...

I'm not against running additional power to it just didn't want to do that if it wasn't needed. As I've seen some mention on the boards that 770s should be fine running off stock power. Is this 770 an exception though since it's not exactly a reference card?
 
Just because www.barefeats.com ran the Titan off of stock power, it's not something that I would recommend to anyone.

----------

From what I've read, the GTX 770 is essentially a tweaked GTX 680. That's why they bench very similarly. There are a good number of people who have even managed to flash GTX 680s with GTX 770 firmware. What they ended up with were identically performing cards.

In my opinion, given a choice between a GTX 770 or a GTX 680 for a Mac Pro, I would go with a GTX 680 every time. Not having the power consumption issues in the back of my head is enough for me to sacrifice a few frames per second in a game.
 
If I were to get an additional power supply for the card does anyone have any recommendations?
 
^^^^OK, again with a MacVidCards modified GTX770 or GTX780 an additional PS will not be required.

Lou
 
w33z3r said:
If I were to get an additional power supply for the card does anyone have any recommendations?
Click to expand...

This one has been mentioned by some forum members. I do not have any personal experience with it.

In regards to Macvideocards' claims that his modified GTX 770 and GTX 780s not needing additional power supplies, it has been shown that even if under clocked to where these cards have a TDP of 225W or less, there's no definitive way to tell how much and were they will pull those 225W from. Since 8-pin connectors are specced to provide up to 150W, it's conceivable that these cards can try to pull 150W from that 8-pin connector and the remaining 75W from the PCI-e slot and the 6-pin connector.

At this point, I don't think anyone can prove that it won't cause long term damage. It's entirely possible that problems won't manifest immediately. If/when that happens, who will you blame? Who will you turn to? Will Macvideocards still be around? Will he be responsible for blown logic boards?
 

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I think the same could be said of any commercial manufacturer's cards too. Unless you find a manufacturer willing to offer a long warranty, cards should work as specified until long after that warranty is up.

No manufacturer would be expected to honour a warranty if you use a card outside its supported specification either so if you use a MacVidCards 770 and it fries your Mac Pro in three years time, nobody would expect him to offer anything more than "that's a shame - sorry to hear it".
 
Anyone flashed a 770? Or just go for 780?

Following on from the apparent scarcity of 680s these days and the similarities between 680 and 770 - has anyone done a home flash job on one of them?

I don't need boot screens, but PCIE 2.0 5GT/s in Boot Camp would be preferred. They would be in an expansion chassis, so power not an issue.

OR... Is the performance advantage of the 780 and Titan so great that they'll be significantly faster than the 770s even at 2.5 GT/s? Cost does come into it as well, to be sure.

Unfortunately, limited 'approved suppliers' for our group, so getting a MVC modded Titan (or three) is not an option. I wish it was.

Edit: Sorry, should mention - this is for CUDA-accelerated tomographic reconstructions and filtering. Not gaming.
 
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sunsetsothickly said:
OR... Is the performance advantage of the 780 and Titan so great that they'll be significantly faster than the 770s even at 2.5 GT/s? Cost does come into it as well, to be sure.
Click to expand...

Look at Post #4 above.

It is my understanding that unflashed Nvidia Cards do not face the 2.5 GT/s limitation that AMD cards have, when used in an OS greater than 10.8.3 with either Apple of Nvidia Web Drivers. They will run at the full PCIe 2 speeds of 5.0 GT/s.

Shame you can't use the MacVidCards resource. The MVC/Netkas combination has produced some truly phenomenal results, and without their presence in the community the Apple Graphic Card solution would be in truly bad shape. It is my belief that without these two guys, neither EVGA or Sapphire would have produced Mac versions of their cards. But, that is just my opinion.

Lou
 
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pastrychef said:
My understanding is that Nvidia cards that do not have Apple EFI firmware will run at 5GT/s in OS X only. In Bootcamp, they will be limited to 2.5GT/s.
Click to expand...

Yep, that is the basis of my conundrum. NLM filtering is done in OSX, but tomographic recons from one of the scanners can only be done in Windows.
 
^^^^I did the same thing. Mine is a Gigabyte Windforce3 model GTX780. MVC has it now, I can't wait to get it back and installed!

Lou
 
sunsetsothickly said:
Following on from the apparent scarcity of 680s these days and the similarities between 680 and 770 - has anyone done a home flash job on one of them?

I don't need boot screens, but PCIE 2.0 5GT/s in Boot Camp would be preferred. They would be in an expansion chassis, so power not an issue.

OR... Is the performance advantage of the 780 and Titan so great that they'll be significantly faster than the 770s even at 2.5 GT/s? Cost does come into it as well, to be sure.

Unfortunately, limited 'approved suppliers' for our group, so getting a MVC modded Titan (or three) is not an option. I wish it was.

Edit: Sorry, should mention - this is for CUDA-accelerated tomographic reconstructions and filtering. Not gaming.
Click to expand...

He offers a mod service for 200$ may be it help you
 
Less total power, perhaps, but does it prevent the cards from trying to pull more than 75W from any single source of power (there are 3 sources, the PCI-e slot, one 6-pin power connector, and one 8-pin power connector)?
 
pastrychef said:
Less total power, perhaps, but does it prevent the cards from trying to pull more than 75W from any single source of power (there are 3 sources, the PCI-e slot, one 6-pin power connector, and one 8-pin power connector)?
Click to expand...

who knows but i think there are other members here who are runing 780gtxs from him
 
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