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I need help guys! GTX 580 and 680 seriously underperforming on a Mac Pro 4.1

F

FitandFuel

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 1, 2013
9
0
Hi guys

I'm having some issues with setting up my Mac Pro with a gtx 580 card.

here are my system details:
10.8.3
Mac Pro 4.1
2x 2.93 quad core
48gb 1066 ddr3
gtx 580 (and have tried a 680 with no luck)
boot SSD
use 3 array for editing and storage through a Tempo SATA PCI card. 2 externals array are hardware controlled raid 5. Read 180mb/s and Write 240mb/s.

Computer use:
Video editing with CS6. PrPro and After Effects. Mostly Hero3 footage at 2.7k with protunes on so should be around 45mb/s files.

Problems:
Can't get CUDA to work. Tried a clean install of 10.8.3 with no luck. Also tried reinstalling CUDA drivers with no luck.

Performance in CS6 is just crappy. It's choppy a few seconds into playing back the timeline even at 25% size and 1/8th resolution.

Tried Cinebench to set a benchmark and got a score of 28fps... thats lower then a gtx 280 or radeon 4850 on their comparison list! Not very happy about that.

I tried purchasing a gtx 680 to see if that was the problem and I'm getting the exact same performance issues and benchmark results from that card. Additionally, the PCI SATA adapter doesn't work with the 680 plugged in. Tried reinstalling drivers for that, no luck!

Both cards cause issue with no PCI data in systems report but both are recognized under the graphics/display tab and both GPU's start up ok when plugged in.... their performance is just horrible.



What am I missing here?! I'm desperate for some help and to get up and running at 100%!

Please help! I really need to get back up and running and I can't figure it out! I'm considering setting up a hackintosh at his point but really can't afford the downtime to run into anymore problems!

Thanks for any guidance you can provide!
Tom
 
Couple things I am thinking of quickely.
(I am not using a card like that and never tried, just read some thread on it. There are long threads in this forum about GTX 580s and 680s in Mac Pros. You might want to try searching for those.)

Anyway. How are you powering the card? external psu, 6-8pin splitters etc. With out knowing this someone could think the card might just not be getting enough juice.

Second thing. I recall reading that there are nVidia drivers for mac. Look for those maybe
 
Thank you for the response and I've stomped through some of those threads, no luck.

The card is powered by an external PSU with a 6 and 8 pin power supply going to the card. Pretty sure I have that setup right.

I have installed the latest drivers from NVidia even though I read that with 10.8.3 that shouldn't be necessary anymore. I had installed them before but I also used the link from the sticky in this forum.

The-Pro said:
Couple things I am thinking of quickely.
(I am not using a card like that and never tried, just read some thread on it. There are long threads in this forum about GTX 580s and 680s in Mac Pros. You might want to try searching for those.)

Anyway. How are you powering the card? external psu, 6-8pin splitters etc. With out knowing this someone could think the card might just not be getting enough juice.

Second thing. I recall reading that there are nVidia drivers for mac. Look for those maybe
Click to expand...
 
Just ran a unigine heaven 4.0 benchmark (with "extreme" settings) and it came back with;

FPS: 51.3
Score: 1292

Additional information is that I've tried running the GPU in both x16 slots with same results.
 
Read, read, and then read some more.

Get CUDA-Z and see what's up with CUDA

Try Uningine Valley and compare numbers to the barefeats.com tests.

QUIT WASTING TIME WITH CINEBENCH !!! USELESS, WORTHLESS GARBAGE THAT ONLY TESTS CPU !!!!! Any GPU after 3870/8800GT will get same score on a given Mac, completely 100% CPU bound.

If 680 is a reference 2GB model you may be able to flash it, but won't speed it up except in Windows.
 
Uningine heaven results as follows:

580
FPS: 45.3
Score: 1141

680
FPS: 51.3
Score: 1292

SATA card not working with either card at the moment...

I'll keep reading....
MacVidCards said:
Read, read, and then read some more.

Get CUDA-Z and see what's up with CUDA

Try Uningine Valley and compare numbers to the barefeats.com tests.

QUIT WASTING TIME WITH CINEBENCH !!! USELESS, WORTHLESS GARBAGE THAT ONLY TESTS CPU !!!!! Any GPU after 3870/8800GT will get same score on a given Mac, completely 100% CPU bound.

If 680 is a reference 2GB model you may be able to flash it, but won't speed it up except in Windows.
Click to expand...
 
According to the barefeats.com article here; http://barefeats.com/gpu680v.html
My 680 and 580 seems to be performing on par with the one they tested... great! Ran both the Heaven and Valley benchmarks and they perform 2-3 fps below theirs but that's close enough.

Now what's screwing with my Tempo SATA card and what's holding back Premiere from pushing my GPU? I'm new to all this but I'll try to find a GPU monitor app to see what it's up to while i run premiere.

I'll keep reading


FitandFuel said:
Uningine heaven results as follows:

580
FPS: 45.3
Score: 1141

680
FPS: 51.3
Score: 1292

SATA card not working with either card at the moment...

I'll keep reading....
Click to expand...
 
Looks about right... Here's what I get on a GTX 670.
 

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That worked and got CUDA running on both PrPro and AE, thanks guys!

Unfortunately playback now starts smooth and gets very choppy within a few seconds. It's like a buffer is running out.

I tried timeline playback from the editing raid, boot SSD, and the storage raid and the same issue happens across them... I did another black magic stress test and this was the result for my editing array

Untitled.tiff


Looks like I need to step up my disk speed and that is what might be holding me back.

Any suggestions for a Mac Pro 4.1?
 
FitandFuel said:
That worked and got CUDA running on both PrPro and AE, thanks guys!

Unfortunately playback now starts smooth and gets very choppy within a few seconds. It's like a buffer is running out.

I tried timeline playback from the editing raid, boot SSD, and the storage raid and the same issue happens across them... I did another black magic stress test and this was the result for my editing array

Image

Looks like I need to step up my disk speed and that is what might be holding me back.

Any suggestions for a Mac Pro 4.1?
Click to expand...

an 8 ssd raid setup like linus
 
Lil Chillbil said:
an 8 ssd raid setup like linus
Click to expand...

I currently have the Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA controller but I believe that is limited to 3g/s... Would simply upgrading to the Pro controller that allows 6gb/s give me a boost? I'm assuming I would need to upgrade my card to improve performance to an 8 SSD raid if it comes to that.

What would your recommended interface be that is compatible with my 4.1 MP?
 
Looks like both my external RAIDS are limited to SATAII (3gb/s) so I'm stuck with 200-230mb/s for now which is around where Black Magic was benchmarking at.

I think my best alternative maybe a Velocity X2 or Sonnet Dual SSD PCI card setup RAID0 and use that for editing and use everything else for storage.

Does that sound like a solid plan?

SSD drive recommendations?
 
FitandFuel said:
Looks like both my external RAIDS are limited to SATAII (3gb/s) so I'm stuck with 200-230mb/s for now which is around where Black Magic was benchmarking at.

I think my best alternative maybe a Velocity X2 or Sonnet Dual SSD PCI card setup RAID0 and use that for editing and use everything else for storage.

Does that sound like a solid plan?

SSD drive recommendations?
Click to expand...

Here's another thread in this forum about Sonnet SSD PCI card that you may want to check out.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1556095/

Though this may not directly answer your question, the thread outlines various inputs and experiences on Sonnet card. I think the threadstarter has the same 4,1 Mac Pro you are using.
 
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