Mac Pro 2010 Nvidia RTX via bootcamp

[opierzon]

Hi everyone.

I'm 3d generalist and I have to update my setup soon to match today standards.
Before I do that I need to wait for a while to see if Mac Pro 7.1 is coming and if yes what it will be.
I need a good CUDA performance and I'm willing to buy myself an RTX 2070.
Yes, I need RTX due to that 30% hype of Pixel Renderman XPU an Maxon Redshift Render.
Additionaly I need to go to dark side for a while to get full of Foundry's Mari - there is no updates for Mac OS X for now.

So my question is, do you see any troubles to install and use the Nvidia RTX 2070 with Mac Pro 2010 via bootcamp?
I know I won't get the boot screen, but I'm on "not-flashed" 670 so I'm used to it.

Thanks a lot,
Tom

 

[tsialex]

Hi everyone.

I'm 3d generalist and I have to update my setup soon to match today standards.
Before I do that I need to wait for a while to see if Mac Pro 7.1 is coming and if yes what it will be.
I need a good CUDA performance and I'm willing to buy myself an RTX 2070.
Yes, I need RTX due to that 30% hype of Pixel Renderman XPU an Maxon Redshift Render.
Additionaly I need to go to dark side for a while to get full of Foundry's Mari - there is no updates for Mac OS X for now.

So my question is, do you see any troubles to install and use the Nvidia RTX 2070 with Mac Pro 2010 via bootcamp?
I know I won't get the boot screen, but I'm on "not-flashed" 670 so I'm used to it.

Thanks a lot,
Tom

All RTX 2xxx have UGA pre-boot configuration support, aka BootScreens, but don't have any macOS support.

RTX cards needs Windows installed via UEFI mode, this could be a problematic.

Power comsumption of a RTX 2070 fits a Mac Pro if you use a eVGA PowerLink.

 

[hifimac]

Just curious, as I’m in the same boat... Would a 2080 or 2080ti be within the cMP power consumption using a Powerlink?

 

[tsialex]

Just curious, as I’m in the same boat... Would a 2080 or 2080ti be within the cMP power consumption using a Powerlink?

RTX 2080 have a declared power draw of 215W, so it's theoretically under the 225W (75W Slot + 75W PCIe AUX A + 75W PCIe AUX B) of Mac Pro.

The problem is that GPUs today have unbalanced power usage and use more from PCIe AUX than the slot power. Without the PowerLink, the GPU will cause the Mac Pro power protection to shutdown the PSU when the GPU is in full power consumption, this happens even with GTX 1080 that have a power draw of 180W. Some people have success with RTX 2080 and Mac Pro, some not.

RTX 2080Ti is a 250W card, so now is the realm of could work/could cause damage. Some people will talk that it works, but this is over the designed spec and the backplane components will degrade a lot faster. I wouldn't use a RTX 2080Ti without Pixlas mod.

Remember, cards today use the available 75W from the slot to a limited extent, using much more from the PCIe power connections.

 

[Spacedust]

I was trying to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode with RTX2070 and no go, but installer went to "Loading Windows" screen and then freezed. Sadly I wasn't able to get Windows 8.1 at this time, but I will test again soon.

 

[AidenShaw]

The problem is that GPUs today have unbalanced power usage and use more from PCIe AUX than the slot power. Without the PowerLink, the GPU will cause the Mac Pro power protection to shutdown the PSU when the GPU is in full power consumption, this happens even with GTX 1080 that have a power draw of 180W. Some people have success with RTX 2080 and Mac Pro, some not.

Also, note that the millisecond to millisecond power draw varies wildly with different loads and turbo boost levels. In particular, the Turing chips have very aggressive turbo boost and can spike way above average power for an instant. And, they hit those peaks very quickly - so power management that's looking at the slope of the power draw can panic.

I've seen a Quadro RTX 6000 (nominal TDP 260 W) peak above 390 W according to Nvidia-smi - all while running smoothly. I've also seem them shutdown a system without recording a higher peak. Fortunately, NVidia-smi has an option to put a cap on the turbo boost to control the spikes. (NVidia-smi also has caps on power consumption, but the GPU limits power consumption by reducing the clocks. Therefore, it can't limit the power consumption until you exceed the power limits. The boost clock limits, however, keep the GPU from turbo'ing into the high power consumption frequencies.)

 

[bakuDD]

I've tested rtx titan and 2080ti with a powerlink and posted benchmarks here. It worked fine on Windows 10 even without pixlas mod, but I did the mod afterwards.

Now during my testing I have gotten strange initialization issues with my cards depending on OS.
A macvidcards GTX 780 doesn't show the bootscreen via DisplayPort, and it wouldn't run my Windows 10 install either (showed the windows startup logo then the signal went black).

Had the opposite problem on Windows 7, it installed with the gtx 780 after resetting pram, 2080ti wouldn't even boot it, it freezes the bootscreen after selecting windows.

Also tried Windows XP for playing older windows games, you can install it by first installing 10.6.4 from the mac pro install dvd. It didn't work with gtx 780 (graphics downgraded to 16 colors after installing drivers). Only worked with the ancient radeon card that came with the mac. I don't know if it's allowed to post the dvd here but if a mod says I can upload it I will.

So now I have a strange situation where each version of Windows requires its own graphics card. Also it might be worth mentioning that I've had to buy separate SSD for each install, I could never get high sierra and Windows 7/10 to reliably dual boot. Stuff like rEFIt, rEFInd and Boot Champ has been pretty much useless for me in every case.

 

[Jamesjprice]

I read all the rtx threads and tried my own experiment. Coming from a flashed 1080ti. Mac Pro 5,1. High Sierra and win 10 on separate boot drives. Boot runner also. Zotac rtx 2070. Dual mini 6 pin power to single 8 pin cable.

On boot I get the apple boot screen. I get boot runner. I can boot to windows and have latest Nvidia driver so all good. Can boot to OS X and get no graphics acceleration of course because no rtx driver. The driver I have installed is latest for high Sierra.

 

[Supersoberguy]

Recently purchased 2070 Super. I do understand that it does not work with macOS (yet) and I do understand that I can't run RTX bootcamped in Windows 7, apparently. So I have been having a nightmare for the last couple of days to make RTX work bootcamped in Windows 10 Pro.

Initial setup can be seen in signature, but I'll repost it anyways:

• Mac Pro 4,1 -> flashed to 5,1
• Dual X5680 2 x 3.33 Ghz
• 16GB Ram
• NVIDIA GeForce 1060 6GB (trying to switch to RTX 2070 Super)
• I am running High Sierra 10.13.6
• Boot ROM: MP51.0089.B00

As far as I understand, I am able to go at least into Bootcamp Win10 with RTX working in theory. But on practice I am not able to do this. What I did:

• Deleted all the partitions on the SSD that is solely designed for the Bootcamp in my setup
• Took USB with Win10 Pro 1903 and installed on my cMP
• Installation was a success and everything was working fine until I installed Bootcamp drivers
• After the Bootcamp installed drivers, the cMP would freeze upon loading Windows 10
• Found that the problem was with the "MacHALDriver.sys" that had to be renamed or deleted for the freezes to go away
• Swapped my original Radeon HD 4870 to RTX and I got only black screen, but the system was up and running, since I am hearing sounds out of speakers and the Windows is responding to shortcuts to Shutting Down
• Installed Teamviewer and logged into cMP while having black screens and could easily see the screen at the resolution of 640x480
• Device manager showed problem with "code 31" and "the driver trying to start is not the same" (see attached screen)
• Tried going back to other graphics cards, but to no avail: 1060 6gb, GT 120 512mb (original card from 1,1 cMP that I have) would not work - only black screen with system working.

At this point I am lost. Even without RTX card I should have 1060 up and running, but I cannot make it happen. At this stage I will try to fresh install not the 1903, but 1809 Windows 10 and will see for the result.

My question is: do RTX card work with some prerequisites? I mean, do I absolutely need to upgrade Boot ROM version to have everything working in Bootcamp? I would not ask this question if my 1060 would have been working, but it is not. Not a single card is working apart from the original Radeon 4870... Any suggestion or help in troubleshoot would be appreciated.

Cheers.