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My Review of the EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition

Dr. Stealth said:
I'm running dual GTX 680 4GB and have NEVER been so happy with my Mac Pro's graphics performance. I'm good for the next 5 years.

Primarily CADD & Rendering apps, OS X & Windows.
Click to expand...

curious on how you pulled that off?

By the way, that was pretty much my thought process as well.. For some reason I wanted to spend money and buy a new Mac Pro (if one ever came out) or switch to windows... Then I realized all I really needed was a new video card and maybe some more ram and I'm good for the next 2+ years at LEAST.

Solid investment, my processors are fast enough for the next bit (8 core 2.4GHz)
 
derbothaus said:
Yes. I meant OS X. I find it hard to believe that a Quad Nehalem at 2.66GHz is too slow to feed the GTX 680 when we have not been CPU bound in games for years thanks to console ports. Tons of people still run Nehalem albeit at 3GHz+ and don't have complaints of CPU bound. Some site testbeds are X58 and Nehalem still. I have seen variations of a few FPS based on 2.66GHz vs. 3.6GHz and Dual vs Quad-core vs. HT or no HT. Not impossible just hard to believe. That is why I assumed we are talking OS X and all it's graphic limitations.
But I would still use a Mac Pro with SLI in Windows if I needed it. I am a strange case where I need OS X for work and Windows for fun. So not much choice unless I want 2 big boxes under my desk. Which I don't.
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Well, StarCraft 2 is known to be pretty heavily CPU limited. It's completely app dependent of course. The simplest way to check is to get the OpenGL Driver Monitor from the Xcode graphics tools package and enable "GPU Core Utilization" on an NVIDIA GPU like the 680 to see how busy the GPU is.

Edit: And most hardware review sites are using more DX11 apps for benchmarking these days, and DX11 is way more efficient than DX9 was, which means the older CPUs have less work to do when feeding work to the GPU. Unfortunately, OS X basically only supports the equivalent of DX9 and is missing the improvements that came in OpenGL 4 to improve efficiency.
 
Xalamander said:
I have a really serious problem. I have the Mac Pro 4, 1 2.6Ghz, 16GB memory, the works. I got the GTX 680, and it sucks. I get like 18fps on Heaven 4.0 and at best 24fps on StarCraft 2 (high settings, not ultra). At first I thought it was the card, so I did an RMA, but the new one still doesn't work. So what is it? I have almost the same machine as macgoblin7950, but this card barely works for me. It's like it's not getting enough power or something. I've double checked everything and it's installed correctly. But I just am not getting any performance. It performs almost exactly 4fps better than my custom cooled 5870.

Anyone know anything about this? Could the Nehalem Intels REALLY be that much worse? I can't figure it out... Thanks for your help
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Have you thought about upgrading the processor in your Mac Pro? I would suggest upgrading the firmware from 4,1 to version 5,1 and dropping in a Westmere 3.33 6 core processor (cost $600.00). This would be a pretty big upgrade for your MP. I'd suggest doing this before upgrading the graphics card. I'm only speaking from my past experience because its what I did and I've been very happy with the upgrade. I also dropped in a GTX Mac Edition 680 too, and it really turned this machine around. ohh, and upgrading the CPU will allow you to upgrade your RAM from 1066 to 1333 MHz. This is just a suggestion but it would probably bring another 6 years to your MP.
 
Any idea on how well it handles video editing for jobs like FCPX? I'm sporting a 3,1 and I'd love to use it for gaming as well as video editing but editing is more of a focus. My 3,1 is old but it's still got some kick in it. Any thoughts?
 
athanc said:
Any idea on how well it handles video editing for jobs like FCPX? I'm sporting a 3,1 and I'd love to use it for gaming as well as video editing but editing is more of a focus. My 3,1 is old but it's still got some kick in it. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I'm running the gtx 680 in a 4,1 mac pro and it runs Final Cut Pro X way better than the ATI 5770 I had originally in the machine. I think this is a considerable upgrade from the 5770 and have noticed a huge all around performance in all of my apps, especially the Adobe Suite.
 
I jump in with a special question concerning the VRAM 2 GB or 4 GB ...

I use the MacPro 2010 only for Rendering/Modeling in Cinema4D/Realflow and After Effects.

My question ist about the VRAM & OpenGL ... i´m bit confused about some points i read here in the threads. Someone wrote OS 10.8.3 only support 2 GB VRAM under OPenGL otherone wrote , that everything is fine an under OPENGl 4 GB Ram could be used ... Can someone point me here in the right direction ?

In addition .. i know there is the EVGA 680 Mac Edition ( but only with 2 GB).
Short question from an normal user ... Besides my question above. Can i install a PC GTX 680 card ( and have the boot window as well) or i´m forced to buy the special Mac Edition ?

Thanx for your patencie about my basic questions.

Best,
Tom
 
19Primus said:
I jump in with a special question concerning the VRAM 2 GB or 4 GB ...

I use the MacPro 2010 only for Rendering/Modeling in Cinema4D/Realflow and After Effects.

In addition .. i know there is the EVGA 680 Mac Edition ( but only with 2 GB).
Short question from an normal user ... Besides my question above. Can i install a PC GTX 680 card ( and have the boot window as well) or i´m forced to buy the special Mac Edition ?

Thanx for your patencie about my basic questions.

Best,
Tom
Click to expand...

Hi Tom. I think as far as I know you can install a PC GTX680 to your Mac Pro You can consult with Macvidcards, he is also a member of this forum and he has many years experience in modifying PC cards to make it work for Mac Pros that includes the boot screen at start up.
 
19Primus said:
I jump in with a special question concerning the VRAM 2 GB or 4 GB ...

I use the MacPro 2010 only for Rendering/Modeling in Cinema4D/Realflow and After Effects.

My question ist about the VRAM & OpenGL ... i´m bit confused about some points i read here in the threads. Someone wrote OS 10.8.3 only support 2 GB VRAM under OPenGL otherone wrote , that everything is fine an under OPENGl 4 GB Ram could be used ... Can someone point me here in the right direction ?

In addition .. i know there is the EVGA 680 Mac Edition ( but only with 2 GB).
Short question from an normal user ... Besides my question above. Can i install a PC GTX 680 card ( and have the boot window as well) or i´m forced to buy the special Mac Edition ?

Thanx for your patencie about my basic questions.

Best,
Tom
Click to expand...

PC GTX 680 will work fine, just no boot screens, until you get to the desktop\login. It'll work in Windows and OSX just fine (minus boot screens)
 
Two Problems with the GTX 680

I've got two problems with the GTX 680.
1. I've got Snow Leopard on one of my hard drives because SL is handy for running applications that ML can not.
No GTX 680 (Mac or PC) will work with Snow Leopard.
2. I've got a PC 4GB MSI GTX 680. It works just fine in OS X. I can not find rom for this card; therefore, I can not flash it. The only minor problem is it only runs under PCIe 1.1 bus with Windows.
 
@All Thank you for your support. I found later the sticky thread about my question here in the forum. Sorry, for asking my questions in this case. The sticky thread and your response answered most of my question. But one main question ist still open.
My main application ( RealFlow/fluid simulation) has the most benefit by using OpenGL and VRAM as much as possible. I´m still confused about the 4GB VRAM. Often i read that OS 10.8.3 does not support more than 2GB VRAM under OpenGL, others said just the opposite. ( The sticky read recommend for OpenGL the older GTX 570, but i think the thread is a bit old too in this point, i don´t know)

Can you help me in this point again ?
 
19Primus said:
I´m still confused about the 4GB VRAM. Often i read that OS 10.8.3 does not support more than 2GB VRAM under OpenGL, others said just the opposite. ( The sticky read recommend for OpenGL the older GTX 570, but i think the thread is a bit old too in this point, i don´t know)

Can you help me in this point again ?
Click to expand...
You are confusing OpenCL with OpenGL. There was a limit of 2GB VRAM for OpenCL before 10.8.3 came out, but 10.8.3 fixed it already. Never heard any restrictions of VRAM under OpenGL in OS X.
 
xcodeSyn said:
You are confusing OpenCL with OpenGL. There was a limit of 2GB VRAM for OpenCL before 10.8.3 came out, but 10.8.3 fixed it already. Never heard any restrictions of VRAM under OpenGL in OS X.
Click to expand...

This is correct. The Apple OpenCL framework disabled acceleration for cards with more than 2GB of VRAM. This was fixed in 10.8.3 and cards should work fine for both 3D graphics (GL) and compute (CL) now.
 
Xalamander said:
I have a really serious problem. I have the Mac Pro 4, 1 2.6Ghz, 16GB memory, the works. I got the GTX 680, and it sucks. I get like 18fps on Heaven 4.0 and at best 24fps on StarCraft 2 (high settings, not ultra). At first I thought it was the card, so I did an RMA, but the new one still doesn't work. So what is it? I have almost the same machine as macgoblin7950, but this card barely works for me. It's like it's not getting enough power or something. I've double checked everything and it's installed correctly. But I just am not getting any performance. It performs almost exactly 4fps better than my custom cooled 5870.

Anyone know anything about this? Could the Nehalem Intels REALLY be that much worse? I can't figure it out... Thanks for your help
Click to expand...



What OS version are you using?
What slot do you have the card in?
Do you have both power cables plugged into the Card?
What monitor are you using?
What PCI slot do you have the card in?
I was using the in game FPS monitor to rate my FPS. Is that what your using?
 
Has anyone had issues with this card and SC2 HOTS since the newest patch that introduced color blind mode? I used to run 1900x1200 on ultra with this card, however since patching SC2 i can only go to 1900x1080 at max. I have the latest drivers for the card and osx. Tried both the evga driver and the mac os x driver and it didn't fix. The game ran this resolution fine before and with my old G120 card.
 
PantherV said:
Has anyone had issues with this card and SC2 HOTS since the newest patch that introduced color blind mode? I used to run 1900x1200 on ultra with this card, however since patching SC2 i can only go to 1900x1080 at max. I have the latest drivers for the card and osx. Tried both the evga driver and the mac os x driver and it didn't fix. The game ran this resolution fine before and with my old G120 card.
Click to expand...

I have had issues with the latest update but not with resolution. Just with fog of war. I have to enable color blind and then disable color blind. for it to work right.

----------
PantherV said:
Has anyone had issues with this card and SC2 HOTS since the newest patch that introduced color blind mode? I used to run 1900x1200 on ultra with this card, however since patching SC2 i can only go to 1900x1080 at max. I have the latest drivers for the card and osx. Tried both the evga driver and the mac os x driver and it didn't fix. The game ran this resolution fine before and with my old G120 card.
Click to expand...

Also you may want to try removing every last file for HOTS and then reinstall.
 
I have a GTX680 mac card and whilst EVGA say it needs OSX 10.8.3 it does work with 10.6.8. It can only support 1 monitor in 10.6.8, but otheriwse it works fine. My machine is a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1

I dont know how much graphics card performance is lost under 10.6.8.
 
macgoblin7950 said:
I have had issues with the latest update but not with resolution. Just with fog of war. I have to enable color blind and then disable color blind. for it to work right.

----------



Also you may want to try removing every last file for HOTS and then reinstall.
Click to expand...

Yes I had the fog of war issue to. Blizzard seems to be aware something is up, they sent me a fix to adjust a file.
Also for those interested..
us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9572767908
 
anthonys-studio said:
I have a GTX680 mac card and whilst EVGA say it needs OSX 10.8.3 it does work with 10.6.8. It can only support 1 monitor in 10.6.8, but otheriwse it works fine. My machine is a 2010 Mac Pro 5,1

I dont know how much graphics card performance is lost under 10.6.8.
Click to expand...

It is only "working" to display images.

You can not use it for anything past that.

As I posted in your other thread on this, there are no actual drivers for the card in 10.6.8.
 
I'm curious if anyone is connecting a display via the displayport on the 680 and if it is possible to have the added color depth through this connection.

I have a cintiq 24hd, and it's possible to display over a billion colors, but it must be connected via displayport to have the added color depth.

Is this possible with the 680? does OS X even support the added color depth? hard to find the answer to this online...
 
i-rui said:
I'm curious if anyone is connecting a display via the displayport on the 680 and if it is possible to have the added color depth through this connection.

I have a cintiq 24hd, and it's possible to display over a billion colors, but it must be connected via displayport to have the added color depth.

Is this possible with the 680? does OS X even support the added color depth? hard to find the answer to this online...
Click to expand...

Thats a good question. But I have no idea. Does cintiq know? The 680 does have a working displayport.
 
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