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Dr. Stealth

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2004
814
740
SoCal-Surf City USA
Well Squuiid, You probably dont want to hear it from me but.... I put this aux PSU in my box four years ago and have never had to deal with it since. It just works. Not the same brand but identical specs.
 
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Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2006
1,877
1,713
Well Squuiid, You probably dont want to hear it from me but.... I put this aux PSU in my box four years ago and have never had to deal with it since. It just works. Not the same brand but identical specs.
Noise levels ok?
 

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2006
1,877
1,713
yes sir. i cant hear it at all. but i have to add, i'm kinda old and i don't hear too well as it is.
Thanks. Might be worth a shot then.
That's one hell of a cMP you have there. Very, very nice!

" Mac Pro 2010 5,1 Dual Xeon x5690's @ 3.46GHz • 64GB RAM • Dual EVGA GTX 1080 TI FTW3 11GB •  GT-120
Amfeltec PCIe Carrier Board with (4) SM951 512GB AHCI SSD's • Aux 450 watt PSU for GPU's •  27" Cinema Display"
 

William Payne

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2017
931
360
Wanganui, New Zealand.
Squiiid you have had problems with your Pascal cards. Dr stealth appears to not have any issues.

I'm just throwing this out there but could this hypothetically be a pcie power availability issue?
 

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2006
1,877
1,713
Squiiid you have had problems with your Pascal cards. Dr stealth appears to not have any issues.

I'm just throwing this out there but could this hypothetically be a pcie power availability issue?
Definitely not a power issue. 1070 is easily powered by 2xmini 6pin to 1x 8pin which is what I used. My 1080 which demands more power works perfectly in Windows powered the same way in my other cMP.

Honestly, I think it comes down to some people being more fussy than others. I will not tolerate one minute of lag when I resume from sleep, or the occasional black screen, etc. Others will just overlook this and move on, it won't bother them.

As I said, once I removed the 1070 and uninstalled the NVIDIA web driver, then reinstalled the GTX 680, the cMP literally works PERFECTLY. Everything is smooth and bug free. This is how things should be.

I believe the Pascal drivers are not mature, or even developed that much, and NVIDIA don't have a great incentive to put a lot of time and effort into them. Pascal performance in macOS is mediocre compared to what it is in Windows and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Nor do I see them fixing the bugs either. A shame really.
 
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karsten

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2010
891
122
Interesting I haven't had any of the issues described with the 1050 Ti in my 5,1
 

Dr. Stealth

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2004
814
740
SoCal-Surf City USA
Honestly, I think it comes down to some people being more fussy than others. I will not tolerate one minute of lag when I resume from sleep, or the occasional black screen, etc. Others will just overlook this and move on, it won't bother them.

I believe this is exactly correct. I'm the lenient type. A glitch here or there and I probably wouldn't even notice. Just like I prefer a high gloss screen when many people absolutely hate them and find them completely unusable.
 

babyjoe

macrumors member
Sep 1, 2017
30
0
Sweden
GTX 980 Ti kicks ass in my system. Not had any problems with it. Only complaint is I can't get same day OS updates, but nVidia are very good at speedy web and CUDA driver releases, usually within a day or two.
I'm interested in the GTX980ti aswell, but I hear different stories about it. What kind of a system do you have?
 

Theophany

macrumors 6502a
Nov 16, 2008
633
186
NW London.
I'm interested in the GTX980ti aswell, but I hear different stories about it. What kind of a system do you have?

4.1 flashed to 5.1 with a 3.46Ghz W3690, 32GB RAM, 525GB SSD and running off the aux PCI-e power lines. Running the current MacOS Sierra with the latest nVidia web drivers. :)
 

fendersrule

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2008
423
324
How are you powering it? I'm assuming you're splicing the 8-pin to the two main board mini 6-pin connectors, and then using something else (sata power, optimal bay cable, etc) to power the 6-port?
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
How are you powering it? I'm assuming you're splicing the 8-pin to the two main board mini 6-pin connectors, and then using something else (sata power, optimal bay cable, etc) to power the 6-port?
GTX 980 TI, as GTX 780 and R9 280X, is using about 250W so it's fairly safe to use only 6 pin connectors from the board. The main thing is not letting gpu to pull majority of it's power from 8 pin connection.
So the safest way is to join current before it reaches GPU, either by connecting it from two 6 pins from motherboard to 8 pin and then from 8 pin to 6 and 8 pin to GPU, or with a soldered jumper on GPU connections.

P.S. All this is assuming that GPU doesn't have same crazy factory overclock.
 

Dr. Stealth

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2004
814
740
SoCal-Surf City USA
What are people's experiences with this thing? This review utterly destroys it:
https://m.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/24/epower_juice_box_450w_auxiliary_power_supply_review/9


Okay. So i waited for 2 or 3 days for someone to buy this PSU but since no one did bought it myself. It is now on it's way to my house. I don't know what I'd do if mine failed. So, I bought it as a backup if I ever have an issue with mine.
Thanks. Might be worth a shot then.
That's one hell of a cMP you have there. Very, very nice!

In looking at your signature I think I may have been following in your footsteps. You have two beautiful systems.

My system is very similar to your two but I'm doing it on one machine. Cheers.... Dave in California.
 
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fendersrule

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2008
423
324
GTX 980 TI, as GTX 780 and R9 280X, is using about 250W so it's fairly safe to use only 6 pin connectors from the board. The main thing is not letting gpu to pull majority of it's power from 8 pin connection.
So the safest way is to join current before it reaches GPU, either by connecting it from two 6 pins from motherboard to 8 pin and then from 8 pin to 6 and 8 pin to GPU, or with a soldered jumper on GPU connections.

P.S. All this is assuming that GPU doesn't have same crazy factory overclock.

Thanks!

Keep in mind that "fairly safe" is an opinion though. It's good enough for me, but let's be clear, that setup still exceeds the Mac Pro's threshold.

I really enjoyed the explanation, because I would totally be prepared to get a 980Ti myself (not a R9 280X or GTX 780...not enough performance for the gamble. :))

So let me get this straight (my brain is not working tonight) regarding the first way to do it. So you're saying to hook up a Y splitter mini 6-pin (which I would think would be hard to find) from the motherboard into an 8-pin. Then take another splitter that's an 8-pin that Y's out to a 8 and 6. Man, can you even get those splitters anywhere?

I'd be all over a 980 Ti, but they are still gobbles of money.

btw, how is our classifieds section? After nearly 10 friggin' years, I still don't have enough posts to access it. I know that's been complained about a lot recently but come on!? By the rate I'm going, maybe another 10 years I'll be able to see it. Mods, come on!
 

babyjoe

macrumors member
Sep 1, 2017
30
0
Sweden
Definitely not a power issue. 1070 is easily powered by 2xmini 6pin to 1x 8pin which is what I used. My 1080 which demands more power works perfectly in Windows powered the same way in my other cMP.

Honestly, I think it comes down to some people being more fussy than others. I will not tolerate one minute of lag when I resume from sleep, or the occasional black screen, etc. Others will just overlook this and move on, it won't bother them.

As I said, once I removed the 1070 and uninstalled the NVIDIA web driver, then reinstalled the GTX 680, the cMP literally works PERFECTLY. Everything is smooth and bug free. This is how things should be.

I believe the Pascal drivers are not mature, or even developed that much, and NVIDIA don't have a great incentive to put a lot of time and effort into them. Pascal performance in macOS is mediocre compared to what it is in Windows and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Nor do I see them fixing the bugs either. A shame really.
I'm planning to get this GTX980, but I hear different stories about it. Theophany (in this thread) have a 980 that works perfectly, but you had a bad experience with it. What was the biggest issue with the GTX980ti for you? Could it be that he's got a 4.1 flashed to 5.1 with only one CPU while you got 5.1 with two CPU's?
 

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2006
1,877
1,713
I'm planning to get this GTX980, but I hear different stories about it. Theophany (in this thread) have a 980 that works perfectly, but you had a bad experience with it. What was the biggest issue with the GTX980ti for you? Could it be that he's got a 4.1 flashed to 5.1 with only one CPU while you got 5.1 with two CPU's?
I think you've quoted the wrong person. I don't have a 980 nor do I have dual CPUs.

That aside, a GTX 980 is a completely different architecture to a 10xx series card (Pascal) and the NVIDIA web drivers seem to be ok on that series. You do give up DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 however which limits your monitor selection in the future. No 5K for example.

If instead of a GTX 980 you meant a GTX 680 (which I do own), then the GTX 680 Mac Edition is flawless. Again, it won't drive 4K or 5K monitors but it is pretty much bug free in macOS.

My recommendation to you however is to get a Sapphire RX 580 Pulse 8GB. This is the best card for the cMP currently. Unfortunately it is on backorder at most places but it is worth the wait.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071CQ5LRV/
 
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babyjoe

macrumors member
Sep 1, 2017
30
0
Sweden
I think you've quoted the wrong person. I don't have a 980 nor do I have dual CPUs.

That aside, a GTX 980 is a completely different architecture to a 10xx series card (Pascal) and the NVIDIA web drivers seem to be ok on that series. You do give up DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 however which limits your monitor selection in the future. No 5K for example.

If instead of a GTX 980 you meant a GTX 680 (which I do own), then the GTX 680 Mac Edition is flawless. Again, it won't drive 4K or 5K monitors but it is pretty much bug free in macOS.

My recommendation to you however is to get a Sapphire RX 580 Pulse 8GB. This is the best card for the cMP currently. Unfortunately it is on backorder at most places but it is worth the wait.
Sorry 'bout that! Thanks for the info anyway. Maybe I'll just wait around for 580... :)
[doublepost=1504773100][/doublepost]
Have to agree with Squuiid, GTX 680 is still the absolute king for general Mac usage and Apple Pro apps.
Although I don't know if GTX 780 would be better since it also use native Apple Keppler drivers (A1, the first revision of the card)?
Maxwell and Pascal are good if you're buying them for specific apps, gaming and your workflow require CUDA compute.
To buy them for anything else is just waste of the GPU. I sold GTX 980 because GUI slowdowns and glitches and because most of the FCPX rendering was done by the CPU.
680 if giving me much better overall experience in macOS, although I have R9 280X too and I'm swapping them depending on the current mood.
I'm planning to get this GTX980, but I hear different stories about it. Theophany (in this thread) have a 980 that works perfectly, but you had a bad experience with it. What was the biggest issue with the GTX980ti for you? Could it be that he's got a 4.1 flashed to 5.1 with only one CPU while you got a totally different system?
 

Theophany

macrumors 6502a
Nov 16, 2008
633
186
NW London.
I'm planning to get this GTX980, but I hear different stories about it. Theophany (in this thread) have a 980 that works perfectly, but you had a bad experience with it. What was the biggest issue with the GTX980ti for you? Could it be that he's got a 4.1 flashed to 5.1 with only one CPU while you got a totally different system?

Yup, mine works absolutely fine. Two mini 6 pin > 6+2 pin cables from the aux PCI power ports on the mainboard. No issues running it in MacOS since getting it in March this year.

In Windows 10, I'm running a +200Mhz core and +500Mhz memory overclock through MSI Afterburner with no additional voltage. It's a reference design GTX 980Ti and they tend to have a touch more headroom for clockspeeds. I've had no issues with power delivery in Unigine benchmarks, GTA V, F1 2017, Doom or any other games I've played. Playing at 3840x1600 resolution with detail settings pretty high, so making the card work hard too!

It absolutely will shut down if for some reason you start trying to torture test the card though. Furmark or any other GPU torture tests will trigger a shutdown. But these are synthetic benchmarks designed to test the 24/7 stability of overclocks and cooling systems. My view is that if it works for what you want to do, it doesn't really matter. If what you intend to use the card for is likely to really push the card to its absolute power limits, like heavy duty CUDA work, then I'd definitely do some further reading to see what other people's experiences have been. Most of my work is Adobe CC which has minimal GPU acceleration and games will rarely max out a GPU's wattage imo.

The GTX 980 Ti is an excellent choice of GPU for the Mac Pro, in my experience. But others may have had different experiences.
 
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Synchro3

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2014
1,987
850
- All normal GTX 980 Ti with one 6 pin and one 8 pin power connector (except e.g. OC variants like EVGA Classified), and all GTX Titan X (Maxwell) -> No problem with internal PSU, just one 6 to 8 pin and one 6 to 6 pin power cable needed. I'm using a GTX Titan X without issues in this way since one year. Max power consumption is around 230 Watt.

Although the GTX 1080 Ti has the same official power consumption as the GTX 980 Ti, both 250 Watt, the GTX 1080 Ti needs more power and is unsuitable for the internal PSU.

The picture clearly shows the GTX 1080 Ti drawing more power than GTX 980 Ti:
comparizon.png
 

Theophany

macrumors 6502a
Nov 16, 2008
633
186
NW London.
- All normal GTX 980 Ti with one 6 pin and one 8 pin power connector (except e.g. OC variants like EVGA Classified), and all GTX Titan X (Maxwell) -> No problem with internal PSU, just one 6 to 8 pin and one 6 to 6 pin power cable needed. I'm using a GTX Titan X without issues in this way since one year. Max power consumption is around 230 Watt.

Although the GTX 1080 Ti has the same official power consumption as the GTX 980 Ti, both 250 Watt, the GTX 1080 Ti needs more power and is unsuitable for the internal PSU.

The picture clearly shows the GTX 1080 Ti drawing more power than GTX 980 Ti:
View attachment 716260


Good post, interesting to see the increase in wattage despite the official quotes.
 

owbp

macrumors 6502a
Jan 28, 2016
719
245
Belgrade, Serbia
Keep in mind that "fairly safe" is an opinion though. It's good enough for me, but let's be clear, that setup still exceeds the Mac Pro's threshold.
Of course, we are exceeding the official power of MacPro's PCIe slot and Boosters by 25W. But that clumsy "fairly safe" line was more directed to hundreds of users that are running those cards without any issue.
The problem, as I said, could happen if manufacturer decided to stress 8 pin first, before asking for any more power from PCIe connection and 6 pin. But, again, many users are using theirs with just 6 to 8 pin adapter without any troubles for a very long time.
So let me get this straight (my brain is not working tonight) regarding the first way to do it. So you're saying to hook up a Y splitter mini 6-pin (which I would think would be hard to find) from the motherboard into an 8-pin. Then take another splitter that's an 8-pin that Y's out to a 8 and 6. Man, can you even get those splitters anywhere?
No, let me repeat it one more time:
- first you use standard MacPro/G5 cables, two mini 6 pin to 6 pin
- then you connect them with Y connection, two regular 6 pin to one 8 pin
- third, you go to second Y connection, one 8 pin to one 6 and one 8 pin that go to the GPU.

That way, if 8 pin on GPU is asking for 9 amps and 6 pin only 3 amps, the connections on the motherboard are gonna give 6 amps each, and non will trigger shut down of your Mac.

I'm planning to get this GTX980, but I hear different stories about it. Theophany (in this thread) have a 980 that works perfectly, but you had a bad experience with it. What was the biggest issue with the GTX980ti for you? Could it be that he's got a 4.1 flashed to 5.1 with only one CPU while you got a totally different system?
I had 980 but Theophany has 980ti.
My 980 didn't have too many glitches in macOS. There was occasional toolbar bug (the part of it goes black for a few seconds) and I had unaccelerated GUI for almost a minute after I let my Mac idle for I while. The second one was a bit irritating.

The main problem was that, besides DAW's, I'm heavy FCPX user and GTX980 was idling in FCPX.
The main reason that BruceX doesn't mean to me much anymore :D is GTX 980 that had few seconds worse time than R9 280X but it was hell to work with. I mean, all of the effects I was using were rendered by CPU only and it was really bad experience overall. GTX 680 is a slow exporter™ in FCPX, but during timeline edits and background renderings is actually quite nice GPU to work with (not like R9 280X but nice).

If I was comfortable in Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve as I am in FCPX, I would definitely go with nVidia since it is definitely cooler and stronger card with much better power management if you have multi monitor setup.
 
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rahaney

macrumors newbie
May 18, 2014
27
0
Evga 980ti hybrid o/c 1450MHz (radiator fan turned 180 degrees) running from a corsair RMX550 (silent) with a red lighted psu switch from eBay - max temp under load 60 degrees in win7 gaming.

Actually just chucked my 680mac edn back in for the bootscreen but was fine without it (unless I updated like an idiot).
 

itdk92

macrumors 6502a
Nov 14, 2016
504
180
Copenhagen, Denmark
- All normal GTX 980 Ti with one 6 pin and one 8 pin power connector (except e.g. OC variants like EVGA Classified), and all GTX Titan X (Maxwell) -> No problem with internal PSU, just one 6 to 8 pin and one 6 to 6 pin power cable needed. I'm using a GTX Titan X without issues in this way since one year. Max power consumption is around 230 Watt.

Although the GTX 1080 Ti has the same official power consumption as the GTX 980 Ti, both 250 Watt, the GTX 1080 Ti needs more power and is unsuitable for the internal PSU.

The picture clearly shows the GTX 1080 Ti drawing more power than GTX 980 Ti:
View attachment 716260

No.

980Ti and Titan GPUs might work without extra power cables in case of software not taking full advantage of the GPU.

Talking about safety, all of these cards require extra power from SATA, external PSU or Pixlas Mod.

Under stress, these GPUS will reach 250+W, and it is unadequate to power their 8 pin with the cMP's mini6 pin, for reasons explained throughout this forum over and over, and per cMP's specs.

When powered correctly, they all work perfectly, including dual- and triple 1080Ti or Titan Xp.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
No.

980Ti and Titan GPUs might work without extra power cables in case of software not taking full advantage of the GPU.

Talking about safety, all of these cards require extra power from SATA, external PSU or Pixlas Mod.

Under stress, these GPUS will reach 250+W, and it is unadequate to power their 8 pin with the cMP's mini6 pin, for reasons explained throughout this forum over and over, and per cMP's specs.

When powered correctly, they all work perfectly, including dual- and triple 1080Ti or Titan Xp.

I personally won't consider Pixlas is a "safe" recommendation. We don't even know what the actual limit is. It's way outside Apple's official recommendation. Officially, any hardware mod are unsafe. But we know is that just work.

Not a big difference then pulling 100W from the mini 6pin. It's hard to call it safe. But we know it works.
 
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