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MP 7,1 Nvidia’s RTX 3090/ 4090/ A6000/ 6000 Ada in a Mac Pro (2019)
- Thread starter Romanesco
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I understand that but given that this 3090 specifically fits perfectly in the Mac Pro and assuming I'm using it for 3D rendering etc... Are the fans loud enough to be annoying?
what can l say is l don't hear the gpu but the fans of the Mac Pro . L think the noose is note incredible for 80% usage for long time (more than 1 hour in continus)
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I installed an RTX 3090 in my system, since sometimes I like to game on my PC (mostly FPS that aren't really suitable for consoles, or games that just aren't available on consoles, like Hades) and I didn't want to have another system just for gaming. With Cyberpunk coming out next month, my W5700X wouldn't cut it and Big Navi seems to have some issues with ray tracing.
Some notes:
- Asus RTX 3090 TUF OC.
- Switched BIOS to Quiet Mode.
- Used a Belkin VR cable. At first it didn't work (black screen). I used a Moshi cable and it worked but without brightness control. I proceeded to shave a few mm off of the display port part of the cable and that made it work (and with brightness control).
- Ran 3D Mark Time Spy and one of the fans of the Mac Pro ramped to 1600 RPM. It's not overly loud, but for someone that prizes silence like me, it's on the verge of intolerable. The fans of the RTX were around 1200RPM and the card was at around 60 celsius.
- Underclocked the RTX as shown here:
- Underclocking the RTX made it cooler, with apparently no performance hit. Now the Mac Pro's fan that went to 1600 RPM only went to 1300RPM. The RTX itself was virtually silent (I turned all fans of the Mac Pro to 600 RPM with Macs Fan Control to hear it)
- I switched the RTX's BIOS to performance mode, reasoning that if the card itself was cooler, the Mac Pro's fans wouldn't ramp up. I was wrong. The RTX was much cooler, its fans ramped much higher, but so did the Mac Pro's.
- I switched back the RTX's BIOS to quiet mode and I used Macs Fan Control to force all fans to around 600 RPM. Everything was silent. The RTX kept the same temperature and the same fan speed as if the Mac Pro's fans were ramping up. I had no performance hit (the 3D Mark screenshot above was taken with the benchmark running in silence).
The system is rock solid. I'm slightly concerned about forcing the fans to 600 RPM, but nothing seems to be overheating according to all the sensors' read outs.
Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks,
Alex
I've been playing a few games, with the fans in auto, and the system is virtually silent.
I just played GTA V in 4k, 60 fps, with most of the settings to the max, and the GPU hovers around 47 celsius. The same for The Witcher 3. I guess this will do for Cyberpunk
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I just played GTA V in 4k, 60 fps, with most of the settings to the max, and the GPU hovers around 47 celsius. The same for The Witcher 3. I guess this will do for Cyberpunk
.I've been playing a few games, with the fans in auto, and the system is virtually silent.
I just played GTA V in 4k, 60 fps, with most of the settings to the max, and the GPU hovers around 47 celsius. The same for The Witcher 3. I guess this will do for Cyberpunk
DO you get a boot screen with Nvidia card?
@aagribeiro Wondering if you found a way to switch between Bootcamp and MacOS without replugging the cable to the Monitor (assuming you are using Pro XDR cause got the Belkin VR cable)
I constantly need to unplug the input from the RTX and MPX modules to the back of the XDr as it only has one thunderbolt
Also is there a reason you installed the card to PCI slot 4 and not 3?
I constantly need to unplug the input from the RTX and MPX modules to the back of the XDr as it only has one thunderbolt
Also is there a reason you installed the card to PCI slot 4 and not 3?
I also have to constantly switch the input of the XDR. It’s just a small hassle.
As for using 4 instead of 3... it’s because I can 😁
I'm also using the Belkin cable in MacOS Big Sur with an Aorus RX5700XT. Previously used a Monoprice bidirectional cable. I also had to trim trim the DP port to get the thing to work. No boot screen, but everything else works including brightness and it powered the USB ports on my monitor. Why would Belkin build a cable that has to be cut to work? Makes no sense to me.
Lou
But 3 has a dedicated connection to the CPU so it could be like a half a percent faster! Slot 3 is its own pool (like slot 1) so its bandwidth is not shared. Pool A and pool B have to go through a PCIe switch and they share some bandwidth with other devices (you have one device in pool A and one device in pool B but pool B also includes all the Thunderbolt controllers in the system - I forget if anything else is in Pool A - need to look at ioreg to find out).
Then again, placing it on slot 4 allows for a better air flow on my system. According to the hundreds of tests I've performed, this results in a 0.51% improvement, largely beating your theoretical measly 0.5%.
I can beat that by making up a larger number - but that way leads to madness! Regarding airflow, I see your point after looking up pictures of the Asus card - it has that same (or similar) flow through design of the Founders Edition cards that push air out the component side which would be greatly impeded by proximity to the W5700X (air flow shown in the picture at https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-3090-in-a-mac-pro-2019.2252358/post-28857018 )
@aagribeiro I personally put it in 3 only becuase I was afraid of sagging as it's a pretty chunky gpu. Have you noticed any sagging at all, or it sits pretty stable in there? If it's stable I'll move mine to 4 to allow for extra airflow as you're saying
This is a very good point. Yes, I noticed sagging, not sure how much. I'll take a look at it today to see if resting it on the W5700X would improve it.
The RTX was sagging significantly (height was 6mm lower at the end of the card). I moved it to slot 3. Temperature and noise is identical.
@aagribeiro How is stability in MacOS? Any crashes? Can the system sleep and/or does the screensaver work?
Yes but when running macOS even with the card not connected there can be stability issues as long as it’s in the case sometimes.
Just tested this. The system crashes on waking from sleep and freezes if the screens are turned off.
Additionally the monitor where the Apple logo shows up on boot is now always my left one (I have a triple monitor setup), independently of where I connect the cables... another weird bug.
Previously my Mac had some sleep issues under Big Sur, which I was able to fix, but on this one I'll have to wait for Apple. They seem to ignore all my feedback on their Feedback Assistant app and additionally they're now busy with all their M1 stuff, so it'll probably be a while if ever before this is fixed.
If it was me, I'd move the RTX to the bottom slot 1. And move the MPX W5700X to slot 3. The MPX module is more structurally secure mounted in a NcMP because of the mounting screws on the left side. This will also allow for more air between the two GPUs. I have remounted my MPX W580X above my RX5700XT for this reason. The 580X is only there to provide a boot screen should I need it.
Lou
I'm having the same issue in MacOS, when it goes to sleep it doens't wake up from that, so I have disabled the computer going to sleep completely. I thought it was just something in my setup, as multiple people have reported they are not experiencing issues with sleep.
If anyone that is not experiencing issues with sleep can share their setup it will be amazing. Maybe the PCI slot and monitor they used. I'm thinking it might also be connected to having an XDR display
Sleep does however work under Windows
Also I really hope they will address your feedback, although I find it unlikely as they don't care about supporting any Nvidia products from breaking the mac, sadly