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Video card Advice for Mac Pro 2010

M

Mista Rich

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 2, 2014
2
0
Anybody recommend a decent video card for my quad 2.8 2010 Mac Pro? I really just want HDMI capability and maybe something worth playing games with and very minor video editing. Looking for something not terribly expensive either. I suppose a mini display port to HDMI adapter could suit me well but I like the idea of upgrading the stock card. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and consideration!

Rich
 
Thanks for your reply. I'm thinking 200-300 range and the Radeon 7950 looks appealing and is only a little more then what I was planning on spending. Thanks again I'm gonna do a little more research.
 
Mista Rich said:
Thanks for your reply. I'm thinking 200-300 range and the Radeon 7950 looks appealing and is only a little more then what I was planning on spending. Thanks again I'm gonna do a little more research.
Click to expand...

Have a look at the GTX 680 then ;)
Do you need bootscreens?

If so, you are able to flash the GTX 680 yourself. So you could get a used GTX 680 for like 150-200$ and flash it yourself and have a really nice card.

It's also abit stronger then the 7950 too IIRC.
 
You can also get a used 280x for under $200, which is better than the 7950. I bought one a couple of weeks ago for $160, and I see them on Craigslist for around that much from time to time.
 
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I am also happy with my MSI R9 280X 3GB.

I tried a XFX 280X first, but that didn't give me any picture, while the MSI worked straight out of the box (wihtout boot screen of course).

I like the performance of the AMDs in apps like FCPX and DaVinci Resolve (now that DaVinci is fully OpenCL as well as CUDA). I feel pretty safe knowing that AMD is what Apple uses and if there are any optimizations I think AMD cards are in a good spot.

Nvidia's card are very popular on this forum. But don't quite see their populatiry reflected in real world performance (I don't do games). The new GTX 980 gets beaten by the alreay old R9 290X, BUT it is more enery efficient.

If you do Octane rendering, well, then you need CUDA. But both Maxwell and Arnold are CPU based anyway.
 
You might be able to snag a GTX780 Mac version off ebay like I did for $320. Best purchase after 2 x5680 CPU upgrade for MP2010. I think that will be the last upgrade ever on this machine. Next machine is is rMBP.
 
AndreeOnline said:
I am also happy with my MSI R9 280X 3GB.

I tried a XFX 280X first, but that didn't give me any picture, while the MSI worked straight out of the box (wihtout boot screen of course).

I like the performance of the AMDs in apps like FCPX and DaVinci Resolve (now that DaVinci is fully OpenCL as well as CUDA). I feel pretty safe knowing that AMD is what Apple uses and if there are any optimizations I think AMD cards are in a good spot.

Nvidia's card are very popular on this forum. But don't quite see their populatiry reflected in real world performance (I don't do games). The new GTX 980 gets beaten by the alreay old R9 290X, BUT it is more enery efficient.

If you do Octane rendering, well, then you need CUDA. But both Maxwell and Arnold are CPU based anyway.
Click to expand...

Unflashed it is pci 1.0 though
 
Pending said:
Unflashed it is pci 1.0 though
Click to expand...

Flashing won't help with that, but soldering a resistor will. But as I have come to understand it, it won't make much of a practical difference.

PCI 1 gives you 4 GB/s and PCI 2 8 GB/s, assuming x16 lanes. Actual benchmarks would be interesting. Fixing the resistor seems like a non issue.
 
AndreeOnline said:
Flashing won't help with that, but soldering a resistor will. But as I have come to understand it, it won't make much of a practical difference.

PCI 1 gives you 4 GB/s and PCI 2 8 GB/s, assuming x16 lanes. Actual benchmarks would be interesting. Fixing the resistor seems like a non issue.
Click to expand...

Yes flashed and resistor for decent compatibility/performance.
Going forward as we all embrace higher resolutions within different work PCI 1.0 may not be enough for some, as I understand.
 
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Mista Rich said:
Anybody recommend a decent video card for my quad 2.8 2010 Mac Pro? I really just want HDMI capability and maybe something worth playing games with and very minor video editing. Looking for something not terribly expensive either. I suppose a mini display port to HDMI adapter could suit me well but I like the idea of upgrading the stock card. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and consideration!

Rich
Click to expand...

I got a GTX 960 2GB by MSI and not planning on replacing it until my monitor dies and get a 4K monitor, at that point I'd be interested in 4K video cards with flashed EFI $600 range?

My current 960 is silent, no EFI screen, only turns on the fans whenever it needs to (rarely), check my thread on it, got it from my local Fry's for around $200 and they have a 30 day return policy FYI https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1857356/
 
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