Video Card Upgrade: AMD 7950 vs NVidia 670?

[handheldgames]

Greetings,

With recent upgrades to Xcode, my AMD powered 6870 is starting to show its age and I'm looking up upgrade a 2009 Mac Pro. I've been looking for any relevant benchmarks, feedback or comparisons for on desktop /app performance of these cards on OS X 10.8.3.

The 7950, seems to be the best fit for the Pro: at $300 usd, it's about 100 cheaper than the 670, most feature 2x6 pin power connectors, standard with 3gb or ram, and has 2x mini display ports for my 2 30" displays.

The 670 seems to benefit from CUDA in photoshop, which is the only app I will see a CUDA performance gain from. Some feature 2x6 power connectors and anything over 2gb ram requires an easy hack to enable. NVidia parts seem to feature display port vs mini display port.

My biggest need is app performance. Which I guess would've open CL for apple media apps. Not sure of Xcode leverages open CL. I just need fast UI on a 30" 2560x1600 display or two.

Any thoughts or experiences?

(I know the 7950 support is early and MAY be pulled. I took the same gamble with the 6870)

 

[nigelbb]

Photoshop uses OpenCL not CUDA. The best performing card for CUDA & OpenCL is GTX570. I bought an MSI Twin Frozr II GTX570 & the performance is 2X CUDA & 3X OpenCL of the GTX285 it replaced. I got the card used off eBay for just £125 (about $150) & it has been a really worthwhile performance boost for my work on Premiere Pro & Photoshop.

 

[violst]

Photoshop uses OpenCL not CUDA.

nigelbb is right Photoshop does not take advantage of CUDA it uses OpenCL.

The Nvidia 570 is a better card for pro app users and the 670 is better for gamers, so I have been told.

The new release of OSX 10.8.3 will have support for the 7970 I'm not sure if it has support for the 7950?

thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1505726/

 

[handheldgames]

The 7950 does indeed work and its performance is in line with the 670 with power consumption much less than the 7970.

 

[violst]

This being the original AMD 7xxx thread, I thought it would be informative to note that an HIS brand 7950 works A-OK with 10.8.3 Beta.

You are correct. That is good news. And much better power consumption.
Something to look forward to.