Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Which GTX 570? MacVidCards or Stock?

M

mazuma

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2005
51
0
I have a early 2008 mac pro. I've been wanting to get a new video card for awhile. Like everybody, I've been waiting to see if any new updates happen. But, like everybody who knows when and now I'm not sure I will even get one when the come out. In the meanwhile I think I'm going to go for a new card for the mac I have.

My question is, what is the difference between a GTX 570 from an internet retailer or going through MacVidCards. It looks to be about a $200 price difference. MacVidCards being the higher of the two. I'm kinda confused as to what the benefits are? The main difference I'm reading is MacVidCards will show the boot screen. Is there something I'm not comprehending that justifies the extra spend? It seems like both will work with the new drivers and what not, but before I do anything I want to make sure I make the right decision.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.
 
MacVidcard replyed to another thread claiming that they modify the GTX 570 for a Mac so that the card utilizes its full potential which is 2 x the speed than if you just bought the card unmodified. The extra $200 seems justified to me. Although I can't find the GtX 570 on there website which bums me out as I was really interested in buying one from them.
 
wildgiles said:
MacVidcard replyed to another thread claiming that they modify the GTX 570 for a Mac so that the card utilizes its full potential which is 2 x the speed than if you just bought the card unmodified. The extra $200 seems justified to me. Although I can't find the GtX 570 on there website which bums me out as I was really interested in buying one from them.
Click to expand...

To be fair, PCIe Gen 1 versus Gen 2 is not going to translate into a 2x performance increase. Yes, the bus bandwidth will be doubled from 2.5 GT/s to 5.0 GT/s (which ends up being effectively ~2GB/s to ~4GB/s) but most apps aren't limited by PCIe bus transfers.
 
It was difficult to find a direct comparison of PCIE 1.0 to PCIE 2.0 since the tech update was in 2008 and everything else has moved on.

So the test was done with the best GPUs of 2008.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2.0,1915.html

"From this standpoint, we clearly recommend PCIe 2.0 to anyone, because it has no disadvantages.

But is PCIe 2.0 really necessary yet? As long as a graphics solution can operate with data that is stored within its local video frame buffer memory, both the reasonably mainstream Radeon HD 3850 and the hardcore GeForce 9800 GX2 will operate close to their maximum performance, even if the PCI Express link width is limited to x8 or x4. Once larger textures need to be accessed, as is the case in Crysis or Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X, interface bandwidth becomes a crucial element. Any link width below x16 will noticeably limit these games’ playability."

PCIE 2.0 8 lanes = PCIE 1.0 16 lanes

So, only if you are doing high bandwidth transfers or loading lots of complicated textures will you see a large difference. I would imagine that this would include GPU CUDA stuff, but YMMV.

The above tests only found a big difference when used with Crysis and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

They were testing with ATI 3850 and Nvidia 9800GX2, I would imagine that progress has been made with GTX570 and other modern cards over the bandwidth needs of cards in 2008. But perhaps not.

The markup is nowhere near $200, but I would much rather that you buy the card and send it to me, as jasonvp did. Most people like having a card that makes the screen pop up the second you hit the power button. If you don't mind waiting, any PC GTX570 will work. You should just keep an EFI card somewhere handy, should you ever need to install system software, or troubleshoot OS issues, a non-EFI card will NEVER fire the screen up.

SO feel free to buy your 570 from Newegg or TigerDirect or whoever. If you find that your needs include a boot screen and/or high bandwidth transfers, get in touch.
 
Last edited:
Asgorath said:
To be fair, PCIe Gen 1 versus Gen 2 is not going to translate into a 2x performance increase.
Click to expand...

Yeah, to be clear, I should've said "in general". It's not like every app or game is going to magically get twice as fast just by running at PCIe 2.0 speeds, though there are definitely workloads where it will make a difference.
 
Ve3tro said:
How about people in the UK? I've got a 580 that only needs mods.
Click to expand...

The shipping would be $45 instead of $25. And if I get charged Customs when you send it here, I would have to pass that on.But I have never once been charged Customs when something sent here.

noelister said:
MVC,

Would a modified 570 still work in a PC?
Click to expand...

Yes, like every Mac EFI card (with exception of X1900 and X1300) the way the EFI works is that it NEEDS a PC BIOS as second half. So cards, by the nature of how they work, will work in PC or in Bootcamp.

Best part is that only cards from Apple or from us work in Bootcamp at PCIE 2.0. Most of the other flashed cards will run in Windows at lower PCIE 1.0 speed.
 
Hey guys, thanks for the info. Btw, I re-read my original post. I didn't mean that I thought your price was unfair. I just didn't understand the speed difference. Which, is something to def consider if going through the trouble of getting a new card in the first place. I only did a quick search on newegg and saw their price and then checked your ebay site. Which may not even be apples to apples on the exact card specs.

If I end up getting one, I will more than likely order through you. I like stuff to just work. If I buy one from your ebay store which one do you recommend for adobe photoshop/illustrator/indesign and the occasional Blizzard game? Thanks again.
 
I am interested too. Since I just joined MacRumors, I have no PM functionality.

I tested a Quadro 4000. It wasn't too bad. I was set on keeping it but catching this thread forced me to return it.

MacVidCards, I'm also a SoCal resident, but I only see your eBay UK account, I am sure you have an eBay.com account somewhere. I cannot find it. Is it better to just buy it from NewEgg and do the mods from there? And which GTX 570? I assume EVGA's GTX-570?
 
Toumak said:
Latest test showing the minor impact of PCI Express on last games with last Top cards :
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/
Click to expand...

I'm assuming that games are much more demanding then using these cards for speeding up Adobe software. If that's correct then the difference between PCIe 1 and 2 won't be noticeable if I don't play games. Even if I did, the newer cards will still be faster then my 4870 on PCIe 1.

My concern is using the 570 in a MP 1.1 (no PCIe 2) vs a MP 3.1. If I've read things right in other threads I can get the 570 to work in a 1.1. It's just not quite as simple as putting it into a 3.1 MP.
 
Greg M said:
I'm assuming that games are much more demanding then using these cards for speeding up Adobe software. If that's correct then the difference between PCIe 1 and 2 won't be noticeable if I don't play games. Even if I did, the newer cards will still be faster then my 4870 on PCIe 1.

My concern is using the 570 in a MP 1.1 (no PCIe 2) vs a MP 3.1. If I've read things right in other threads I can get the 570 to work in a 1.1. It's just not quite as simple as putting it into a 3.1 MP.
Click to expand...

I'm planning on dropping in a 560ti 448 core on my 1,1 pretty soon here. I'm hoping i just install those nvidia god drivers on 10.7.3. and go from there. I have a little more research to do but i'm hoping its painless. Ill probably be using this more in windows anyways.
 
Greg M said:
I'm assuming that games are much more demanding then using these cards for speeding up Adobe software. If that's correct then the difference between PCIe 1 and 2 won't be noticeable if I don't play games. Even if I did, the newer cards will still be faster then my 4870 on PCIe 1.

My concern is using the 570 in a MP 1.1 (no PCIe 2) vs a MP 3.1. If I've read things right in other threads I can get the 570 to work in a 1.1. It's just not quite as simple as putting it into a 3.1 MP.
Click to expand...

The bottleneck of a MP 1.1 is not the PCI-E.

The CPUs will bottleneck the graphic card first.

I had a Quad 3GHz 1.1 Mac Pro with a 4870.
I put a 5870 in it but saw not that much improvement.

When I bought my current MP (2010 quad 3.2GHz), with the same 5870 it was like day&night, perfs went up a lot.

And after that I put a GTX 570, and after that a GTX 580.
Each time giving better perfomances.

Just for the info, the only GPU demanding softwares I use are games under Win7 ;)
 
If Adobe states that this card works with their software (uses cuda) in windows only will the software still access cuda in a Mac?
 
Greg M said:
If Adobe states that this card works with their software (uses cuda) in windows only will the software still access cuda in a Mac?
Click to expand...

You want to give this a read. You can hack other CUDA cards (896MB VRAM minimum, IIRC) to work with MPE by simply modifying a file in TextEdit.

Adobe supports more CUDA cards on the Windows platform only because manufacturer support for those cards actually exists under Windows. The GTX 285 and Quadro 4000 are the only two official cards that met the criteria, thus the only ones actually tested and endorsed by Adobe.
 
Greg M said:
If Adobe states that this card works with their software (uses cuda) in windows only will the software still access cuda in a Mac?
Click to expand...

Yes and I've verified it. In CS5.5, the same text file was distributed with both Windows and Mac versions of the software. In it was the complete list of both PC and Mac nVidia cards, with no notable difference in their names (ie, "GTX 285" would appear, with no note whether it was a PC or Mac version).

The file included "GTX 570" in it, and when I installed the 570 in my Mac Pro, Premiere Pro picked it right up.

The text file included in CS6 has been changed such that the Windows version gets PC-specific cards, and the Mac version gets Mac-specific cards. But you can still edit that text file and add in any other card. The GTX 570 wasn't in the CS6 file for my Mac, but I just added it in and Premiere picked it right up.

jas
 
Thank you. Considering putting together a hackintosh so I wanted to make sure that card would be beneficial for premiere.
 
jasonvp said:
Yes and I've verified it. In CS5.5, the same text file was distributed with both Windows and Mac versions of the software. In it was the complete list of both PC and Mac nVidia cards, with no notable difference in their names (ie, "GTX 285" would appear, with no note whether it was a PC or Mac version).

The file included "GTX 570" in it, and when I installed the 570 in my Mac Pro, Premiere Pro picked it right up.

The text file included in CS6 has been changed such that the Windows version gets PC-specific cards, and the Mac version gets Mac-specific cards. But you can still edit that text file and add in any other card. The GTX 570 wasn't in the CS6 file for my Mac, but I just added it in and Premiere picked it right up.

jas
Click to expand...

Could you please tell me how to add the card to the file?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back