NVidia GTX 780 in a Mac Pro?

I have a 2010 Mac Pro that I just bought. It currently has an ATI Radeon 5770 graphics card with 1GB DDR5 vram. I am looking to buyt the best gaming card I can buy for this machine. I am running Windows 7 installed with bootcamp for gaming. Due to power supply restrictions and possibly other hardware restrictions of Cards and the Mac Pro, I need input on which cards will work. I would like to use the NVidia GTX 780, 690, or ATI Radeon 7970. Or other?
Thanks in advance.

It seems the warranty is no longer valid after you do any kind of power modification to Apple hardware, so I am not recommending this merely sharing some knowledge. I spent some time researching and testing solutions before I settled on the following to get the GTX 780 running in both OSX 10.8.4 and Windows 7 64 on a 2010 Mac Pro.
Avoid 6-8 pin adapters these are a bad fix, you might get enough power to start the machine but as soon as you start any serious use of the GPU the power supply will shut off because of the demand for more power than it can safely provide.
WARNING if you don't understand how this is done then don't attempt to do it. Anyone who understands how the power system operates should have no problem understanding and performing this.
Many people believe an external supply is the only solution, however if you are only adding one card then there is a simple solution if you can bare a small compromise.
I don't really use optical drives and when I need to I have external usb versions. So i removed the optical drive and made a wiring harness which would tap off the required rails from the optical drive power cable. This harness feeds the 6-pin input connector on the GTX 780. The two 6-pin cables from the Mac Pro backplane then feed the dual 6-pin to 8-pin adapter which ships with the GTX 780 which in turn plugs into the 8-pin connector on the GTX 780.
Once this is done the power requirements don't seem to exceed the Mac Pro power supply limits and all those CUDA cores can get busy. The fan noise is low even when pushed, the temperature has not exceeded what I would expect and the performance increase is excellent.
Of course anyone wanting an SLI based power solution will probably need to add a power supply, of the research I did the internal variants seemed the way to go, having a much cleaner and safer install.
Hope this helps, after spending so much time on this, it seemed worth writing down.....
Cheers
John

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Is it possible to put the new nVidia GTX 480 in the Mac Pro

I'm planning on creating the ultimate gaming machine, but also want the best operating system. So I have decided that my next computer will be the Mac Pro and will have the new nVidia GTX 480 (if it works). The Windows partition would be used for heavy gaming with DX 11 and PhysX technology. While on the OSX partition I could use the greatest operating system, to do general things like Movie Making, Picture Editing, Web Surfing, Emailing etc.
So all in all, is it possible to install a GTX 480 on OSX? I know it'll work with the windows partition, but not sure about OSX. I'm also unsure about the hardware side of things, but that's why I'm asking!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again,
Mike

If you don't need dual processor, PC with 980X Gulftown makes sense.
Forget over clocking a Mac, but if you need dual processor, the Mac Pro makes sense but expect to pay. Otherwise, take a look at
EVGA Classified SR-2 (Super Record 2) 270-WS-W555-A1
http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=5
Apple has not had good Nvidia drivers. And right now there are two 6-pin, and you need 6 + 8 and stick with Windows 7 and ability to do SLI. I laugh when people talk about "windoz" (rude) being somehow less or 'inferior' having seen the best - and worst - of both (never got caught up in 95/98/NT/XP so spoiled by only knowing Vista/7). I still think 10.6 hasn't quite caught up to 7 in areas that really matter, like threading, multicore, efficient use of memory.
Forget using more than one, Apple likes graphic cards that are low power, low end, and only supporting one high end card.
The GTX 480 @ $499, and if Apple offered it, it would be $549 or more (Apple 'tax' for smaller market and having to do their own drivers). And it would be much later before optimized drivers (maybe next year this time at best).
While you can go water and add custom fans and cooling, the Mac is much more of a "closed" box in many ways beyond RAM and hard drives and +very limited+ selection of graphics.
That really is my honest assessment.
The place where Mac Pro is easier, you can install 32-64GB RAM without trouble and not have to worry about compatibility or PSU issues. I'm always surprised by all the memory testing and supported and problems PC owners go through (I don't think Cruical Ballistix gets enough credit).
DX11 will still take time. Adobe showed how GPGPU/CUDA could benefit, but Apple and Adobe apps have always tended to favor ATI which is just beginning to get into OpenCL technology ... and the 5000 series may find Nvidia Fermi, while it took longer, runs hot and power requirement, could be better poised down the road too.
A single socket Mac Pro 3.3GHz or even stock (same as 920) will do the job you want.
Apple Mac Pro Specials (refurb dept)
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro
Are a good selection and place to shop. My the time Gulftown + GTX480 and all the rest is out and ready could be more than a few months.

Is it possible to install Nvidia Titan Z card in Mac Pro Mid 2010 ?

Hello
I would like to now i if change pci-express power supply cables on mac motherboard from 2x 6pin to 2x8pin would it be possible to install Nvidia Titan Z card in Mac Pro Mid 2010 ?

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NVidia GeForce 8800 GT *and* GeForce GTX 285 in a Mac Pro?

Hi,
my Mac Pro came with an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT, and I've now bought an extra GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition (for the Compute Level 1.3 double precision floating point capability in CUDA).
(Everything bought from the Mac Store)
I wasn't aware that I was expected to throw away the GeForce 8800 GT , what with the other three PCI-e slots being free.
The GTX 285 (max requirement: 204 W) requires two extra PCI-e power connectors. The 8800 GT (max: 110 W) uses one. There are only two available from the motherboard though.
So, *although I realize this isn't supported*, has anyone else managed to scrounge some current from somewhere else on the motherboard?
I'm only using one hard drive and one optical drive and no other PCI-e cards. Surely the power supply (around 1000 W ?) can supply the extra?
Does anyone know how much current the PCI-e extra power connectors are rated for?
Thanks,
colin

Search long enough and you may find...
According to this
http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#pciexpress
The PCI-e slot can supply up to 75 W, whilst a 6 pin cable can provide another 75 W.
So:
2 PCI-e slots + 2 auxiliary 6-pin connector = 300 W
"Even with only two 12 volt lines the standard implementation of PCI Express power cables use large enough gauge wire and a good enough connector to provide much more than the three amps per wire required to provide 75 watts. Nonetheless, the 6 pin PCI Express power cable officially provides only 75 watts. *In all likelihood, however, real implementations of this power cable can provide far more than 75 watts.* "
Hmmm

Compatibility of Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti for Premiere Pro

Hi,
I am upgrading my workstation and plan to buy a good quality graphic card which will support smooth editing of 1080p footage and some after effects rendering.
I chose GTX 780 Ti but unfortunately in the compatibility list provided by Adobe, only GTX 780 is supported. So if GTX 780 Ti is used, can I use the Mercury Playback Engine and take full advantage of the graphic card?
Also is my select correct? I was at first confused selecting between Nvidia Quadro K4200 and GTX 780 Ti. I will not be using Maya or 3D Max. Only Premiere Pro, After Effects and sometimes Da Vinci Resolve will be used.
Thanks,
Srijit

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Running 2 Nvidia GTX470's in a Mac Pro ?

Hello,
I recently acquired TWO Nvidia GTX470's as a gift. I would like to run in a new Mac Pro 8-core 2.4Ghz Westmere (2010). I would like to do this in order to switch easily between AE, Nuke, etc. and Davinci Resolve, so one would be attached to the monitors and power Adobe's 64bit Mercury engine and the other would just be there to give CUDA support for the Davinci. Obviously there are a few issues.
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1) Since the GTX 470's need 2 power cables (6 pin) can I run off of the Molex connectors in the optical bay (not sure how many are there) and evenly distribute the load by using 1 connector from the motherboard and the other from the Molex for each card?
The Mac Pro comes with two power adapters. So that limits you to one card. The only way you could power the other card is with an additional PSU. I've seen posts where this has been done. Attempting to split the power adapters to drive both cards will exceed the power capacity of the mac pro's power supply.
2) I have heard the 2010 Mac Pro's have the capacity for 2 PCIe x16 slots and that unlike previous generations these can be any 2 slots you chose. This would be ideal as I would like to put these doublewidth video cards as far apart as possible in order to keep heat down and let the fans do their thing. Can anyone confirm this?
I believe slots 1 and 2 are x16 and slots 3 and 4 are x4.
Relating to the issues of both power and slots you might want to read this apple discussions thread.
3) If I am forced to provide an additional power supply (even though the Mac Pro PSU is 1000w and should technically be able to handle this additional video card) what would be recommended? I have heard the visiontek/epower 450w unit (which fits into an optical bay) is quite awful and uses substandard parts as well as kicking a lot of heat back into the machine, so is there another alternative which does not require leaving the side door open or drilling holes in my new Mac Pro?
That apple discussions thread I referenced above has some info on what someone was planing on using.

Is it still impossible to run a GTX 570 with a Mac Pro under Lion

I have the GTX 285 Mac Edition and it's running fine.
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The premise is, that it will run with Lion and bootcamp Win7 ... without, or very less, hackintosh steps.
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Thx in advance and Greetz
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Hey Bob,
Thanks for the information. My last experience was with VMWare 1 and I don't think this functionality was available then. I downloaded today version 4 and at this point I am running Win 7 within MacOS. Haven't tried rebooting to my bootcamp partition yet or printing or sharing, etc. If it works as advertised though I should be a happy camper.
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Running VMWare as a Mac application I can see it's a bit slower than running in bootcamp, but I expected that.
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My nvidia control panel dissapeared from mac pro

My nvidia control panel dissapeared from early 2008 mac pro running 10.6.7 osx snow leopard with a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT graphics card.I have tried reinstalling the driver from the nvidia website,time machine,and software updates.Nothing seems to bring it back. Solutions anyone?

Hi Jack,
Yes the GT120 will work with the DVI port but the mini-displayport will not function on the card so you'll be limited to using one display. The handy thing with adding a GT120 to a 2008 Xserve is you can use it for compressor if you want to, to render videos.
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Beatle

How to find driver for gtx 285 on my Mac Pro

I installed the new gtx285 card into my 2008 Mac Pro the other day (everything is fine) and then I saw a new driver on the internet, but I can't find which graphics card driver I am currently using on my Mac.
I looked in system profiler but had no luck.
Can anyone please advise me on how to check driver versions on a Mac and if there is anything like an Nvidia preferences window that allows me to check the card settings?
Also, there is a CUDA driver listed also that should be installed after the nvidia driver. Does anyone have any information about this cuda driver and whether it needs to be installed?
Thanks.

Did you install the drive CD that was with the 285? The version should be written on the CD. The one online from evga is 2F16.
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Leopard/nVidia 7300 issue on my mac pro?

My Mac Pro running Leopard and a Nvidia 7300 refuses to run pixel & vertex shaders in Halo. I'm not sure why... it just quits if you try to run it with those settings.

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If I install a new NVidia PC card on my Mac Pro will I be able to choose between Boot Camp and OS X during startup?

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Will the lack of EFI prevent me from choosing which OS to boot into (due to no bootup screen)?
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Thank you! Great advice.
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NVidia GTX 780 Ti faster than GTX Titan

Today the GTX 780 Ti GPU is available starting at $699 and it is faster than the $1000 GTX Titan. We do not have any test results but all specifications point to it being faster. It has faster memory and more CUDA cores. The only difference is that the GTX Titan has 6 GB of video RAM while the GTX 780 Ti has 3 GB. Unless the media you are editing is higher than 4K, 3 GB of video RAM should be enough (see Harms data).
Will someone please move this to the hardware forum, I must have been dozing off Bill

The 3770k will be a great match for a single 780ti.
Maybe on an absolute scale. But in my previous post in this thread I compared to the PPBM6 results Harm's Monster achieved. (And granted, Harm's Monster was equipped with a GTX 680 when he tested it.) Thus, if my i7-3770K was 2.5x slower than Harm's Monster in the H.264 Blu-ray portion of the PPBM6 test suite (259 seconds versus 115 seconds), then the MPEG-2 DVD result should also be about 2.5x slower than Harm's Monster (in other words, a result of about 52 seconds compared to the 23-second result of Harm's Monster). However, since Harm's Monster used a GTX 680 to achieve those results at the time he tested it, it follows that the recommended GPU for my system to achieve that particular balance would have been a plain, non-Boost GTX 650 Ti.
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Message was edited by: RjL190365

Nvidia GTX 780 Ti or GTX 980 (AE CS6)

I'm building a pc to work with After Effects CS6. I do not know which is better between these two cards. The GTX 780 Ti has more cuda cores, 384bit, less clock speed. The GTX 980 has less CUDA cores, 256-bit, more clock speed, lower power consumption, and the new Maxwell.
Which card works best with AE CS6? And compatibility with AE CS6?
I would not want the GTX 980 is a good card for gaming and not for After Effects CS6, while the gtx 780 Ti is very good choice per work with CS6.
Thanks.

After Effects uses the GPU for almost nothing.
If GFX cards don't make a difference, but you are considering exploring raytracing someday, with either Element 3D plugin or just built in AE raytracing. A Gaming card will benefit you massively. So you might as well go for it, then you at least have the option.
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And hell if you don't explore it, at least your gaming experience will be AWESOME.

Mercury CUDA not enabling when using NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 on Apple Mac Pro after Mavericks install

Been using the same setup since CS5 with the Mercury CUDA running perfectly. After recent upgrade of OS X to 10.9 Mercury CUDA is no longer available and only lets me run with the OpenGL or software options. Im using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 for apple computers. Here are the results for the GPUSniffer program in the latest Premiere Pro 7.1.0 files. The LAST line make me chucle because it the first on the list of supported card in the "cuda_supported_cards.txt" file. Anybody else seen this?
--- OpenGL Info ---
Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 OpenGL Engine
OpenGL Version: 2.1 NVIDIA-8.18.27 310.40.05f01
GLSL Version: 1.20
Monitors: 1
Monitor 0 properties -
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   Max texture size: 8192
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   Shaders 444: 1
   Shaders 422: 1
   Shaders 420: 1
--- GPU Computation Info ---
Found 1 devices supporting GPU computation.
OpenCL Device 0 -
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found a link from a couple of days ago on a creative cow forum post one of the poster saying they are from adobe stating this
Re: Mercury Playback Engine MacPro
by Peter Garaway on Nov 12, 2013 at 9:49:16 am
Hi Wendell,
Sorry for the inconvenience. NVIDIA is currently working on drivers that support CUDA on Mavericks 10.9 with some of the older NVIDIA cards such as the GTX 285 and the Quadro 4800.
For others interested, the Quadro 4000, K5000 and GTX 680 ect... work with CUDA in 10.9.
Best,
Peter Garaway
Adobe
Premiere Pro
I have latest CUDA drivers, so i guess i am just waiting till a proper update that have the fixes to support my card.

Can i use my GPU NVIDIA GTX 980 with Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014 ?

Hello,
Sorry for my english , i'm french.
I need your help because when i read a video in 4K , it's not fluid.
I have a GTX 980 and 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7 3770.

Bonjour Gauthier,
I need your help because when i read a video in 4K , it's not fluid.
I have a GTX 980 and 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7 3770.
Check your Project Settings > General. Under Video Rendering and Playback > Renderer, is it set to "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)?" If not, enable it, and then see if your performance improves.
Thanks,
Kevin

NVidia GTX 780 in a Mac Pro?

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