Quadro Card Mac Pro

mitoman212 · Aug 13, 2012

Does the Quadro 600 work in the Mac pro?

I'm looking for a GPU that supports 10 bit output. I'd be using the 10 bit feature in windows since I have come to the understanding that it is not supported by OS X.

However I would like to be able to use the card to run both OS.

This would be used in a Mac Pro 1.1 and mostly to run CS6 for photography work.

Thanks guys!

thekev · Aug 13, 2012

You definitely wouldn't have boot screens. As you mentioned, Apple doesn't support this. NVidia got it running on 1 or 2 cards during Leopard, but it has been broken since SL. Even under Windows, not all applications will write to it in 10 bit per channel mode. The card/driver would need to be supported under the applications you wish to run. It will probably be fine under bootcamp. As for Apple, my earliest prediction for such support is 2014-2015. When thunderbolt fully supports Displayport 1.2 protocols, you may see such support from Apple. Until then any extra graphics power will go toward rendering a shinier desktop

.

mitoman212 · Aug 13, 2012

thekev said:
You definitely wouldn't have boot screens. As you mentioned, Apple doesn't support this. NVidia got it running on 1 or 2 cards during Leopard, but it has been broken since SL. Even under Windows, not all applications will write to it in 10 bit per channel mode. The card/driver would need to be supported under the applications you wish to run. It will probably be fine under bootcamp. As for Apple, my earliest prediction for such support is 2014-2015. When thunderbolt fully supports Displayport 1.2 protocols, you may see such support from Apple. Until then any extra graphics power will go toward rendering a shinier desktop.

I don't mind not having boot screens, I just want to know if this card would run osx at all.

thekev · Aug 13, 2012

mitoman212 said:
I don't mind not having boot screens, I just want to know if this card would run osx at all.

Oh you should ask macvidcards on here. He is more likely to know than anyone else. I recall many of them were working without boot screens, but I haven't tested them personally and I'm not sure with the 600 out of the box.

derbothaus · Aug 13, 2012

We talking Quadro 6000 or GTX 600 series? I'm not too sure there is a Quadro 600 series. If it is quadro anything you are paying top dollar for the drivers more so than the HW and for OS X they don't exist in a final state. Macvidcards, again, keeps up with all these fast changing landscapes.

strausd · Aug 13, 2012

derbothaus said:
We talking Quadro 6000 or GTX 600 series? I'm not too sure there is a Quadro 600 series. If it is quadro anything you are paying top dollar for the drivers more so than the HW and for OS X they don't exist in a final state. Macvidcards, again, keeps up with all these fast changing landscapes.

Quadro 600 is their entry level workstation card. Totally separate from their consumer 600 series and their Quadro 6000, which is their top of the line workstation card.

It provides absolutely great Maya performance for the money, on Windows at least. Haven't tried on OS X.

mitoman212 · Aug 13, 2012

strausd said:
Quadro 600 is their entry level workstation card. Totally separate from their consumer 600 series and their Quadro 6000, which is their top of the line workstation card.

It provides absolutely great Maya performance for the money, on Windows at least. Haven't tried on OS X.

Yes this is the card that I am talking about. I want to be able to use it in OS X and boot into windows for 10 bit support.

I know the Geforce cards work but I am under the impression that the quadro cards use a different drivers.

If there is a firepro card that can do this I am interested.

666sheep · Aug 13, 2012

mitoman212 said:
I know the Geforce cards work but I am under the impression that the quadro cards use a different drivers.

If there is a firepro card that can do this I am interested.

Some people got Quadro 600 running in Hacks and IIRC in MPs too -> do some research and you'll find apropriate threads. They used "magic" drivers from Nvidia. FirePro cards are no go in OS X.

derbothaus · Aug 14, 2012

strausd said:
Quadro 600 is their entry level workstation card. Totally separate from their consumer 600 series and their Quadro 6000, which is their top of the line workstation card.

It provides absolutely great Maya performance for the money, on Windows at least. Haven't tried on OS X.

Thanks for the info. Obviously have not looked at lower space for a while

I had no idea they cared for Quadro in consumer space.

MacVidCards · Aug 14, 2012

As much as people would like to believe that Quadro cards get their own private SPECIAL drivers, they don't. At least not in OSX.

They work with the same hum drum drivers that all of the other Nvidia cards use. The drivers are now designed in a "wild card" fashion, i.e. they try to make them work with ALL Nvidia cards from recent years.

I don't personally know of anyone running a 600 but the 6000s work pretty well.

So, more than likely just installing the "magic drivers" in Lion or simply runnning ML will make this card work. As far as 10 bit output, remember what I said about "no special drivers". So I doubt it will work, but be the trail blazer and post what happens, please.

strausd · Aug 14, 2012

mitoman212 said:
Yes this is the card that I am talking about. I want to be able to use it in OS X and boot into windows for 10 bit support.

I know the Geforce cards work but I am under the impression that the quadro cards use a different drivers.

If there is a firepro card that can do this I am interested.

It is a bit more complicated than just different drivers. Workstation cards are certified for specific applications. And that leads to applications being highly optimized for those applications. People who say it is just drivers only say that because they want to feel better about their consumer card purchase and they don't understand how professional GPUs work.

If you buy a $700 consumer card and a $700 workstation card for certified applications, in no instance will the consumer card even come close in performance. In Maya, a $150 workstation card will yield better performance than even a $700 consumer card.

And just a quick note, when I am talking about workstation cards I am talking about them when being used under Windows. OS X has awful third party GPU support, whether they are consumer cards or workstation cards.

derbothaus said:
Thanks for the info. Obviously have not looked at lower space for a while
I had no idea they cared for Quadro in consumer space.

Both AMD and NVIDIA have low-end workstation cards. The Firepro equivalent to the Quadro 600 is the V4900 I believe. No CUDA obviously, but it does perform a little better in Maya than the Quadro.

MacVidCards · Aug 14, 2012

strausd said:
It is a bit more complicated than just different drivers. Workstation cards are certified for specific applications. And that leads to applications being highly optimized for those applications. People who say it is just drivers only say that because they want to feel better about their consumer card purchase and they don't understand how professional GPUs work.

If you buy a $700 consumer card and a $700 workstation card for certified applications, in no instance will the consumer card even come close in performance. In Maya, a $150 workstation card will yield better performance than even a $700 consumer card.

And just a quick note, when I am talking about workstation cards I am talking about them when being used under Windows. OS X has awful third party GPU support, whether they are consumer cards or workstation cards.

Both AMD and NVIDIA have low-end workstation cards. The Firepro equivalent to the Quadro 600 is the V4900 I believe. No CUDA obviously, but it does perform a little better in Maya than the Quadro.

Great Windows advice that would be better received in a Windows forum. Sadly, this has nothing (ZERO) to do with what the OP opened this thread about.

The OP asked about OSX, so I stand by my first sentence.

"As much as people would like to believe that Quadro cards get their own private SPECIAL drivers, they don't. At least not in OSX."

strausd · Aug 14, 2012

MacVidCards said:
Great Windows advice that would be better received in a Windows forum. Sadly, this has nothing (ZERO) to do with what the OP opened this thread about.

The OP asked about OSX, so I stand by my first sentence.

"As much as people would like to believe that Quadro cards get their own private SPECIAL drivers, they don't. At least not in OSX."

Sorry, didn't know that adding additional detail was a mortal sin in MacRumors land.

benherron · Nov 17, 2012

I have a quadro 600 working on my Mac Pro 1,1 as of 10.7.5. Mac side works fine so far, yet to try bootcamp on 10.7.5 but was working ok before.
(Small issue of driver clashing with the og 7300gt but I won't be needing that now so not an issue anymore.

)

Used mine for animation rendering in my final year project at uni and was very reliable (if not the quickest GPU with Cuda - reliability was more important), used 24/7 for 3 weeks and didn't miss a beat. So happy I can now use it on the mac side, saves me buying a ati to boot on both sides.

hjuser · Sep 18, 2013

would be interested to know how you got it to work.
I have a PNY quadro 600 and they dont supply a mac version of the driver. I couldnt find any on nvidia site too.

benherron said:
I have a quadro 600 working on my Mac Pro 1,1 as of 10.7.5. Mac side works fine so far, yet to try bootcamp on 10.7.5 but was working ok before.
(Small issue of driver clashing with the og 7300gt but I won't be needing that now so not an issue anymore. )

Used mine for animation rendering in my final year project at uni and was very reliable (if not the quickest GPU with Cuda - reliability was more important), used 24/7 for 3 weeks and didn't miss a beat. So happy I can now use it on the mac side, saves me buying a ati to boot on both sides.

Macman45 · Sep 18, 2013

There is a little fix for boot screens but only for Mac cards..cards that have not been flashed or are not supported won't show an EFI screen at all.

refind is the tweak:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/installing.html

We've used it on our Hex MP and it works fine.

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