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Frequently Asked Questions About NVIDIA PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards

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Mohan Rawat

macrumors newbie
Jan 8, 2013
4
0
Asus - ENGTX560TIDC2DI1G5 with mac pro 1,1- SOS

My Nividea GT 7300 256 MB installed in my Mac pro 1,1 has given way. Asus - ENGTX560TIDC2DI1G5 card is available where I live ? Will this card work with my machine. Somebody help.......
 
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Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 30, 2012
1,573
479
Mohan Rawat said:
My Nividea GT 7300 256 MB installed in my Mac pro 1,1 has given way. Asus - ENGTX560TIDC2DI1G5 card is available where I live ? Will this card work with my machine. Somebody help.......
Click to expand...

What OS are you running? That GTX 560 Ti should work fine if you are using 10.7.5 with your MacPro1,1 system.
 
M

Mohan Rawat

macrumors newbie
Jan 8, 2013
4
0
Mohan Rawat said:
I am sure that I downloaded upto 10.6.
Click to expand...
. I cant boot my machine since the card has gone bad. I remember that I could not download mountain lion on my destop though I have it on my macbook pro.

How to really boot my desktop if I buy Asus - ENGTX560TIDC2DI1G5 card.
 
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superchimp

macrumors newbie
Dec 12, 2012
8
0
Toronto, Ontario
brentsg said:
I had a freeze when I accidentally clicked on a CNN video from chrome.
Click to expand...

Same thing happened to me.

I got my MSI N680GTX Twin Frozr 4GD5/OC this morning and installed it immediately. Everything is working great so far except for that glitch. Time to abandon Chrome I suppose.

I appreciate the info from this thread that got me to this point!

Haven't played with parallels yet so nothing to report on that front.
 
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Thoughtsponge

macrumors newbie
Jan 11, 2013
18
0
EVGA GTX GeForce 550ti 2gb Success!

I just wanted to mention that my recent install of the EVGA GTX Geforce 550ti 2gb version was a success. I have a Mac Pro 1,1 running 10.7.5. I hope this helps any new owners of first-gen Mac Pro!

Cheers,
Thoughtsponge
 

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Pithism

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
14
0
hoping to get some help.

I have been using a gtx 660 with nvidia drivers on my mac pro 3,1 for a few weeks no issues.

Today i want to install bootcamp. So i went through the process, with no issues until i had to install windows 7. It had a drive that couldn't boot or something (not my issues), so i wanted to boot back to mac.

I took out my old geforce 8800 gt plugged it in. Now i cant boot to mac. I can get to the bootable option screen, but when i press the mac HD it runs for a few seconds (about 30) and then reboots, and then it says i dont have a bootable disk from the bootcamp partition. So im stuck in limbo right now.

I was hoping to get some help with the geforce 8800 gt, it seems to be the problem, why wouldn't it be able to run anymore, It begins to run and then craps out.

I tried to run off of it a few days ago, and i was able to boot to recovery at least, but when trying to boot to Mac HD it would crap out and reboot constantly.

Any help would be great

Update 7:18 pm - i can now get to recovery and I will reinstall os, but still im thinking the geforce 8800 gt might still be a problem upon boot, ill report back

Update 9 20 pm - all set
 
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Pithism

macrumors newbie
Dec 31, 2012
14
0
now when i install the new drivers, i reboot using my geforce 8800 gt and i get stuck at the white screen?

anyone have a clue whats wrong? this worked fine before.

NM its working
 
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skywiseca

macrumors newbie
Oct 3, 2012
10
0
I have a friend with a 2008 mac pro with the default cheap video card (2600)
and he'd like to upgrade.
He isn't interested in first person shooters or anything like that, but is wanting to do video editing. (final cut type stuff)
I was thinking he could leave the 2600 in for booting with his small monitor and use the better card for the big (SKorean 27") monitor.
What sort of card would be good for him? Is a GTX650 good enough or should he go for a GTX660?
He's currently at 10.7(lion) but is planning on hopping up to 10.8(mountain Lion)
 
DanielCoffey

DanielCoffey

macrumors 65816
Nov 15, 2010
1,207
30
Edinburgh, UK
A couple of questions not covered in the FAQ yet...

1. I see the majority of the 680s have the full-sized Displayport female connector as well as pairs of DVI. If I intended to use a 680 in my 2010 MP with the Apple 27" Cinema Display with its mini-Displayport connector, which of the GPU port types would it be advisable to use and what adapter would be recommended?

2. Strictly for gaming purposes (such as Skyrim with HD textures), is there much of an advantage getting the 680 4Gb over the 680 2Gb?

3. Lastly, some of the 680s come with triple-height custom coolers and I know that we are currently advised to fit the card into PCI slot 2. Do these cards still fit assuming no other PCI cards present?

Cheers.
 
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DanielCoffey

DanielCoffey

macrumors 65816
Nov 15, 2010
1,207
30
Edinburgh, UK
Well, the reason this "kid" wants one is that I have had a modest cash windfall as a thank you for hard work being a full-time carer so it knocks a huge chunk off the price. When someone else is paying for most of the card, I might as well take advantage of it now while the offer stands.

So, any thoughts on those questions or should I start a fresh thread about them?
 
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Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 30, 2012
1,573
479
DanielCoffey said:
2. Strictly for gaming purposes (such as Skyrim with HD textures), is there much of an advantage getting the 680 4Gb over the 680 2Gb?
Click to expand...

Looks like the other questions were covered in the Kepler thread, but I'll take a stab at this one.

In my experience, more memory is always better, and will extend the life of the card by quite a bit in some cases. You really want to be thinking ahead to the games that will be coming out in the next couple of years, and since 2GB is already pretty standard now having a bit more headroom will prevent you from falling off the performance cliff when the game uses more than that.

Now that 10.8.3 correctly supports OpenCL acceleration on cards with more than 2GB of RAM, I feel much more comfortable in recommending such a card. Of course, I got a 2GB 680 last year and have been perfectly happy with it, and the 2GB card is still a great choice.
 
DanielCoffey

DanielCoffey

macrumors 65816
Nov 15, 2010
1,207
30
Edinburgh, UK
I agree with your thoughts on the amount of vram.

Through looking at other PC gaming forums, I have now seen comments along the lines that 2Gb cards are perfect for all current games providing you are using a single monitor at 1080p. This covers the very large majority of PC gamers.

As soon as you go above 1080p (for example the 27" ACD at 2560x1440), or add a triple monitor setup (which I personally don't have) or, and here is the most appropriate point, load the game up with HD textures then a 3Gb or even 4Gb card is fit for purpose. BF3 and particularly Skyrim will easily exceed 2Gb with even moderate improvements to the textures and high AA settings. Skyrim can even push past 3Gb with the most common HD texture packs.

So if any of us are avid Skyrim fans playing on a screen above 1080p, the 670 4Gb or 680 4Gb cards would be an excellent choice (remember that the 690 4Gb is actually 2x 680 2Gb cards as the vram is split between the two cores, not combined).
 
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BlueBubba

macrumors member
Jan 5, 2012
59
4
Firstly thank you Asgorath for this thread and everyone else for their input, it seems the Mac Pro community can do what Apple can't be bothered to. Although I do resent having to turn my genuine Mac Pro into a quasi hack if I want an up to date GPU.

So, I've read every post in this thread, and have a couple of questions.

I've read in a couple of places that if you care more about CUDA than gaming, then the 580 (+External PSU) or 570 is the best, as Nvidia restricted CUDA on the 6xx series cards to sell more Quadro. But if I compare the two cards, the 580 is listed as having 512 CUDA Cores and the 680 as 1536. Could someone explain how the 5xx series are thought to be better for CUDA as on face value the 6xx series have more?

It seems that with the release of 10.8.3 the Radeon 7970 may be usable to, if this does happen would this be a better choice than Nvidia, not just for GPU performance, but compatibility with a Mac Pro as it will be an official card?

I only use my Mac for Cinema 4D, Adobe PS and AI, which don't use CUDA (I believe) and I know that a new GPU won't speed up my renders. So, I would be happy with any improved viewport performance and am leaning towards a 680, unless anyone recommends the 7970. Either way I'm positive anything will be an improvement on my 4870 (512MB).

I think someone else asked this question, without a response. If it is recommended that on a 2009 Mac Pro an Nvidia card is installed in slot 2, would a triple height card still fit?

That's all, thanks.
 
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Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 30, 2012
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BlueBubba said:
But if I compare the two cards, the 580 is listed as having 512 CUDA Cores and the 680 as 1536. Could someone explain how the 5xx series are thought to be better for CUDA as on face value the 6xx series have more?
Click to expand...

Different GPU architectures. Read this article for more information about Fermi vs. Kepler SM.

BlueBubba said:
It seems that with the release of 10.8.3 the Radeon 7970 may be usable to, if this does happen would this be a better choice than Nvidia, not just for GPU performance, but compatibility with a Mac Pro as it will be an official card?
Click to expand...

Where are you getting information that the 7970 will be an official Mac card? Just because the drivers are included with the OS doesn't make it officially supported -- remember, the stock OS contains drivers for the NVIDIA cards as well.

BlueBubba said:
I think someone else asked this question, without a response. If it is recommended that on a 2009 Mac Pro an Nvidia card is installed in slot 2, would a triple height card still fit?
Click to expand...

The OP of this thread says that some people have experienced issues when the card is put in slot 1, and thus it might be better to put it in slot 2 instead. We just don't know what's going wrong, which systems/cards are affected, and so on. To be completely safe, it might be best to stick with double-height cards in slot 2, but you can always try a triple-height card in slot 1 and return it if you have issues.
 
funkahdafi

funkahdafi

Suspended
Mar 16, 2009
377
112
Planet Earth
Hi,

I was wondering what's going on with the supposedly better working PCI slot #2 vs #1. I've been running my card in slot 1 with no major issues so far (for quite some time now) and was wondering what kind of problems people had in slot #1 that they were able to mitigate by putting the card into slot #2.

Thanks!
 
m4v3r1ck

m4v3r1ck

macrumors 68030
Nov 2, 2011
2,568
510
The Netherlands
Still some confusion here!

funkahdafi said:
Hi,

I was wondering what's going on with the supposedly better working PCI slot #2 vs #1. I've been running my card in slot 1 with no major issues so far (for quite some time now) and was wondering what kind of problems people had in slot #1 that they were able to mitigate by putting the card into slot #2.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

YES, that's the same question I have!!! Hope somebody can shed some light on this! :confused:

Current setup:
Slot-1 EVGA GTX 670 FTW (PC-edition)
Slot-2 NVIDIA GT8800 (MAC-edition) <-- :apple: bootscreen & admin tools

Wired them with 2 Y-split 6 pins mac mini PCIe to PC PCIe (crosslinked) from onboard mini PCIe connectors! :D

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r8zuz3eda249mem/EVGA_GTX670_FTW_PC_in_MACPRO.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lf7o1feg57dctk3/Systeminfo.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ty4i80tjiu9osi9/Monitors.jpg

Cheers
 
B

BlueBubba

macrumors member
Jan 5, 2012
59
4
Thanks for the response.

Asgorath said:
Where are you getting information that the 7970 will be an official Mac card? Just because the drivers are included with the OS doesn't make it officially supported -- remember, the stock OS contains drivers for the NVIDIA cards as well.
Click to expand...

My mistake. Out of interest why would Apple add drivers to the OS for Nvidia cards and not make any available to buy?

Last two questions, then I'm good to go.

If I find a 680GTX that I want with a TDP under 225W, but it has two 8 pin connectors, could I use two 8pin > 6pin adaptors?

Just to make sure, TDP would be listed as Maximum Power Draw on most sites, or do I have to look specifically for the TDP spec?

Thanks.
 
A

Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 30, 2012
1,573
479
funkahdafi said:
Hi,

I was wondering what's going on with the supposedly better working PCI slot #2 vs #1. I've been running my card in slot 1 with no major issues so far (for quite some time now) and was wondering what kind of problems people had in slot #1 that they were able to mitigate by putting the card into slot #2.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Nobody knows. If it's working fine for you in slot 1, great. If you start experiencing instability or crashes or system hangs when the card is in slot 1, try slot 2. That's all we're saying. There have been numerous reports of people having issues when the card is in slot 1, which magically disappear when they move the card to slot 2. Thus, I mentioned it in the OP in case others ran into similar issues. It's entirely possible that your card will work just fine in slot 1 -- FWIW I was running my GTX 560 Ti in slot 1 of my 2010 Mac Pro without issue.

BlueBubba said:
My mistake. Out of interest why would Apple add drivers to the OS for Nvidia cards and not make any available to buy?

Last two questions, then I'm good to go.

If I find a 680GTX that I want with a TDP under 225W, but it has two 8 pin connectors, could I use two 8pin > 6pin adaptors?

Just to make sure, TDP would be listed as Maximum Power Draw on most sites, or do I have to look specifically for the TDP spec?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming AMD and NVIDIA are always working on driver support for upcoming GPUs. Even if those GPUs don't get selected for an official Apple product, eventually Apple releases the internal driver branch that contained the work done by the vendor. It seems to be easier on the NVIDIA side since they use a single unified driver (i.e. one driver package supports all GPUs), while it might take longer for AMD (since they have separate driver packages for each GPU). Either way, the support eventually trickles out into the public. NVIDIA also releases their web driver, which is often ahead of the stock Apple driver in terms of making new GPUs work. At least, that's my guess.

Which card are you looking at specifically? Are you sure it has a TDP of 225W or less if it has 2 8-pin power connectors? If so, then sure, that seems like a perfectly fine way to make the card work.
 
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