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GTX 680 in a Mac Pro

C

chopinico

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 13, 2011
3
0
I recently installed a GTX 680 in my Mac Pro to replace my aging HD 5870. I am happy with the results so far but have a couple of questions.

I read in another post that the maximum power supported by the Mac Pro for video cards (powered by two 6-pin cables) is 225 W. From what I can tell, this card has a TDP of 195 W, so I should be safe.

However, I've noticed that the card comes with software from the manufacturer (ASUS) that allows to me to apply some basic overclocking. My main questions are:

1) Is it generally safe to overclock the card, or can this greatly reduce the life expectancy of the card?

2) Could playing with these values cause the power consumption of the card to go above 195 W (or 225 W for that matter) and cause damage to the logic board?

I would appreciate any advice you could give!
 
Odd

Odd

macrumors newbie
Aug 30, 2011
24
0
There are pre-overclocked versions of this card available. You could check their rated power consumption against clock speed to get a good idea of how far you could go.
FWIW I decided against trying this myself. I figure the PCIe speed in my Mac Pro (2010) is the limiting factor now. Really enjoying the upgrade (from 5770), but I'm not really wowed. Hopefully driver updates will improve the performance over time.
 
O

Osirison

macrumors newbie
Oct 3, 2010
18
0
Do you really need the overclock?
As it would require more power and it would produce more heat.

Afterall you will get only a few more FPS ingame, so if you wanna play a game that is laggy because of the low FPS then those 5 extra frames per second aren't gonna help you much.
At the moment GTX680 is a very powerful card.

To answer your question, 195w is probably the maximum it would draw (at current clockspeed) but also keep some headroom available for peakloads.
The PSU can deliver 225w but if you are in a region with low mains line then the PSU will most likely not deliver 18,7ampere (225watt) into the 12v line steadily.
 
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