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Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Mar 30, 2012
1,573
479
Ok, thank you. Do you by any chance have a link for them on amazon? I'm not from the States, so an Amazon.co.uk link would be cool :)

Just Google for "Mac Pro PCIe power cable" and you should find an Amazon link.
 

chiefroastbeef

macrumors 6502a
May 26, 2008
909
0
Dallas, Texas/ Hong Kong
Hi guys, what do you guys use to monitor GTX670 temp/vram usage?

Since doing the opencl hack from netkas, and installing the nvidia cuda driver, istat pro only recognizes the gpu, but no vram usage.

Atmonitor would start, and tell me the gpu processor load, but no vram usage or temp. And then it crashes 5 seconds after opening( crashing is due to the opencl hack or cuda driver, since it was working fine before I installed those).

What program do you guys use? Thanks!
 

Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Mar 30, 2012
1,573
479
What program do you guys use? Thanks!

I don't use anything. I just upgraded to Mountain Lion and a GTX 680, and since that card fits easily in the 225W available in the Mac Pro, I'm not worried about the GPU temperature. I'm not overclocking the card or doing anything fancy, so I don't really care what temperature it's running at.
 

JaroslavS

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2012
23
0
Hi guys, what do you guys use to monitor GTX670 temp/vram usage?

Since doing the opencl hack from netkas, and installing the nvidia cuda driver, istat pro only recognizes the gpu, but no vram usage.

Atmonitor would start, and tell me the gpu processor load, but no vram usage or temp. And then it crashes 5 seconds after opening( crashing is due to the opencl hack or cuda driver, since it was working fine before I installed those).

What program do you guys use? Thanks!

I think that card has really good cooler so I think it doesn`t need care about temperature... ZOTAC is good brand so they have good products :)

I read some reviews and there is no problem about temp. etc. So you don`t need any program I think...

That card is overclocked by manufacturer so don`t worry.
 

chiefroastbeef

macrumors 6502a
May 26, 2008
909
0
Dallas, Texas/ Hong Kong
I have a quick question for those of you with the GTX670, and have both the netkas opencl mod and cuda driver installed.

When you computer is booting up, and gets to the gray texture mountain lion login screen screen (assuming you have ML), do you seen your name and password dialog box? I do not see any box, just the dark gray textured screen, though I am still able to login if I type in my password and push enter.

Do you guys have that problem?
 

JaroslavS

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2012
23
0
I have one, maybe stupid question...

Do you have any problems with putting 670 in Mac Pro? Because Mac Pros have PCI/E 2 and GTX 670 has PCI/E 3 so (I told I am stupid in PCs :confused: ) No problem in compatibility, yea?¨

Thx
 

pkshdk

macrumors newbie
Jun 11, 2012
17
0
I have one, maybe stupid question...

Do you have any problems with putting 670 in Mac Pro? Because Mac Pros have PCI/E 2 and GTX 670 has PCI/E 3 so (I told I am stupid in PCs :confused: ) No problem in compatibility, yea?¨

Thx

No problem there - it's backwards compatible.
 

JaroslavS

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2012
23
0
Thank for your help now I can buy gtx 670 "in peace"
But I hope last quick question... Can I put into my Mac Pro Intel Core i7 3770k e.g.? I dont think now but sometime in future... I have bought my Mac Pro last year (december) and CPU is good but it is little old :/
 

Cindori

macrumors 68040
Jan 17, 2008
3,527
378
Sweden
Without a new 64 bit EFI, it runs at pcie 1.1 16x (which is 97%-100%) the performance of pcie 2/3 16x

PCIe 1.1 is 2.5GT/s
PCIe 2.0 is 5.0GT/s
PCIe 3.0 is 8GT/s

GigaTransfers per second.

So it is twice as fast to jump to PCIe 2.0. The question is, is the card bottlenecked by PCIe 1.1? And the answer is, yes. Around 10-15%. You will bottleneck the card with PCIe 1.1.

Thank for your help now I can buy gtx 670 "in peace"
But I hope last quick question... Can I put into my Mac Pro Intel Core i7 3770k e.g.? I dont think now but sometime in future... I have bought my Mac Pro last year (december) and CPU is good but it is little old :/

No. No Mac Pro supports latest generation CPU's.
 

Asgorath

macrumors 68000
Mar 30, 2012
1,573
479
The question is, is the card bottlenecked by PCIe 1.1? And the answer is, yes. Around 10-15%. You will bottleneck the card with PCIe 1.1.

It really depends on the workload, I don't think you can claim 10-15% across the board.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/18/pci_express_20_vs_30_gpu_gaming_performance_review/

If the workload doesn't involve a ton of bus traffic, then the impact of PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 can be quite minimal. Modern games will basically download all their resources to video memory, and once that's done, there is little traffic outside the commands to render the frame (which are tiny in comparison to the textures/model data etc).

Certain GPGPU workloads are definitely dependent on a fast connection between the CPU and GPU, but as I said, it really depends on the application/workload.
 

Topper

macrumors 65816
Jun 17, 2007
1,186
0
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/18/pci_express_20_vs_30_gpu_gaming_performance_review/

If the workload doesn't involve a ton of bus traffic, then the impact of PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 can be quite minimal. Modern games will basically download all their resources to video memory, and once that's done, there is little traffic outside the commands to render the frame (which are tiny in comparison to the textures/model data etc).

That is interesting, thank you.
"...most of the performance advantage had under PCIe 3.0 (as compared to PCIe 2.0) was well under 10%. This actually falls in-line with the kind of performance advantages one might expect using an Ivy Bridge CPU clock-for-clock compared to a Sandy Bridge CPU. The IPC can affect performance by as much as 4-7% in favor of Ivy Bridge easily."
 

twietee

macrumors 603
Jan 24, 2012
5,300
1,675
Ok, I've to admit that you really got me hooked to buy a new card!

I read a fair amount of related threads, but some noob questions still remain, as all of this 'pro-talk' can confuse me a great deal at times. :eek:

(1) I came across this card - eVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC 4 GB RAM - and while confused because it says 500 W think it will work because of 2 6pin connectors.
I read somewhere that with >2gb you have to 'hack' around a bit, because OSX doesn't recognise it - Is that still true? I do work with Adobe CS and Maxwell Renderer and was looking at the 4GB but would be a 680 more advisable? Or even the 570 with 2.5GB as MVC wrote (I think) somewhere?

(2) Sorry, this question must sound ridiculous, but how do I access windows under ML without the bootscreen? I read that bootchamp isn't working under Lion. Parallels, Virtual Machine or what?

Thank's a lot!
 

Cindori

macrumors 68040
Jan 17, 2008
3,527
378
Sweden
It really depends on the workload, I don't think you can claim 10-15% across the board.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/18/pci_express_20_vs_30_gpu_gaming_performance_review/

If the workload doesn't involve a ton of bus traffic, then the impact of PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 can be quite minimal. Modern games will basically download all their resources to video memory, and once that's done, there is little traffic outside the commands to render the frame (which are tiny in comparison to the textures/model data etc).

Certain GPGPU workloads are definitely dependent on a fast connection between the CPU and GPU, but as I said, it really depends on the application/workload.

That article compares 2.0 to 3.0.

I said you will bottleneck the card using 1.0.

That article concludes that 3.0 will give you 5-8% more performance in games.

Since 1.0 is half the speed of 2.0, pretty safe to say that jumping from 1.0 to 2.0 will give you at least 10-15% more performance.

(2) Sorry, this question must sound ridiculous, but how do I access windows under ML without the bootscreen? I read that bootchamp isn't working under Lion. Parallels, Virtual Machine or what?

Thank's a lot!

Bootchamp is nothing but a toolbar icon for the native OSX setting of Startup Disk, which can be found under System Preferences.
 

DanielCoffey

macrumors 65816
Nov 15, 2010
1,207
30
Edinburgh, UK
Sorry, this question must sound ridiculous, but how do I access windows under ML without the bootscreen? I read that bootchamp isn't working under Lion. Parallels, Virtual Machine or what?

I don't know where you picked up that little piece of information but BootChamp works wonderfully with ML. I am looking at it in the top-right of my screen now and it performs flawlessly.

The official BootChamp website is http://kainjow.com and I am sure Kevin (the author) would love a small donation.
 

twietee

macrumors 603
Jan 24, 2012
5,300
1,675
I don't know where you picked up that little piece of information but BootChamp works wonderfully with ML. I am looking at it in the top-right of my screen now and it performs flawlessly.

The official BootChamp website is http://kainjow.com and I am sure Kevin (the author) would love a small donation.

Well, I read that it doesn't work under Lion, if it does under ML the better!

Hmm, seems that was a misinformation anyway.
 

xav8tor

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2011
533
36
Ok, I've to admit that you really got me hooked to buy a new card!

I read a fair amount of related threads, but some noob questions still remain, as all of this 'pro-talk' can confuse me a great deal at times. :eek:

(1) I came across this card - eVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC 4 GB RAM - and while confused because it says 500 W think it will work because of 2 6pin connectors.
I read somewhere that with >2gb you have to 'hack' around a bit, because OSX doesn't recognise it - Is that still true? I do work with Adobe CS and Maxwell Renderer and was looking at the 4GB but would be a 680 more advisable? Or even the 570 with 2.5GB as MVC wrote (I think) somewhere?

(2) Sorry, this question must sound ridiculous, but how do I access windows under ML without the bootscreen? I read that bootchamp isn't working under Lion. Parallels, Virtual Machine or what?

Thank's a lot!

1) I have that card. It only draws around 180W. It runs just fine in the Mac Pro. The 500W number you read was the min. total power supply.

As for the hacks, the card works out of the box in ML for most purposes. Enabling CUDA is easy. If you want to enable OpenCL on THIS card, then beware. Two "hacks" are required. Hopefully someone who has done it on this card will walk you through it. I bricked my Pro trying it and I've been tearing apart and upgrading computers since the mid 80's. Fortunately I had a backup plan in place and got back to normal quickly. I don't need OpenCL yet, so until I see a coherent step by step guide somewhere, I won't even think about trying that again.

2) +1 for Boot Champ. works great and much easier than flipping back and forth under sys prefs.
 

silvercircle

macrumors member
Nov 18, 2010
61
7
d

I have my EVGA GTX 680 SC 2Gb card now and I tried a few things.
In Windows I installed the 304.79 beta drivers.
My system: Mac Pro mid 2010 3,33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 10GB OS X 10.8.

1) Heaven Benchmark Basic v3.0, OpenGL on both systems of course, settings 8xAA,shaders medium, textures high, anisotropic 4x, filter trilinear.
GTX 680
In ML: 63fps, score 1608, min fps 35 high fps 111
In Win7 64: 61 fps, score 1536, min fps 29,7 high fps 133
So, in this case ML ins't doing bad.

Same test with my HD5870 (same settings):
In ML: 47,9 fps, score 1207, min fps 27,8 high fps 77,33
In Win7 64: 42 fps, score 1077, min fps 12 high fps 74,4

2) LuxMark:
GTX 680
In ML 1275
In Win7 64: 657 (strange but tried it a few times)
HD 5870
In ML 736
In Win7 64: 881

The fps in x-plane 10.10beta7 are always about 17 lower in ML than in Win.
This is strange because the GTX 680 is performing better in all benchmarks I have done so far.
So my HD 5870 is, until better drivers are available, faster for x-plane.
For the rest Geforce GTX 680 is the champ.
I find this very strange, why isn't x-plane also faster?

One more thing:
In X-plane, turning HDR and 4XSSAA Quad Render on with the GTX 680 is not dropping the fps!
Sometimes fps are higher, this is in Win and ML. The power of the GTX 680?

The nvidia drivers are indeed beta, but I have a feeling that this is also the case for the windows drivers (?)
 

twietee

macrumors 603
Jan 24, 2012
5,300
1,675
Last edited:

xav8tor

macrumors 6502a
Mar 30, 2011
533
36
So my HD 5870 is, until better drivers are available, faster for x-plane.
For the rest Geforce GTX 680 is the champ.
I find this very strange, why isn't x-plane also faster?

One more thing:
In X-plane, turning HDR and 4XSSAA Quad Render on with the GTX 680 is not dropping the fps!
Sometimes fps are higher, this is in Win and ML. The power of the GTX 680?

The nvidia drivers are indeed beta, but I have a feeling that this is also the case for the windows drivers (?)

I have the GTX 670 SC 4GB on a 5.1 with the 3690. XP ver 10 is still beta IMHO and all that tweaking to get whatever new effects like the "plausible world," was a joke, at least for professional users. You have plenty of CPU so you are probably are still GPU bound, but some settings eat up CPU too (AI aircraft for instance). The code just isn't optimized for modern hardware. Or, as the XP fanboys may say, you are just checking too many boxes and setting rendering options too high. You can't have your cake and eat it too with XP 10...yet...or on a Mac Pro...maybe never.

PS - I lose maybe 5% FPS with HDR and gain anywhere from 15 to 25% FPS in Windows i/o ML.

----------

:eek:


Thank you very much xav8tor! Very much appreciated.
Can I ask you why you chose the 670 instead of 680?

There is a new 680 UltraCharged with 4GB available (soon):

should work as well?! Sorry, if I produce spam in this thread...

I wanted the 4 GB VRAM for certain XP projects where I can hit the 2 GB limit because I do NOT compress textures. For me, it is all about quality, not quantity (except for FPS). No 680 with 4 GB has two six pin connectors, only the stock and one slightly OC'd model (at least from EVGA). I first bought their 4 GB Classified (almost impossible to find) and it needed way more power than the Pro can provide without an external PS.
 
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