Less known- How 2 6pin works perfectly for GTX580 or HD5870 eyefinity

[Prince134]

As title, I don't think I have seen anywhere that used my way for GTX 580 or HD 5870 2gb working in mac pro. I have used it for 2 years, I felt guilty for not sharing with you folks. Here it is with photo.

It's easy and hassle free (for me at least) as long as you can find a copper wire ( size as shown, not too big not too small like people used to say it ), like making a spring. Plug it in the two holes make it contact both pins inside. That's it. Use your two 6 pins from mac pro. Don't be afraid, if you are not burning your mac pro with battlefield 3 for 24 hours a day. It's safe for you.

I used the card with tessellation benchmark software before, not a problem at all. (don't need to be a copper wire, any wire that can make good contact for the pins will do the same job)

Enjoy it!

[All Taken]

Can you purchase an app called HW monitor and tell us how much power is being drawn via the 2x 6 pin?

You say Battlefield 3 24 hours a day isn't something you do, understandable but what do you run? An average work load in your day?

How many drives do you have in your system? PCIe cards?

Thanks

[Prince134]

No, I don't have that software to tell wattage consumed. You are right, I don't play that battlefield 3 game. What I use with my mac pro daily is premiere pro and after effects CS6, also playing VLC for blu-ray quality movies. I have only one blu-ray drive, two SSDs, one USB 3.0 pcie card only.

But using HD5870 eyefinity (2gb version) I played Unigine Heaven benchmark for mac pro without issue, if that can alleviate your concern.

[All Taken]

Right so we're talking about a 250w max draw, can that benchmark produce that kind of load? 75w a piece on the 6 pin connectors and 75w from the PCIe slot is giving a 225w total. The reason this is working is either the total power consumption isn't getting above 225w or if it is the extra 25w is fairly easily covered by the 2x 6 pin connectors.

The reason I mention the above is that many of us want to know how much 'extra' load the tracers on the back plane board are capable of handling. Thanks for the info.

[goMac]

I'm no expert, but wiring a card's ground into itself doesn't seem like a bright idea.

[Prince134]

Originally Posted by goMac

I'm no expert, but wiring a card's ground into itself doesn't seem like a bright idea.

So what's brighter idea? short the 12v and ground??
LOL.

[ActionableMango]

This appears to be doing the exact same thing that the 8-pin to 6-pin adapters do (jumping the two extra grounds).

[maxmaut]

I've seen this discussed before.
8-pin is there for some reason. It might work for 99 users, and then fail for one unlucky guy. MacVidCards had lots of posts about this.
I don't think that anyone who is using MP for work should take a risk like this.

[Prince134]

Ok, folks,

As some one already point out, this works same way as you purchase a 6to8 pins converter. So aren't you happy this can save you money for it? Also it's neater in your mac pro case.

In addition, I think most people if you are not heavy gamer, 99% of the time, your GPU is running half or even less of its capacity. If you know what a two years running safe (for me) mean to you, there is a way to try like this. For people who dare not, this is not your dish. So make your own judgement!

[ghislain]

Depending on applications used, modern GPU like 5870 can run at full speed, medium speed or at low speed in the so-called low energy saving mode, as can be seen under bootcamp with GPU-Z. I guess that with 2 6pin connectors, GPU will always stay in the low energy saving mode...and low performance..Therefore, this may ennoying for applications that rely on heavy GPU load such as 3D games. Otherwise, it will probably works decently as stated above..

[All Taken]

Originally Posted by ghislain

Depending on applications used, modern GPU like 5870 can run at full speed, medium speed or at low speed in the so-called low energy saving mode, as can be seen under bootcamp with GPU-Z. I guess that with 2 6pin connectors, GPU will always stay in the low energy saving mode...and low performance..Therefore, this may ennoying for applications that rely on heavy GPU load such as 3D games. Otherwise, it will probably works decently as stated above..

What is it you're trying to add to the discussion? The card is pulling 250w at most and the Mac Pro by design can deliver 225w. The extra 25w is being drawn via the 2x 6 pin at 12.5w per connection. The card is not 'aware' of the extra draw being made, it 'thinks' it has a 6pin and 8pin connected.

It is not in a 'crippled' state as you suggest above.

[Prince134]

The only time that GPU will draw 250w is when doing gaming along with max GPU fan speed. So even when I am doing Premiere Pro and After Effect CS6 rendering, which use higher GPU utilisation, it's not drawing full 250w at all. (It's still wont be reaching to the point like continues gaming). However, as I have used my HD5870 Eyefinity for the Heaven Unigine benchmark for couple of times before. I am pretty much confident to share with you guys.