2 x GTX580 or 2 x GTX680 in Mac Pro 2010?

Ive got a few questions.. Planning to upgrade my Mac Pro 2010, cuz my 2008 8 core died *sob* (the 2010 was my gaming rig before this). The MP has a aging old 5770. My family runs a production studio and i was wondering if:

1. I know Mac Pro can't SLI.. But can After Effects sort of combine CUDA cores for better raytracing/rendering?

2. If #1 is possible, can i buy 2 x GTX570 and dump it on my Mac Pro? With external PSU of course.

3. If #2 is possible, what kind of external power supply will i need to power this beast?

4. If none of those above are possible, what is the best card i can get to have the best graphics performance for raytracing etc? (Not Quadro series.. Those are too expensive ). I can live without boot screens (PC cards) as long as it doesn't crash DVD player and stuffs.

and 5.. I game on Windows too

Thanks!

MacVidCards said:

I would second that.

If you are going to go to the bother of getting the external PSU, go for dueling 580's.

(OK, they aren't really duelling, it just sounded cool)

Check Barefeats.com, he recently did tests with both 570s and 580s.

The Classified 580 3.0GBs he tested are very power hungry, they require 2 @ 8 pin and 1 @ 6 pin EACH.

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So 750 is the minimum? I have a 500 with me.. Any idea start the PSU externally? (without mobo)

EDIT! How much power difference comparing 580 & 570? Can I power 2 x 570 with a normal 450/500 watt PSU? Cuz i have one lying around, and how much faster is 2 x 580 vs 2 x 570? 25%?

El Awesome said:

Given that Nvidia says one single GTX 580 uses up to 244W, and you want two, it's going to be very close to 500w (but only if you're using both GPU's at 100% load..)
If you use other brands such as Asus or EVGA, the cards are factory overclocked and use even more power (The EVGA Classified Ultra+ 3GB is the fastest GTX580 on the market, but EVGA states a maximum power consumtiom of 450w...)

A GTX 570 uses 224w or so, double that and you're still close to 500w. I would recommend a bit more as 500w for a SLI-ready PSU. .
There are lots of benchmarks, tests and other threads out there comparing the GTX570/580. Maybe you want to have look in Google.

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How about a single Palt GTX 680? It uses 2 x 6 pin cable so MP should be able to handle it w/o problems. Its cheaper then 2 x 580 + 750watt PSU.

El Awesome said:

GTX 6xx have worse CUDA performace than the 5xx series.
The GTX 5xx were almost the same in performance in pro apps as the Quadro series, so Nvidia decided to cut them GTX down a little in CUDA power.

On the other hand, a GTX680 consumes WAY less power than a single GTX580 (not to mention a SLI-setup), as you said, you don't even need an external PSU.
SLI GTX 580 perform better in games though as a single GTX 680 in Windows, and as I said above, there will be a huge difference in pro apps between Dual GTX 580 and a single GTX 680.


Do you run several monitors? OS X cannot handle SLI, so each card of the SLI setup will get treated as a single card. Both can be used in GPU acceleated apps, but in daily tasks, only one GPU is used.
Unless you run more than 2 screens, a Dual-DPU setup is kind of an overkill in OS X.
Just my 0.02

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Currently, i have 3 Dell S2340L display (got it for $150+- each), in the long run, (when 680's are cheaper). Dual GTX 680 will be much faster then Dual GTX 580 for pro apps right? And they have lower power consumption. I found Palit GTX 680 4GB for a little less then $500 each and compare that to GTX 580 1.5GB $380. So 2 GTX 580 will cost me roughly $760+- where as 2 x GTX 680 cost $950+- so thats about $190 difference (worth it?) The only downside with the GTX 680 is that i need to hack OpenCL to work every time i update OSX & with no boot screen (or is there a patch for it considering new iMac '12 uses GTX675MX? idk)

EDIT: Most of the time the pro work i does is mostly green screen, raytrace, some easy 3D, and if im not mistaken, only Adobe products can really make use of Cuda cores right? (correct me if im wrong) I do have a Windows on it and i plan to game on the system too, so its quite a tough decision which to choose.

MacVidCards said:

And my guess is that the OpenCl 2GB block will end as soon as a certain LATE Quadro card comes out.

There will either be a driver disk with it, or an update for it.

Apple will want to sell it at full retail (until 2014 or so) on the Apple Store and to do so, it will need to work.

They have kneecapped cards with more than 2GB to keep people buying the Quadro 4000 and 5870 on their site. (Still at Full Retail)

As soon as there is a card with more than 2GB that runs OpenCl this "fix" won't be needed anymore. Or perhaps it will become more targeted instead of this shotgun approach.

But I would advise people NOT to be scared of doing this.

There are very few scenarios where you will be staring at your screen in 6 months and saying "Gosh, i wish I had cheaped out and got the version of this card with LESS VRAM"

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Guess what im gonna do is 1 x GTX 580, 1 x GTX 680. (Main reason why i do this is because 3GB GTX 580 is no longer available in some distributor stores and that it cost more then GTX 680 4GB.) Best for both sides. Ill try to find a 3GB GTX 580, and 4GB version of GTX 680. OpenCL hack seems very very easy (modifying a simple hex file) but its a bit annoying as update will screw this up.

From what i learn from this thread/the net
-> GTX 580 is 15% faster then GTX 680 in CUDA work, but only applies in AE/Premier

-> GTX 580 1.5GB/680 2GB does not require OpenCL Hack

-> GTX 680 4GB is 20 to 25% faster then GTX 580 in games/directx

-> GTX 680 runs way cooler and consumes way less power then GTX 580.

-> 2 x GTX 580 will perform 15% better then 2 x GTX 680 in AE/PR

-> 2 x GTX 680 will perform 25% better then 2 x GTX 580 in Windows/Gaming

-> So.. 1 x GTX 680 + 1 x 3GB GTX 580 = 7 to 10% slower in AE/PR? But 20% faster in the rest of the stuffs?

-> I understand that even if SLI works, both cards VRAM will be 3GB

Heres the pricing of the cards above available in my country lol..

The distributor/supplier store i usually go to:
GTX 570 - N/A
GTX 580 - N/A
GTX 580 - N/A
GTX 680 - $500+- (4GB version; Palit)
GTX 680 - $400+- (2GB version; Palit)

Normal stores
GTX 580 - $400+- (1.5GB version)
GTX 580 - $510+- (3GB version; Asus Direct CU; the rest unavailable)
GTX 680 - N/A didnt bother to ask

MacVidCards said:

Are you sure you are looking at 580?

Here in US they only come in 1.5 GB or 3.0 GB.

barefeats.com did some tests of our EFI'd cards.

he 3.0 GB "Classified" is really something, but you need a power plant to run it.

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yeah.. sry, 3GB.. But still.. it cost more then GTX 680 & eats MORE power

El Awesome said:

In Europe 3GB 580s are still a bit cheaper than 4GB 680s..

As I said, if you desperately need all CUDA power that you can ge together, go with 580s. If you rather want awesome, more future-proof gaming power , go with 680s. It's all up to you.

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I did some render test on my friends GTX 580 (single) and GTX 680 (single) raytrace file took 6 mins to render on single GTX580 and 7 mins to render on single GTX 680. Both combined took only 4 mins to render. So im pretty happy with that result. On Windows, gaming is a huge difference, the 680 smokes the 580 by at least 25 to 30% in single. So now i got myself a single GTX 680 4GB and planning to get a used GTX 580 3GB off some local forums. Pictures up in a few moments

El Awesome said:

Seems like a good compromise.

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Quite happy with the results even on a single GTX 680, its obviously 200 to 300% better then my HD 5770 or 8800GT. Heres what i got.