Fastest native nVidia GPU for Snow Leopard?

PowerBook1.83 said:

What is the fastest nVidia GPU with bootscreen that works with OS X 10.6.8 and a 2012 Mac Pro 12-core?

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For a fast Nvidia GPU with bootscreen on SL 10.6.8 I could not think of any models. What I know is that only the PC Nvidia 470 and 480, flashed with bootscreen can work with SL 10.6.8. There is the PNY Mac Edition Nvidia Quadro 4000 that also works on Snow Leopard but it may not be the fastest. Most of the fastest Nvidia drivers are on Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

Macsonic said:

For a fast Nvidia GPU with bootscreen on SL 10.6.8 I could not think of any models. What I know is that only the PC Nvidia 470 and 480, flashed with bootscreen can work with SL 10.6.8. There is the PNY Mac Edition Nvidia Quadro 4000 that also works on Snow Leopard but it may not be the fastest. Most of the fastest Nvidia drivers are on Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

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The Quadro 4000 is a great card, especially if you're using it for workstation tasks rather than gaming… but it's old now and the price is waay too high looking around, compared to its actual graphics capability.

I echo the responder above me: Upgrade to 10.8 or 10.9 and you'll see far better graphics support (even with the same GPUs, generally, thanks to updates to OpenGL.)

GTX470/480 and Quadro 5000 and even Tesla 2070 can have bootscreens and run in 10.6.8, IIRC.

480 is fastest unless you need Double Precision.

We were (and still are) proud to have created the EFIs for those cards from the existing Q4000.