Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Best price performance CUDA card to replace dying GTX570

N

nigelbb

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 22, 2012
1,140
264
As thread title. My wife's GTX570 in her Mac Pro 3,1 is dying. The screens pixelate & freeze frequently. I swapped it over with my GTX570 & the fault is definitely with the graphics card. She uses Premiere Pro so I need a replacement with good CUDA performance at a reasonable price. My choices are:-

GTX570 - known quantity does the job & the cheapest option used.
GTX680 - Reasonably priced. Can be flashed for boot screen. Runs cooler than the 570 but is CUDA performance as good? Can this card run 3 monitors?
GTX??? - 660/670/760/770??? All reasonably priced but will any of these perform at least as well as the GTX570?

There is absolutely zero interest in Bootcamp or Windows & she is gets a boot screen from the GT120 that runs her 3rd monitor.
 
Synchro3

Synchro3

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2014
1,987
850
As far as I know it depends on if you use single or double precision. On single precision the GTX 680 is better than the GTX 570, but not on double precision:

CUDA single precision:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/478
CUD double precision:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review/17

Bearfeats: http://barefeats.com/gpu680v3.html

Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-770-gk104-review,3519-22.html

The GTX 770 is a GTX 680 with ~ 10% more performance.
 
Last edited:
N

nigelbb

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 22, 2012
1,140
264
The question has been rendered moot by good clean with a can of compressed air. There was an amazing amount of dust on the heat sink of the MSI Twin Frozr III

I think that sometime in the future I will probably replace it with a GTX680 as it runs cooler & can be flashed for a boot screen plus I believe that it will run 3 or 4 monitors. In the meantime my wife is happy that her machine is working properly again plus as a bonus is much quieter in operation than it has been in recent months.
 
IowaLynn

IowaLynn

macrumors 68020
Feb 22, 2015
2,145
588
The placement of the RAM cage and how hot the FBDIMMs get (newer DIMMs in last two years use to be very inexpensive but 800MHz have gone up 2x last months) also ran 10*C cooler.

Suggestion, if you are not already, use SMCFanControl or similar and set the lowest default fan speed (3 of 4) to 900 rpm (enough to make a difference instead of 499/599) but for me, just beginning to be more audible. That will get more air flow and keep FBDIMMs and GPU happy.
 
Tutor

Tutor

macrumors 65816
Jun 25, 2009
1,449
11
Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
nigelbb said:
As thread title. My wife's GTX570 in her Mac Pro 3,1 is dying. The screens pixelate & freeze frequently. I swapped it over with my GTX570 & the fault is definitely with the graphics card. She uses Premiere Pro so I need a replacement with good CUDA performance at a reasonable price. My choices are:-

GTX570 - known quantity does the job & the cheapest option used.
GTX680 - Reasonably priced. Can be flashed for boot screen. Runs cooler than the 570 but is CUDA performance as good? Can this card run 3 monitors?
GTX??? - 660/670/760/770??? All reasonably priced but will any of these perform at least as well as the GTX570?

There is absolutely zero interest in Bootcamp or Windows & she is gets a boot screen from the GT120 that runs her 3rd monitor.
Click to expand...

These [ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rue&SrchInDesc=refurbished&Page=1&PageSize=30 ] by a long shot, especially the 6 gig.
 
Last edited:
N

nigelbb

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 22, 2012
1,140
264
Tutor said:
This [ EVGA 06G-P4-3787-RX GeForce GTX 780 6GB 384-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support SC w/ EVGA ACX Cooler Video Card Factory Refurbished ] by along shot - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487120 .
Click to expand...

Tutor, I realise that your standards for graphics cards are probably more demanding than mine but note that I said:-
She uses Premiere Pro so I need a replacement with good CUDA performance at a reasonable price.
Click to expand...

Putting a near $500 graphics card in a Mac Pro 3,1 to run Premiere Pro would be in the words of my late father "Like feeding a donkey strawberries". For the price of that card I could buy another used GTX570 plus 32GB of cheap 667Mhz FB-DIMMs plus a 512GB SSD and have enough left over to run to a USB3 PCIe card which collectively would improve the performance of a stock Mac Pro 3,1 far more than a GTX780.
 
Tutor

Tutor

macrumors 65816
Jun 25, 2009
1,449
11
Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
nigelbb said:
Tutor, I realise that your standards for graphics cards are probably more demanding than mine but note that I said:-


Putting a near $500 graphics card in a Mac Pro 3,1 to run Premiere Pro would be in the words of my late father "Like feeding a donkey strawberries". For the price of that card I could buy another used GTX570 plus 32GB of cheap 667Mhz FB-DIMMs plus a 512GB SSD and have enough left over to run to a USB3 PCIe card which collectively would improve the performance of a stock Mac Pro 3,1 far more than a GTX780.
Click to expand...

That's why I edited my post prior to your reply to list all of the refurbs, some starting for under $200; just refresh that page. I'm glad I didn't recommend to you the equivalent of 4xGTX580's (slightly underclocked) for $600.
 

Attachments

  • 4xGTX580.png
    4xGTX580.png
    153.6 KB · Views: 55
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom