Break through the gloom! Kepler comes to Mac Pro...GTX680!

[jasonvp]

New OSes are the only way to get updated video card drivers.

For ATI cards, perhaps. Not so for nVidia ones, at least through 10.6.8 and 10.7.x. It remains to be seen whether nVidia will release new(er) drivers for 10.8.

jas

 

[Asgorath]

For ATI cards, perhaps. Not so for nVidia ones, at least through 10.6.8 and 10.7.x. It remains to be seen whether nVidia will release new(er) drivers for 10.8.

jas

NVIDIA's driver for 10.6.8 (256.02.25f01) appears to have been released in June of last year. Since then, there have been 5 OS builds of Lion and at least 2 web drivers for Lion (might've been more, but I only started paying attention at 10.7.3 when PC cards were enabled). Now, not every Lion OS build has a new graphics driver, but either way there hasn't been an update to SnowLeopard in over a year. Lion, on the other hand, has had a lot of updates, and I think it's fair to suggest that Mountain Lion will get the same kind of treatment.

So, my point still stands -- if you want good graphics driver support, you should be on the latest OS possible. I wouldn't expect much support for Lion going forward, now that Mountain Lion is out. Just like SnowLeopard got little or no attention after Lion was released.

 

[gpzjock]

New OSes are the only way to get updated video card drivers. Still don't really understand why people insist on sticking with older OSes in general. My Lion install feels very much like my SnowLeopard install did, I don't use LaunchPad or any of the other iOS-like elements.

My choice of Snow Leopard is due to several reasons, primarily because I still need Rosetta for support to my legacy software and equipment but also because I have played about with Lion and I still prefer Snowy for look and feel.
Yes, I have old GFX drivers for my flashed Sapphire HD5870 but that doesn't mean they don't still work.
However, if I adopted Mountain Lion the trade off would be the ability to use a GTX6xx for the removal of my back catalogue of files and software that would no longer work. When I'm ready to trade I will.

Sorry for derailing the GTX670/80 thread, back to Nvidia driver goodness from now on.

 

[matthewtoney]

CUDA 5 and Portrait Mode with GTX 680?

Here's a weird one. I've got my new EVGA SC GTX 680 in the Mac Pro (2009->2010 firmware) and everything has been great for like the week I've had it. I've got 3 monitors, one off a GT120 card also in the system (so I get a nice boot screen on it) and 2 off the new GTX 680 - 1 in normal landscape mode and 1 in portrait mode. All was great until last night I installed the CUDA driver - went and used the new version 5 since its out and although that seems to work fine, now that I've shut the machine down and powered back up today, I can no longer use portrait mode. I can keep a monitor selected to portrait and get a display, but it just flickers and you don't see anything properly if you try to move or use a window on that monitor. (and setting it back to landscape makes it work just fine)

Anyone else seen similar behavior or can try it if they also have loaded the CUDA5 stuff?

(and no of course I *don't* know that it is related to the CUDA5 install, but that's what I installed immediately before this started)

 

[Asgorath]

What OS are you using?

 

[matthewtoney]

Portrait Mode

What OS are you using?

10.8 Here's the URL to the official Nvidia CUDA5 release (that says it now supports Mountain Lion)

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html

 

[wildgiles]

The Nvidea version 5 driver doesn't say anything about supporting the GTX 680.
I'm really interested to know if the GTX 680 really works in a mac pro. This thread doesn't given me much confidence that GTX 680 fully works.

 

[Asgorath]

10.8 Here's the URL to the official Nvidia CUDA5 release (that says it now supports Mountain Lion)

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html

CUDA has nothing to do with display rotation, that's entirely the graphics driver. I don't use portrait mode so I don't have any experience with it. Perhaps try shutting down and then starting up with that monitor unplugged, and plug it in once the system is up and running?

The Nvidea version 5 driver doesn't say anything about supporting the GTX 680.
I'm really interested to know if the GTX 680 really works in a mac pro. This thread doesn't given me much confidence that GTX 680 fully works.

Right, because there are no official Apple products that feature a GTX 680, so those cards won't be listed under the supported products list.

 

[matthewtoney]

Portrait Mode

Well, I've tried several shutdowns and unplug/replug the monitor that doesn't like Portrait mode anymore and moving the monitor over to the DisplayPort connector has it working in portrait again correctly. Strangely enough though, if I power down and then bring it back up where it was originally (on the second DVI port) I have the same issue regarding portrait. I guess the only way to know for sure if its related to any install is to create myself a new ML install on an external drive or something so I can go back to the original config and see if its happy with portrait mode on that second DVI port that way like it was at the start.

(I've also power cycled the monitor itself but no change with that)

 

[JaroslavS]

Hi,

I am new here so sorry for my "don`t knowing" and for my english

I want to buy GTX 670 for my Mac Pro 2010 and I want to ask you...

Do I need 2 power cables or one is enough and I can use one which I will buy with GPU?

I want to buy this one (I am czech so it`s czech):
http://www.alza.cz/zotac-geforce-gtx670-2gb-ddr5-amp-edition-d328554.htm

Will it work? And can I use that cable which is with GPU?

Thanks for reply!

 

[Asgorath]

Hi,

I am new here so sorry for my "don`t knowing" and for my english

I want to buy GTX 670 for my Mac Pro 2010 and I want to ask you...

Do I need 2 power cables or one is enough and I can use one which I will buy with GPU?

I want to buy this one (I am czech so it`s czech):
http://www.alza.cz/zotac-geforce-gtx670-2gb-ddr5-amp-edition-d328554.htm

Will it work? And can I use that cable which is with GPU?

Thanks for reply!

If it has 2 power cable slots, then you need 2 power cables. They wouldn't have put the power connectors there if they weren't needed.

So, yes, you need 2 6-pin power cables to drive the GTX 670. This has been covered several times in this thread already.

 

[JaroslavS]

Well...

So I must buy one more... is compatibility between 6 - pin cable for graphics card ATI HD 5770 in Mac Pro? Because in my country are those cables for Mac Pro expensive so...

I need to buy one and as second Can I use that which is in Mac Pro?

Edit: and another question: Need I download some drivers for GTX 670? Because I don`t want to "hack" system, I am really beginner... (e.g. OpenGL, openCL etc.?)

Thanks again!

 

[Asgorath]

Well...

So I must buy one more... is compatibility between 6 - pin cable for graphics card ATI HD 5770 in Mac Pro? Because in my country are those cables for Mac Pro expensive so...

I need to buy one and as second Can I use that which is in Mac Pro?

Edit: and another question: Need I download some drivers for GTX 670? Because I don`t want to "hack" system, I am really beginner... (e.g. OpenGL, openCL etc.?)

Thanks again!

Yes, the cable that you have with the 5770 works fine, and you need another matching one since they have a special smaller connector on one end:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/9227128/

The GTX 670 should work out of the box with Mountain Lion for graphics stuff, I'm not sure about OpenCL (I think it's also fully supported there?).

 

[steveOooo]

What's the max wattage of one graphics card you can put in?

Currently I have in 2010 5,1

2.8qc standard
1x SuperDrive
1x ssd in empty SuperDrive bay
4x 3.5 drives (1x raid, 1x1tb and 1x2tb WD green drive)
1x ati 5770 (the base gx card)
16gb ram

So would a 500w 570 or 670 work ok (extra power 6pin required)?

 

[derbothaus]

What's the max wattage of one graphics card you can put in?

Currently I have in 2010 5,1

2.8qc standard
1x SuperDrive
1x ssd in empty SuperDrive bay
4x 3.5 drives (1x raid, 1x1tb and 1x2tb WD green drive)
1x ati 5770 (the base gx card)
16gb ram

So would a 500w 570 or 670 work ok (extra power 6pin required)?

Most users have reported being just fine with 570/670 even 680. 580 needs more power. You PSU is fairly robust.

 

[JuniperMonkeys]

The GTX 670 should work out of the box with Mountain Lion for graphics stuff, I'm not sure about OpenCL (I think it's also fully supported there?).

My EVGA 670 FTW needed a little bit of tweaking for OpenCL — just this little bit from Netkas.

I did a little pictorial/write-up over at my personal site for anyone interested in a few more benchmarks or whatever. Long story short, from a gamer's perspective the 670 worked fine but was kind of underwhelming, even in Windows.

 

[pkshdk]

So a regular 6-PIN PCI-e powercable extender won't work in a Mac Pro, because it's actually not 6-PIN connectors there are present on the motherboard???

 

[chiefroastbeef]

Hi,

I am new here so sorry for my "don`t knowing" and for my english

I want to buy GTX 670 for my Mac Pro 2010 and I want to ask you...

Do I need 2 power cables or one is enough and I can use one which I will buy with GPU?

I want to buy this one (I am czech so it`s czech):
http://www.alza.cz/zotac-geforce-gtx670-2gb-ddr5-amp-edition-d328554.htm

Will it work? And can I use that cable which is with GPU?

Thanks for reply!

I have the exact same video card, it works great, but it won't have a boot screen (screen will be black until login).

Like others have said, you will need two 6-pin cables to hook this up.

 

[JuniperMonkeys]

So a regular 6-PIN PCI-e powercable extender won't work in a Mac Pro, because it's actually not 6-PIN connectors there are present on the motherboard???

Correct. The end that plugs into the GPU is standard; the motherboard side of things has six pins, but is slightly smaller than standard.

 

[pkshdk]

Correct. The end that plugs into the GPU is standard; the motherboard side of things has six pins, but is slightly smaller than standard.

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

 

[BigJohno]

My EVGA 670 FTW needed a little bit of tweaking for OpenCL — just this little bit from Netkas.

I did a little pictorial/write-up over at my personal site for anyone interested in a few more benchmarks or whatever. Long story short, from a gamer's perspective the 670 worked fine but was kind of underwhelming, even in Windows.

Thank you for posting this. It's great to get all the info in one place with pictures!

Even underwhelming compared to your 5870? Try Battlefield 3. I bet it will smoke the 5870.

 

[matthewtoney]

Writeup

My EVGA 670 FTW needed a little bit of tweaking for OpenCL — just this little bit from Netkas.

I did a little pictorial/write-up over at my personal site for anyone interested in a few more benchmarks or whatever. Long story short, from a gamer's perspective the 670 worked fine but was kind of underwhelming, even in Windows.

Hey, thanks for the writeup and pics - bookmarked!

 

[JaroslavS]

Thanks a lot for help, I will buy it soon. Maybe tomorrow.

But I am really stupid in computers I love them, I know a lot but I can`t "work" in them.

If you have time or you want, Can somebody make a video of "putting GTX 670 in Mac Pro?" a write link? I found a lot of videos about it, but no one with GTX 670 or 680...

Thanks, JaroslavS

 

[JuniperMonkeys]

Even underwhelming compared to your 5870? Try Battlefield 3. I bet it will smoke the 5870.

Yeah, although I think that's due to a few factors.
- My expectations were probably a little high, after seeing benchmarks and stuff. For example, after seeing Anandtech's SC2 benchmarks, where the 670 more than doubled the 5870's speed, I was expecting similar results that weren't the case (in Windows, the 5870 at 2560/Ultra was getting about 60 FPS using the Bly v. Tarson replay — the 670 got 85 at the same point.) That's not to say that the 670 did poorly at all, just that I had expected more improvement.

- It's possible there was something going on with the software side; I used the newest non-beta Nvidia drivers, but had some small issues (heavy slowdown when, for example, maps loaded in some games, that cleared up in about five seconds and wasn't easily reproducible). It seemed a little susceptible to tearing, as well, regardless of V-sync settings (or indeed any other settings).

- A lot of the games I like aren't really that taxing. For example, World of Tanks gets about 50-90 FPS (depending on map) with the 5870 at 2560x; the 670 generally got about 10 FPS higher with an extra level of AA quality. I'm sure something like BF3 would bring out a lot more difference.

- Lastly, of course, the 5870 isn't a terrible card, for its age. It's just a shame that Apple continues to overcharge like crazy for it. If I still had a GT120, the 670 would be like getting carried around by angels on a bed of clouds.

To contextualize all this, the rest of the system is a 2009 Pro, with 5,1 firmware and 3.33 Hex (W3680), 16GB of 1333 RAM. Mac results were off a 480GB Sandisk SSD, and Windows results were off a 1TB, 7200RPM HDD.

 

[tomvos]

The Nvidea version 5 driver doesn't say anything about supporting the GTX 680.
I'm really interested to know if the GTX 680 really works in a mac pro. This thread doesn't given me much confidence that GTX 680 fully works.

I have an EVGA GTX680 in my Mac Pro. I just installed the cuds driver 5.0.17.

This is what the system preferences show. CUDA-Z works fine.