Used Nvidia on a Budget (Mac Pro 5.1)

[r6mile]

Also, this may be a dumb question, but if I leave the 5770 in (for the occasional boot screen or OS problem), will there be any conflicts with having both it and an Nvidia card installed at the same time, particularly in Windows? (Specifically Windows 10)

Unless you have an extra power supply (or some other unconventional way to give power to the card), you cannot power both of those cards through the logic board. The Mac Pro's logic board only has two power connectors, and the Radeon needs 1 while the GTX needs 2. Your best bet IMO is to sell the Radeon 5770 (they sell well on eBay) and pick up an Apple card that does not need power connectors - a Geforce GT120 or a Radeon 2600XT. See this thread for more https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dual-gpu-mac-pro-2008-how-to-power.1954282/

 

[nigelbb]

Also, this may be a dumb question, but if I leave the 5770 in (for the occasional boot screen or OS problem), will there be any conflicts with having both it and an Nvidia card installed at the same time, particularly in Windows? (Specifically Windows 10)

You wouldn't have enough power connectors for the 5770 plus a GTX570/680 unless you add another power supply. There are only two on the motherboard & the Nvidia card requires two while the 5770 requires one.

 

[MacBassPlayer]

Unless you have an extra power supply (or some other unconventional way to give power to the card), you cannot power both of those cards through the logic board. The Mac Pro's logic board only has two power connectors, and the Radeon needs 1 while the GTX needs 2. Your best bet IMO is to sell the Radeon 5770 (they sell well on eBay) and pick up an Apple card that does not need power connectors - a Geforce GT120 or a Radeon 2600XT. See this thread for more https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dual-gpu-mac-pro-2008-how-to-power.1954282/

No offense, but I think you missed the point. I was talking about conflicts, on the assumption that the Nvidia card in question did not need more than one 6 pin cable. I have taken into consideration that a GTX 680 or similar card needs 2 6 pin connectors, but a few of the suggestions like the GTX 660 only require 1, and the GTX 650 or 750 don't even need an additional connector. My question was, if there would be any conflicts in Windows 10 with both cards installed, if the cards in question can both be installed?

Also, I would rather not trade the HD 5770 for a relatively crappy card like a GT 120, especially considering, from what I understand, Windows 10 apparently will not allow the GT and a newer card to be installed at the same time, due to conflicting drivers.

 

[nigelbb]

Buy a used GTX680 & flash it yourself. Then the 5770 is redundant & you can sell it.

 

[MacBassPlayer]

Buy a used GTX680 & flash it yourself. Then the 5770 is redundant & you can sell it.

Just curious, how big of a PITA is flashing a 680?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Just curious, how big of a PITA is flashing a 680?

I put the link in the previous page. It's super easy, you just need a PC.

I don't know why anyone would suggest an expensive flashed 770 over a cheap DIY 680. The performance of these cards are neck and neck, except that the Nvidia web drivers favour the 680 better.

Look how good the drivers are on the 680 compared to cards that cost 4-5 times more. It only falls back significantly in compute because it has less CUDA cores than the 9 series (though it matches the number of cores on the 770)


http://barefeats.com/gtx980ti.html

 

[ActionableMango]

Just curious, how big of a PITA is flashing a 680?

It depends on your personal skills and comfort level I suppose. I've pasted in the whole procedure below and you can judge for yourself:

Prerequisites:

• A reasonably normal GTX 680 (the overwhelming majority of them work, but a couple of weird ones don't)
• A copy of the 2GB ROM or the 4GB ROM file, to match your card's VRAM capacity
• A copy of nvflash software
• A copy of Kepler BIOS Tweaker (optional, but recommended)
• Windows

Flashing Procedure:

1) Make sure there are no other Nvidia cards installed at the same time.

2) Open Kepler BIOS Tweaker. Read your card's ROM and save it to a file. This is the backup of your original ROM in case you want to go back to it.

3) Copy all the related files to a single folder that is easily accessible from the command prompt. I suggest you make a new folder, for example C:\scrappy. It should include the following:
nvflash.exe
GTX680-4GB-ROM.rom (file name may vary)
Original.rom (assuming you made a backup ROM)

4) Open a command line prompt. (Click Start button, type CMD, and press Enter. A command line window will open.)

5) In the command line window, navigate to the folder with the files. If you used my example, the command would be:

cd c:\scrappy

6) Flash the firmware:

nvflash -4 -5 -6 GTX680-4GB-ROM.rom

7) If it asks for confirmation, press yes. When it says to wait, wait.

8) After it is successful, reboot and you will see boot screens.

9) Celebrate.

 

[MacBassPlayer]

That seems quite easy. I'll definitely have to consider that.

 

[MacVidCards]

Do the "-" get past the 8 character limit for filenames in DOS?

I always try to keep file names in DOS to 8 characters, yet easy to comprehend.

If I were flashing a Zotac 680 4GB FOR INSTANCE:

I would first backup my rom with "nvflash -b zot6804g.rom"

Then flash with "nvflash mac6804.rom -4 -5 -6"

Note that you may need to answer some questions with a "y" or even a "YES" to finish flashing if various things don't line up, usually that is fine.

 

[ActionableMango]

The filename limit for the Windows command line is much larger than the DOS limit of 8.3. You can even have spaces if you use quotes.

 

[MacVidCards]

ok, got confused I have been posting somewhere offering help in FreeDos, and obviously there the filenames have to be under 9