10.6.8 Processor and Graphics Card?

[Morgan Mac]

I have two straightforward questions. All help is appreciated.

• What is considered to be the best Processor for 10.6.8?
• What is considered to be the best Graphics Card for 10.6.8?

From what research I've done, a 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 seems to be the answer for best processor; and ATI Radeon HD 5870 seems to be it for graphics card, although I have read that ATI Radeon HD 6870 can be supported also.

I'm a video editor and would also like to be able to play games with demanding specs. 8GB of RAM is installed, with plenty of storage space.

 

[benwiggy]

Is this for a Hackintosh, or a Mac Pro, or what?

 

[Morgan Mac]

Is this for a Hackintosh, or a Mac Pro, or what?

It's a Mac Pro Quad Core.

 

[666sheep]

CPU choice is MP model and firmware dependent, not OS.
If you have 2009 (4,1) model you have 2 ways:
– W3580 – best bang for buck ($245 on ebay)
– flash firmware to 5,1 and get W3680 – best performer, especially for video work ($520 on ebay)

If you want to stick with 10.6.8, 5870 is the fastest available ATI card. 6870, is supported but it's slower than 5870.
Fastest one from Nvidia would be GTX 480. To run GTX 470/480 you'd need to do some additional work: http://macvidcards.com/2011/29/fermi-cards-come-to-the-mac-pro/

 

[Morgan Mac]

Is the NVIDIA Quadro 4000 compatible with my system?

everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.66-early-2009-nehalem-specs.html

 

[666sheep]

Yes, but first you need to determine if it would speed up your work. These cards are expensive and do offer improvements only in certain specific tasks, like high precision OpenGL and complex calculations taking advantage from double precision floating point operations.

Some basic questions you need to answer:
– what software you're using mostly
– is there any particular reason for staying on 10.6.8 (10.8 offers a lot wider choice of graphics card upgrade)
– how much money do you want to spend

I suggest to report your original post to the mods and ask them to move this whole thread to Mac Pro forum. You'll get a lot more answers there, especially from people who have similar workflow.

 

[Morgan Mac]

This thread has aged three weeks, and I'm back with some more questions:

• Is the entire GeForce 400/500/600 series compatible with 10.8?
• Is the entire Radeon 6000/7000 series compatible with 10.8?

• Have there been any duds in that lot? Recommendations for my system?
• Do some of these cards have disturbing noise levels? Have there been issues with overheating, and fires?

 

[benwiggy]

I'm a video editor and would also like to be able to play games with demanding specs. 8GB of RAM is installed, with plenty of storage space.

I would say that if you're looking for cheap performance improvements, more RAM would definitely be in order.

 

[Morgan Mac]

This thread has aged three weeks, and I'm back with some more questions:

• Is the entire GeForce 400/500/600 series compatible with 10.8?
• Is the entire Radeon 6000/7000 series compatible with 10.8?

• Have there been any duds in that lot? Recommendations for my system?
• Do some of these cards have disturbing noise levels? Have there been issues with overheating, and fires?

Could someone answer these questions? It would be great if an expert could tell me definitively what cards work with my system. There is conflicting evidence and I don't know who to believe.

everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-quad-core-2.66-early-2009-nehalem-specs.html