Hey, when did you order it? I ordered on the 21st of May and am waiting for a shipping date.
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EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition
- Thread starter hadleydb
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Hey, when did you order it? I ordered on the 21st of May and am waiting for a shipping date.
GTX 285 Ship time from Apple Store
A general FYI, I purchased my GTX 285 (and a new Mac Pro
) from the online Apple Store last night. The card has already shipped despite the advertised wait of 1-2 weeks. I love OWC, but Apple's price is $10 less.
PS: Thanks for all the helpful posts in this thread!
A general FYI, I purchased my GTX 285 (and a new Mac Pro
) from the online Apple Store last night. The card has already shipped despite the advertised wait of 1-2 weeks. I love OWC, but Apple's price is $10 less.PS: Thanks for all the helpful posts in this thread!
My e-mail says I created my account and ordered on May 25th - card arrived in UK several days ago. They have fouled up.
Over on the Cuda forums an Nvidia person reported back on the throttle-down issue recently:
"The power management software stack is controlled by Apple.
We are working on a possible solution."
Keep your eyes on:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=98966
for progress. Watching the mac screen turn to coloured snow just after boot, after my BIOS edit attempt, was extremely not funny. So I am going to leave well alone now and see if there is official soln.
"The power management software stack is controlled by Apple.
We are working on a possible solution."
Keep your eyes on:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=98966
for progress. Watching the mac screen turn to coloured snow just after boot, after my BIOS edit attempt, was extremely not funny.
So I am going to leave well alone now and see if there is official soln.
Gave Apple & EVGA a call
I to have been contemplating importing one however I called Apple today who was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard and didn't have a clue, I then decided to e-mail EVGA about a possible European release date and got this reply.
"Matt,
We are working to have product in the next few weeks.
Thank you,
Joe Darwin"
So fingers crossed we will see one end of the month beginning of July, it's still a bit vague but it's better than nothing.
I'm curious, did anyone find a retailer that sells the GTX285 in Europe?
I've called the Dutch Apple store 2 times, but they just keep saying they haven't heard a thing about this card.
If I dont find one soon, then I guess im gonna order one from the US
I to have been contemplating importing one however I called Apple today who was about as much use as a chocolate fire guard and didn't have a clue, I then decided to e-mail EVGA about a possible European release date and got this reply.
"Matt,
We are working to have product in the next few weeks.
Thank you,
Joe Darwin"
So fingers crossed we will see one end of the month beginning of July, it's still a bit vague but it's better than nothing.
the fact that nvidia is aware of the problem and say they are working on a solution is encouraging. i think i read that the 8800 had the same throttling issues that the 285 has? that's a little discouraging - especially since the 8800 was an apple branded card (right?) and it's been out for so long.
that being said, the 285 definitely has more upside than the 4870, simply because it's newer technology and there's twice as much memory. and it's hard to accept buying a 512MB graphics card now for $350 since they've had cards with that much memory for awhile now. (8800 GT & R3870) Yes, I know it's more than just now much memory the graphics card has, but there's something psychological about buying the latest and greatest, but it only having as much memory a card from a year or two ago.
so i'm leaning towards the GTX 285 now (though it's not like I haven't gone back and forth with it daily for the past month or so). I don't mind spending the extra $100 on this card, it's more whether I should have faith that nvidia & EVGA (and maybe apple? probably not) can fix this throttling issue and allow full utilization of this card under OS X.
that being said, the 285 definitely has more upside than the 4870, simply because it's newer technology and there's twice as much memory. and it's hard to accept buying a 512MB graphics card now for $350 since they've had cards with that much memory for awhile now. (8800 GT & R3870) Yes, I know it's more than just now much memory the graphics card has, but there's something psychological about buying the latest and greatest, but it only having as much memory a card from a year or two ago.
so i'm leaning towards the GTX 285 now (though it's not like I haven't gone back and forth with it daily for the past month or so). I don't mind spending the extra $100 on this card, it's more whether I should have faith that nvidia & EVGA (and maybe apple? probably not) can fix this throttling issue and allow full utilization of this card under OS X.
Thanks
Then I'm gonna order one from the USA. Shall I do it via Apple or a third party retailer? I dont really care much about the price, just about how fast I get it here.
Over on the Cuda forums an Nvidia person reported back on the throttle-down issue recently:
"The power management software stack is controlled by Apple.
We are working on a possible solution."
Keep your eyes on:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=98966
for progress. Watching the mac screen turn to coloured snow just after boot, after my BIOS edit attempt, was extremely not funny.
Did you use the Bios from your PC card, on your PC card?
How did you edit it?
Seems like you got the Ram Config # wrong in the NVStrap, or just a bad edit.
It's not hard to edit an NVDA Bios, but there are some thing you need to know, I'll be happy to edit 1 or 2 for you and show you how it's done.
I can also give you some Software that can read your clocks under OS X, and let you know what speed your card's is running at.
I think this will do it:
That's a snip of Code from a .Kext that will read the clocks and return the values to your Console Log( /Applications/Utilities/Console.app ).
I'll have to check with Thunderbird( Author of NVClock for linux ) and see if the Values for the HW Regs are current in the lasted Code( For NVClock ).
PM me if you (Anyone) have questions.
We need to find how Apple is using PowerMizer, then we can Control the Clocks of all NVDA cards, I can Control them in my SW, but Apple SW will change them right back in 250ms of idle time, or sleep wake, or Detect Display's ect.
I'm hoping NVDA just gives us a real Control Panel, like Windows, and ALL the OTHER *Nix have, and we can be done with it.( And git back to FLASHING/Working)
well, i flip flopped again and ended up buying the 4870. i think in the end, i just didn't want to chance of the card being underpowered because of the drivers and didn't want to rely on nvidia and/or evga to solve the problem. i don't do any hard core gaming, so I already suspected the the 285 might be a little underutilized because of that. i don't mind fiddling with settings, but the fact the the 4870 will start working as soon as I plug it in and I don't have to "maintain" it was also a reason why I went with it. anyways, I was able to get jr to price match to cost central at $310, so it was a good enough deal for me to take it.
btw, if anyone is still looking to get the 285, amazon has it for $443 right now - free shipping, no tax to most states.
btw, if anyone is still looking to get the 285, amazon has it for $443 right now - free shipping, no tax to most states.
Just to let you know what I did (and to let someone more competent have a go, and anyone no more competent be warned!)
Steps 1-5 under bootcamp:
1. I downloaded Mac 285 rom to file with windows version of nvflash
2. SAVED A COPY AND EDITED ANOTHER COPY
3. Used NiBiToR open my editing copy to observe the clock states for "2D", "3D", "EXTRA" and "Throttle" modes. These are 0.6, 0.8, 1.48, 0 by default.
4. In NiBiTor I tried several things. The most basic was to copy the entries in the 0.8 row (all 3 values) to the 0.6 row, just to see if I could speed up the basic state a notch. I did this and saved the file
5. Flashed the Mac 285 with the edited Mac 285 ROM
6. Panicked when startup turned to coloured snow after few seconds under OS X.
Card was OK under windows, except when I tried to run Cuda, when got more snow. So I reflashed the card with the backup Rom and eventually got things back to normal.
This I thought was a very innocuous edit on my second go. [On other goes I had been more ambitious and replaced 0.8-> 0.6, 1.48 -> 0.8, and the 1.48 row was replaced with some settings from a superclocked card.]
What also baffled me was the fact that the Palit 2G card seemed to have the same values on all the NiBiTor screens, but was running at 1.48.
Thanks for your other suggestions. I might well PM you...
Just had a look back on the cuda forum. Seems that someone there says his 285 is running at 1.48GHz by default on his 09 Pro, but on my 08 machine I have 0.6.
If anyone has put a Mac 285 in an 09 Pro, can they PLEASE run the OpenGL Extensions viewer benchmark, twice, and tell us if the 1.1 test is any different second time round when run in quick succession*. This reminds me of Cuda's observation about power management tweaks specific to Pro 4,1. I am going to have another peek at that power management kext.
*With the settings Multisample 4, Anisotropy 17, Benchmark checked, I get 559 first run, 1314 second run right after, on OGL 1.1.
Cuda: you said you might have some ideas about how to edit that file. Having changed 4,1 to 3,1 and 5e2 to 5e3 there are still all those threshold etc items in the "heuristic" section. I am wondering about the ordering of the Items compared to what is in the Rom as per shot below. Before I foul up again what do you think? I am wondering if the Apple power management is all out of order on these states, and maybe so far they did a remap for the 260 on an 09.....
If anyone has put a Mac 285 in an 09 Pro, can they PLEASE run the OpenGL Extensions viewer benchmark, twice, and tell us if the 1.1 test is any different second time round when run in quick succession*. This reminds me of Cuda's observation about power management tweaks specific to Pro 4,1. I am going to have another peek at that power management kext.
*With the settings Multisample 4, Anisotropy 17, Benchmark checked, I get 559 first run, 1314 second run right after, on OGL 1.1.
Cuda: you said you might have some ideas about how to edit that file. Having changed 4,1 to 3,1 and 5e2 to 5e3 there are still all those threshold etc items in the "heuristic" section. I am wondering about the ordering of the Items compared to what is in the Rom as per shot below. Before I foul up again what do you think? I am wondering if the Apple power management is all out of order on these states, and maybe so far they did a remap for the 260 on an 09.....
Attachments
Thanks for the heads up. I just placed my order. I'm not a gamer, so I'm taking the chance that this card will run fine for 3D apps like Cinema 4D, etc. The price difference between the 4870 and the 285 is not that big actually. I would need to add the cost of the $29.00 DVI adapter plus taxes (if I ordered from Apple), so I'm paying about $50.00 more for the 285.
I hope they can improve the drivers to the point where it's performance is on par with the Windows system. What is the past history of Apple/Nvidia/EVGA, in regards to how active they are in fine tuning their drivers/firmware? Should we be optimistic in seeing a fix for this power management problem?
I did not think of it before, but after you edit a .kext file you need to rebuild you extensions cache, or boot with -f as a kernel Arg.
Easiest way is to install the .kext with kext install helper, and reboot, of put " -f " in your /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist under the Kernel Flags( but you'll want to remove it later as it takes longer to boot.)
Or you can do it in NVRam, but KIH is the best way, anyway.
After you have booted with a clean/new kext cache:
That command ( kextstat ) should return:
If it does not, something is wrong with with the edits, or I did not tell you a correct way.
If kextstat does return the above, we are on the right track, and we can now make some more edits to this .plist(/System/Library/Extensions/AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext/Contents/Info.plist)
Let me say what I think some of these values are and what, I think they do.
Code:
ID
Code:
IdleInterval
Code:
SensorOptionUse an external Tempature sensor to read the GPU temp. and use it's value in Celsius to determine when a Thermal Threshold is reached.
However, I think Geforce GT cards support I2c Thermal Sensors, too, so it just maybe that the SensorOption ( 1 ) is saying use the I2c Sensor On MacPro's ( I know for a fact that iMac's use an External Temp. Sensor that has wires that lead from the Heatsink of the card to, I believe the SMC Bus)
This is where things get Dicy as the Two Nvidia cards Defined in this file are not yet out in any MacPro, we don't know..........
I think valid values here(SensorOption) would be:
Code:
0
Code:
1BUT we could also try
Code:
2My best guess is that the Binary Code (/System/Library/Extensions/AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleGraphicsPowerManagement) Detects the Case for
Code:
1Also, I could be wrong and
Code:
SensorOption 1So you see it's dicy.
Code:
SensorSampleRate
Code:
TargetCount
?So, Threshold_High and Threshold_Low.
Code:
Threshold_HighEach entry ( Item ) under the Threshold_High is a Thermal Value ( in Celsius ) for the Max Tempature of one of our four valid PowerStates, when that Temp. is reached (87c) (100c), it lowers the card to the next lower PowerState as defined by the Perf.Tables in the BIOS( I don't know if the EFI Part of the ROM also Defines them for GeForce GT xxx cards, I'll have to try and look at it.)
Code:
Threshold_LowThat's some light reading, I'll add more later.
Thanks Cuda. I am OK now on permissions and cache rebuild, thanks to failures many weeks ago. Will try out the new suggestions, once I have figured it all out!
Edit: I do not know whether this counts as backpedalling or useful information, but that kextstat command does not return anything at all. Maybe that kext is not loading properly. I did it twice, both with my own manual permission setting, and with kext helper, and in neither case does kextstat return anything for AGPM.
I remain pretty sure my kext permission method is OK - the script in kext helper looks similar to my manual version that I got from an Apple page.
Added in edit: there is unofficial power management suggestion now, for Cuda users at least, over on
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=99893
(just run a small 3D cuda app in another window).
Edit: I do not know whether this counts as backpedalling or useful information, but that kextstat command does not return anything at all. Maybe that kext is not loading properly. I did it twice, both with my own manual permission setting, and with kext helper, and in neither case does kextstat return anything for AGPM.
I remain pretty sure my kext permission method is OK - the script in kext helper looks similar to my manual version that I got from an Apple page.
Added in edit: there is unofficial power management suggestion now, for Cuda users at least, over on
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=99893
(just run a small 3D cuda app in another window).
I just installed my GTX 285 in my brand new 09 2.66 Octo. I have the latest drivers from the EVGA website and everything is running fine.
However, there's a slight problem in the DVI connector department...they're too close together! I have a 23" ACD plugged in to the #1 port and on my old computer (G5 Quad w/GeForce 6600LE) I had a DVI > HDMI converter plugged into the #2 port for my TV. Problem is, there isn't enough room in between the two ports on the 285 so I cant connect the DVI > HDMI converter to the #2 port. Does anyone know of any DVI extension cables with particularly narrow connectors? The width of the DVI>HDMI converter and the ACD DVI connector are the same width. I'm kind of baffled EVGA/nVidia would put the two ports so close to each other...
Help?
However, there's a slight problem in the DVI connector department...they're too close together! I have a 23" ACD plugged in to the #1 port and on my old computer (G5 Quad w/GeForce 6600LE) I had a DVI > HDMI converter plugged into the #2 port for my TV. Problem is, there isn't enough room in between the two ports on the 285 so I cant connect the DVI > HDMI converter to the #2 port. Does anyone know of any DVI extension cables with particularly narrow connectors? The width of the DVI>HDMI converter and the ACD DVI connector are the same width. I'm kind of baffled EVGA/nVidia would put the two ports so close to each other...
Help?
use a male to female DVI Cable and plug it into the second DVI Port. At the end of the cable you can then use the Convertor to HDMI. this should work without a quality drop.
Right, I was primarily asking if anyone knew first hand of any particular cables they bought with connectors that aren't particularly broad.
Is it possible to run the 285 Mac Edition besides a standard 120 both in OS X and Windows in a 2009 Pro?
Apple couldn't give me a clear response yet.
Apple couldn't give me a clear response yet.
Rominator is right (of course!), but there was a very strange business a few weeks ago when someone said a Zotac 260 (injected) was fighting with a GT120 when the exact same Zotac 260 model was working in my machine alongside an 8800. You might want to make sure you can return a card just in case there is a problem.
Sounds good so far, so I guess I will give it a try.
The 285 would just make twice the price than a stock 4870 and I heard that the ATI can cause issues in combination with the Nvidia 120.
The 285 would just make twice the price than a stock 4870 and I heard that the ATI can cause issues in combination with the Nvidia 120.