EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition

[Tastannin]

FWIW, I picked up a GTX 285 Mac Edition last weekend. Installation is a breeze as long as you remember to install the drivers first. The drivers on CD were the latest as well.

The GTX 285 replaced a flashed 8800GTS I had in my '08 Mac Pro which has a Dell 2048x1152 monitor attached. Some quick gaming in OSX (CoD4, ET:QW) - my initial feeling was that the GTX did not show much of a leap in performance over the 8800GTS. Booted into Win7, and maxed out the settings in Crysis. Only then could I really see a big improvement over the 8800GTS. I did some benchmarks, and while the pure benchmarks show a marked improvement, the real world benches really don't show much of a difference.

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed that the GTX performs so poorly. From what I hear around the 'net is that it's the drivers, but I figure by the time the drivers are updated, the next round of new GPU's will be out, and we Mac users will be behind another generation again. So I returned the card, and probably will stick with the 8800GTS. It works great for my needs right now. Once Snow Leopard comes out, and shows off the OpenCL stuff, with reviews on how various cards really make a difference, I'll reconsider, but for now - thanks EVGA, but no thanks.

For those thinking that the huge dent in your wallet the Mac GTX 285 will equate to a equally huge jump in graphics performance on your Mac Pro, don't bother. It doesn't work that way.

On another note, I saw a X1900 XT (?) for Mac going for like 285 or something somewhere online. The Mac video card market is majorly messed up, LOL.

 

[10THzMac]

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed that the GTX performs so poorly. ...

For those thinking that the huge dent in your wallet the Mac GTX 285 will equate to a equally huge jump in graphics performance on your Mac Pro, don't bother. It doesn't work that way.

This is very app-specific. CUDA apps go nearly twice as fast as my former 8800GT so I am very pleased indeed with my 285, once it is kicked into fast mode with some 3D commands. Some of us use a small rotating object running in background which makes a massive difference (x10 speed on Monte Carlo). Over on the EVGA forums someone has noted that WoW performance goes from about 20% less than a 4870 to 20% faster than a 4870 if you run a small 3D app (the "teapot") in background. People interested in programming the card should also note that it does double precision math, at a lot less cash than the Quadro 4800, unlike 8800/9800 series.

 

[kntgsp]

This is very app-specific. CUDA apps go nearly twice as fast as my former 8800GT so I am very pleased indeed with my 285, once it is kicked into fast mode with some 3D commands. Some of us use a small rotating object running in background which makes a massive difference (x10 speed on Monte Carlo). Over on the EVGA forums someone has noted that WoW performance goes from about 20% less than a 4870 to 20% faster than a 4870 if you run a small 3D app (the "teapot") in background. People interested in programming the card should also note that it does double precision math, at a lot less cash than the Quadro 4800, unlike 8800/9800 series.

The 3D issue is driver related, so at least there's an easy fix for EVGA and they are fantastic in the customer service department from my experience over the years with their PC parts. So considering how new the part is, I have confidence they'll offer up a fix. Too early to bash them......yet

Also, the latest drivers give a huge boost to CoD4 OS X performance. Just in case no one has updated them yet.

 

[kntgsp]

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed that the GTX performs so poorly. From what I hear around the 'net is that it's the drivers, but I figure by the time the drivers are updated, the next round of new GPU's will be out, and we Mac users will be behind another generation again. So I returned the card, and probably will stick with the 8800GTS. It works great for my needs right now. Once Snow Leopard comes out, and shows off the OpenCL stuff, with reviews on how various cards really make a difference, I'll reconsider, but for now - thanks EVGA, but no thanks.

For those thinking that the huge dent in your wallet the Mac GTX 285 will equate to a equally huge jump in graphics performance on your Mac Pro, don't bother. It doesn't work that way.

On another note, I saw a X1900 XT (?) for Mac going for like 285 or something somewhere online. The Mac video card market is majorly messed up, LOL.

Well the GT300 likely won't drop until Q4 '09 or Q1 '10. The HD5800 series will likely drop first around October/November. Even then, repeated inquiries to EVGA have them assuring people that they are dedicated to future support of Mac with their cards. Anandtech had it right - I think the 285 will sell pretty well and encourage them to have a quicker turnaround on releasing newer cards for OS X.

And yes, the Mac video card market is absolutely messed up. But hardcore gaming on Mac isn't a huge market. The available cards, while more expensive, do seem to play the Mac games at good frame rates. Part of the problem lies with the games themselves, who usually run slower than their PC counterparts to begin with. For example Command and Conquer. The PC version runs much faster at the same settings and same hardware than under OSX. That's soething that lies in the hands of the game developer.

Also, many people have had good luck with the netkas injector and a PC card. That opens up a huge swath of cards and price points for people wanting to game or use CUDA intensive apps under OS X.

 

[Topper]

The available cards, while more expensive, do seem to play the Mac games at good frame rates. Part of the problem lies with the games themselves, who usually run slower than their PC counterparts to begin with. For example Command and Conquer. The PC version runs much faster at the same settings and same hardware than under OSX. That's soething that lies in the hands of the game developer.

Good frame rates under OS X. Excellent frame rates under Windows.
And that is why God created Boot Camp.

The HD5800 series will likely drop first around October/November.

If the preliminary specs are true, those cards will transcend awesome!

I remember envying the 8800 Ultra. I wanted that card desperately.
Now we've got cards that are even better.
I've got the GTX 285. I am in my glory.
.

 

[2002cbr600f4i]

Well the GT300 likely won't drop until Q4 '09 or Q1 '10. The HD5800 series will likely drop first around October/November. Even then, repeated inquiries to EVGA have them assuring people that they are dedicated to future support of Mac with their cards. Anandtech had it right - I think the 285 will sell pretty well and encourage them to have a quicker turnaround on releasing newer cards for OS X.

And yes, the Mac video card market is absolutely messed up. But hardcore gaming on Mac isn't a huge market. The available cards, while more expensive, do seem to play the Mac games at good frame rates. Part of the problem lies with the games themselves, who usually run slower than their PC counterparts to begin with. For example Command and Conquer. The PC version runs much faster at the same settings and same hardware than under OSX. That's soething that lies in the hands of the game developer.

Also, many people have had good luck with the netkas injector and a PC card. That opens up a huge swath of cards and price points for people wanting to game or use CUDA intensive apps under OS X.

And the reason most ported games run slower under OSX is because they're typically not rewritten for OSX, but rather are converted using automated tools and DX-->OpenGL wrappers/convertors... As such, there's a lot more bloat than a pure OSX game would have, so the game runs slower.

The Mac market, especially for gaming, just isn't be enough to get companies to dedicate money to writing native code ports... Instead it's often smaller companies that pay $$$ to get the rights to a PC game and do the conversion, usually as cheaply and quickly as possible, and that means porting tools and emulation and wrappers. And that means lower performance.

There's nothing inherently faster or better about DirectX vs OpenGL, nor about Windows over OSX when it comes to gaming... It's all about how the game is written....

 

[kntgsp]

Good frame rates under OS X. Excellent frame rates under Windows.
And that is why God created Boot Camp.

Exactly.

If the preliminary specs are true, those cards will transcend awesome!

I remember envying the 8800 Ultra. I wanted that card desperately.
Now we've got cards that are even better.
I've got the GTX 285. I am in my glory.
.

Well, when it comes to future GPU performance, believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. Half the time the "new" great card is just a rebranded chip with bumped specs from the previous generation.

 

[kntgsp]

And the reason most ported games run slower under OSX is because they're typically not rewritten for OSX, but rather are converted using automated tools and DX-->OpenGL wrappers/convertors... As such, there's a lot more bloat than a pure OSX game would have, so the game runs slower.

The Mac market, especially for gaming, just isn't be enough to get companies to dedicate money to writing native code ports... Instead it's often smaller companies that pay $$$ to get the rights to a PC game and do the conversion, usually as cheaply and quickly as possible, and that means porting tools and emulation and wrappers. And that means lower performance.

There's nothing inherently faster or better about DirectX vs OpenGL, nor about Windows over OSX when it comes to gaming... It's all about how the game is written....

That's a whole lot of typing for something I never said. I never claimed DirectX was natively faster or better than OpenGL. I said the fact that PC games outperform the OS X port equivalents is something that lies in the hands of the developers. Either they do native ports for their product or restrict rights sales to companies who do proper ports.

 

[Tastannin]

The 3D issue is driver related, so at least there's an easy fix for EVGA and they are fantastic in the customer service department from my experience over the years with their PC parts. So considering how new the part is, I have confidence they'll offer up a fix. Too early to bash them......yet

Also, the latest drivers give a huge boost to CoD4 OS X performance. Just in case no one has updated them yet.

Yes, I figured it was the drivers. However, I'm not very optimistic that they'll fix the drivers so that the Mac 285 will perform at the levels it should be (as compared to Windows) within a reasonable time frame. Hence, my comment regarding the drivers getting up to spec by the time new cards come out. If I understand correctly, this was the same situation Apple 8800 card owners were experiencing last year or whenever that was.

As for CoD4 OS X, I used the latest drivers (which were on the CD with the card, and verified they were the same as the latest online), yet performance was not that great. Why should I be expected to run the "teapot" app in the background just to ensure I have acceptable performance from that card? Not everyone is that well versed enough to go online and find that info - and how many people will actually use this card for CUDA stuff? I'm betting the majority (which is still gonna be a small number anyways) will be getting the 285 for gaming.

BootCamp is nice, but its also a pain to have to boot back and forth just to play a game for a while.

Here are some CoD4 OS X numbers to illustrate my frustration with the 285 and its price tag:

Machine was a 8 core 2008 Mac Pro, 16GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.5.7, and no other apps running in the background. Monitor was a Dell SP2309W with native resolution of 2048x1152. Call of Duty 4 for Mac was latest version with all patches applied. I recorded a demo on the Pipeline map, with some bots (PezBOT) running around in Multiplayer, then played back the demo for the benchmarks.

2048x1152 with all CoD4 settings maxed out/on
Mac GTX 285: 21.1 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 19.6 fps
Mac 3870: 42.6 fps
Mac 2600: 7.7 fps

2048x1152 with AA off, soften smoke off, anisotropic filter off, textures normal
Mac GTX 285: 50 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 50.8 fps
Mac 3870: 72.8 fps
Mac 2600: 33.2 fps

1280x960 with all CoD4 settings maxed out/on
Mac GTX 285: 29 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 27.9 fps
Mac 3870: 66 fps
Mac 2600: 20.2 fps

1280x960 with AA off, soften smoke off, anisotropic filter off, textures normal
Mac GTX 285: 52.9 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 54.5 fps
Mac 3870: 80 fps
Mac 2600: 57 fps

I know CoD4 is one game, and I am also aware that ATI cards seem to outperform Nvidia cards for this game, but it's the game I choose to play most often. I did test out ET:QW and the general feel seems to be that it runs just the same under the 285 as it did under the 8800GTS. Anyone also find it funny to see how well the 2600 does if you drop the resolution and a couple of settings?? It's FASTER than the 285!!!

I also ran some artificial benchmarks and can see the performance differences quantified somewhat in a couple of the tests. Some of the others show no real difference. I'll be happy to throw up the numbers/screenshots if there's any real interest.

Now, the 8800GTS was a PC card, flashed to Mac with 8800GTS clock intact, so it's faster than the stock Apple 8800GT. It cost me $115. The 285 cost me $445. I'd expect the 285 to run around at least 3x faster due to the price differential. If we go by the Apple 8800GT, still would expect it to be at least twice as fast. Probably just diminishing returns - the faster you want to go, the more money you need to pay for slightly higher speeds, but STILL!!!

Even the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac/PC card still retails for slightly over $200. You'd think the GTX 285 would be twice as fast. Nope, it's the 3870 doing the spanking here. On maxed out settings the 3870 is twice as fast as the 285, and even at lower resolutions and settings, it still has a large margin.

If I was working for EVGA or Nvidia, I'd have run those benchmarks and made sure I had a product that performed significantly better than this before allowing it to be released. It's like Ford releasing a new Mustang, charging a premium, and people finding that it doesn't really perform any faster than the previous model. When they complain, others say, just wait for the new Ford gas formulation, it'll make your Mustang even faster. Etc, etc.

Anyways, I've got a buyer for the 8800GTS, and have a 4890 on the way, so will do more benches when the 4890 arrives and see what happens. Don't you love video cards on the Mac? LOL

 

[Tastannin]

And the reason most ported games run slower under OSX is because they're typically not rewritten for OSX, but rather are converted using automated tools and DX-->OpenGL wrappers/convertors... As such, there's a lot more bloat than a pure OSX game would have, so the game runs slower.

The Mac market, especially for gaming, just isn't be enough to get companies to dedicate money to writing native code ports... Instead it's often smaller companies that pay $$$ to get the rights to a PC game and do the conversion, usually as cheaply and quickly as possible, and that means porting tools and emulation and wrappers. And that means lower performance.

There's nothing inherently faster or better about DirectX vs OpenGL, nor about Windows over OSX when it comes to gaming... It's all about how the game is written....

I have to agree. When doing benchmarks in CoD4 OS X, I could see in the logs/console mentions of Direct X, so the conversion definitely is hindering performance there. Sadly, it seems like the only way to protest such poor conversions is to not buy the OS X version, and that only plays into the hands of those companies who have the mindset that "those Mac gamers who want our games will run Windows and buy our games". Grr.

Then again, maybe the porting group's mindset is to get within, say 70 - 80% of the Windows performance for the Mac port, because the market "is not all that big". Oh well. That's another whole can of worms and more, anyways!

 

[kntgsp]

Yes, I figured it was the drivers. However, I'm not very optimistic that they'll fix the drivers so that the Mac 285 will perform at the levels it should be (as compared to Windows) within a reasonable time frame. Hence, my comment regarding the drivers getting up to spec by the time new cards come out. If I understand correctly, this was the same situation Apple 8800 card owners were experiencing last year or whenever that was.

As for CoD4 OS X, I used the latest drivers (which were on the CD with the card, and verified they were the same as the latest online), yet performance was not that great. Why should I be expected to run the "teapot" app in the background just to ensure I have acceptable performance from that card? Not everyone is that well versed enough to go online and find that info - and how many people will actually use this card for CUDA stuff? I'm betting the majority (which is still gonna be a small number anyways) will be getting the 285 for gaming.

BootCamp is nice, but its also a pain to have to boot back and forth just to play a game for a while.

Here are some CoD4 OS X numbers to illustrate my frustration with the 285 and its price tag:

Machine was a 8 core 2008 Mac Pro, 16GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.5.7, and no other apps running in the background. Monitor was a Dell SP2309W with native resolution of 2048x1152. Call of Duty 4 for Mac was latest version with all patches applied. I recorded a demo on the Pipeline map, with some bots (PezBOT) running around in Multiplayer, then played back the demo for the benchmarks.

2048x1152 with all CoD4 settings maxed out/on
Mac GTX 285: 21.1 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 19.6 fps
Mac 3870: 42.6 fps
Mac 2600: 7.7 fps

2048x1152 with AA off, soften smoke off, anisotropic filter off, textures normal
Mac GTX 285: 50 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 50.8 fps
Mac 3870: 72.8 fps
Mac 2600: 33.2 fps

1280x960 with all CoD4 settings maxed out/on
Mac GTX 285: 29 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 27.9 fps
Mac 3870: 66 fps
Mac 2600: 20.2 fps

1280x960 with AA off, soften smoke off, anisotropic filter off, textures normal
Mac GTX 285: 52.9 fps
Flashed 8800GTS: 54.5 fps
Mac 3870: 80 fps
Mac 2600: 57 fps

I know CoD4 is one game, and I am also aware that ATI cards seem to outperform Nvidia cards for this game, but it's the game I choose to play most often. I did test out ET:QW and the general feel seems to be that it runs just the same under the 285 as it did under the 8800GTS. Anyone also find it funny to see how well the 2600 does if you drop the resolution and a couple of settings?? It's FASTER than the 285!!!

I also ran some artificial benchmarks and can see the performance differences quantified somewhat in a couple of the tests. Some of the others show no real difference. I'll be happy to throw up the numbers/screenshots if there's any real interest.

Now, the 8800GTS was a PC card, flashed to Mac with 8800GTS clock intact, so it's faster than the stock Apple 8800GT. It cost me $115. The 285 cost me $445. I'd expect the 285 to run around at least 3x faster due to the price differential. If we go by the Apple 8800GT, still would expect it to be at least twice as fast. Probably just diminishing returns - the faster you want to go, the more money you need to pay for slightly higher speeds, but STILL!!!

Even the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac/PC card still retails for slightly over $200. You'd think the GTX 285 would be twice as fast. Nope, it's the 3870 doing the spanking here. On maxed out settings the 3870 is twice as fast as the 285, and even at lower resolutions and settings, it still has a large margin.

If I was working for EVGA or Nvidia, I'd have run those benchmarks and made sure I had a product that performed significantly better than this before allowing it to be released. It's like Ford releasing a new Mustang, charging a premium, and people finding that it doesn't really perform any faster than the previous model. When they complain, others say, just wait for the new Ford gas formulation, it'll make your Mustang even faster. Etc, etc.

Anyways, I've got a buyer for the 8800GTS, and have a 4890 on the way, so will do more benches when the 4890 arrives and see what happens. Don't you love video cards on the Mac? LOL

Man that sucks. But the gaming I do is almost exclusively under Steam, so I'm on Windows anyway for that. I just wanted a card that would offer up full functionality in OS X so that I didn't have to run a second card just for Boot Camp or a PC card with netkas injectors that inhibit some functionality.

Shutdown to Boot up from OS X to Windows 7 with an SSD is literally seconds, so it doesn't bug me at all to switch over. I'm mostly in Left 4 Dead though, so I could actually run that under CrossOver, but we'll see what quality.

For the strategy games or others that aren't as hard on the graphics like Civ IV and the like, I just stay in OS X. But I do all my multiplayer over Steam, and for that it's easier for me to just load up Windows 7 or XP real quick. Also less temping to pause work and start up a game if I have to close what I'm doing and boot into XP haha. That's actually a benefit for me, just in terms of productivity

 

[kntgsp]

Actually something has to be wrong there. I've seen others post CoD4 results with the GTX285 Mac at 2560x1600 max settings with better results than what you posted for the lower resolutions.

Something is off with your numbers.

 

[Cindori]

10Thzmac did some posts about the automatic downclocking of 285 in windows and that it was giving low performance.

 

[kntgsp]

10Thzmac did some posts about the automatic downclocking of 285 in windows and that it was giving low performance.

No, it was the issue of throttling not responding immediately from idle. All cards downclock when idle. The issue was that it wasn't ramping up quick enough from idle, but there seems to be a fix already.

 

[10THzMac]

No, it was the issue of throttling not responding immediately from idle. All cards downclock when idle. The issue was that it wasn't ramping up quick enough from idle, but there seems to be a fix already.

Fix? What? Where? I am still running a rotating teapot in the background to keep the 285 at full speed - or was that the fix you meant? Cindori - the downclocking was worst on the Mac in fact.

 

[Topper]

.
What the heck are you people talking about? Throttling, downclocking, ramping up?
I'm using my GTX 285 Mac Edition with both OS X and WinXP and I'm not having any problems.
.

 

[Morriss]

Barefeats has retested the GTX 285 with the OS X 10.5.8 update:

http://barefeats.com/nehal14.html

There doesn't appear to be any changes in performance.

Though the new driver and OS release doesn't make the GeForce GTX 285 go faster, it continues to dominate in our extreme 3D tests and competes well with the Radeon HD 4870 in all but one Pro App Core Image test we tried. Therefore it wins the "best all around performance" award.

 

[10THzMac]

.
What the heck are you people talking about? Throttling, downclocking, ramping up?
I'm using my GTX 285 Mac Edition with both OS X and WinXP and I'm not having any problems.
.

Topper - bit of a long story... the card has three states for the shader clock, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.48GHz. There are even bigger changes in memory speeds. The fastest state is only hit (at least on several Mac Pros people have reported) if the card is asked to do some serious 3D stuff. If you give it the Cuda deviceQuery command it reports 0.6GHz. If you give it some heavy 3D then repeat the exercise right away it goes up to 1.48m then drops down again. Some of us run a little rotating "teapot" in the background, and on the EVGA forums someone reported back saying this made the card go from running 20% slower than a 4870 to 20% faster when running WoW. I found in made some Monte Carlo apps go 10 (TEN!) time quicker due to the massive shift in memory clock. Nvidia have recognized it as a problem - but Apple seem to have control of the power management.

So there is not a problem if you a running a big 3D thing - the clock goes up and stays there, but for anything else it is running a LOT slower than it is capable of.

 

[pastrychef]

Topper - bit of a long story... the card has three states for the shader clock, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.48GHz. There are even bigger changes in memory speeds. The fastest state is only hit (at least on several Mac Pros people have reported) if the card is asked to do some serious 3D stuff. If you give it the Cuda deviceQuery command it reports 0.6GHz. If you give it some heavy 3D then repeat the exercise right away it goes up to 1.48m then drops down again. Some of us run a little rotating "teapot" in the background, and on the EVGA forums someone reported back saying this made the card go from running 20% slower than a 4870 to 20% faster when running WoW. I found in made some Monte Carlo apps go 10 (TEN!) time quicker due to the massive shift in memory clock. Nvidia have recognized it as a problem - but Apple seem to have control of the power management.

So there is not a problem if you a running a big 3D thing - the clock goes up and stays there, but for anything else it is running a LOT slower than it is capable of.

Would you know where I may be able to find this "teapot" so that I can activate the full speed mode of my 285? Thanks in advance.

 

[jimmypopjr]

i haven't gone through every post in this thread, but wanted to ask:

is anyone having noticeable issues with the 285 in OSX?

With the card physically installed in my Mac Pro I get video hiccups when playing back any video through quicktime (in quicktime itself, or in iTunes).

And, when QT or iTunes are open, the mouse hiccups too. If I just move the mouse around in circles in a small area on the screen, eevry 5-10 seconds it will jump about 2 inches over/up/down. WIthout fail. Quit out of iTunes/QT and it's fine.

If I remove the 285 from the computer, everything works/plays back fine.

I'm running the latest drivers for it.

 

[Topper]

Would you know where I may be able to find this "teapot" so that I can activate the full speed mode of my 285? Thanks in advance.

I was hoping someone would answer you by now.
Google: "GTX 285" Cuda Teapot

i haven't gone through every post in this thread, but wanted to ask:

is anyone having noticeable issues with the 285 in OSX?

With the card physically installed in my Mac Pro I get video hiccups when playing back any video through quicktime (in quicktime itself, or in iTunes).

My 285 is working just fine for me including HD QT movies.
.

 

[Tastannin]

Actually something has to be wrong there. I've seen others post CoD4 results with the GTX285 Mac at 2560x1600 max settings with better results than what you posted for the lower resolutions.

Something is off with your numbers.

My point exactly. Something's off, and for the money I paid for that card, I expected a better experience, especially for a Mac branded card. We should not need to resort to "teapot" type hacks just to push the 285 to its appropriate speed. That kind of futzing, I'll understand if I have a flashed or injected card. That's the tradeoff.

Speaking of flashing/injecting, LOL - I have an ATI 4890 on the way, so once I receive it I'll see how it performs. I expect that it will give me more bang for my buck anyways, because the 4890 card cost me just $165 from Newegg.

My main beef is with the high price point of the Mac GTX 285 versus the disappointing performance that I have experienced with it in my system. I honestly do hope that EVGA does their best to support this card, and that they will get enough sales to make it worth doing a Mac version of the next generation of cards, and so forth. That was one reason I thought I'd get the 285, and if it had performed better for me, I probably would have kept it. Oh well.

 

[10THzMac]

Runs faster on 09 Pro!!!

Over on forums.evga.com (Mac zone, the bad performance thread for the 285) some users with 2009 Mac Pros are reporting that the card runs at 1,48GHz all the time, without running the friggin' teapot or anything like it.

So the power management is different on Mac Pro 4,1 than it is on 3,1. Back to the drawing board. Someone found a kext hinting at this a while back changing 4 to 3 did not fix it for me.

That same thread has teapot details as well.

 

[pastrychef]

That same thread has teapot details as well.

Thanks! Found it!

 

[kntgsp]

Over on forums.evga.com (Mac zone, the bad performance thread for the 285) some users with 2009 Mac Pros are reporting that the card runs at 1,48GHz all the time, without running the friggin' teapot or anything like it.

So the power management is different on Mac Pro 4,1 than it is on 3,1. Back to the drawing board. Someone found a kext hinting at this a while back changing 4 to 3 did not fix it for me.

That same thread has teapot details as well.

My new Mac Pro just got here and I'm about to install my GTX 285. Will let you know in a little bit and take a screenshot.