Installing GTX 780 Ti in 2010 Mac Pro

[kapowaz]

So I’ve finally gotten all the components but it seems that I’d not given any thought to power supply cables; my old 2008 Mac Pro had a GTX 680 in it, which used the exact same cables as my previous Radeon HD 5870 (2x 6 pin), but the GTX 780 Ti (and I understand, the ordinary GTX 780 too) has 1x 8 pin and 1x 6 pin. The card itself came with a Y-adapter to convert 2x 6 pin into one 8 pin connector, but whilst I could connect it with this I’d be left short by 1x 6 pin.

I think I’ve got another 6 pin adapter spare (connected to the 8800 GT I’ve put back into my 2008 model) but I’ve no idea where else I can connect it. Looking around I’ve read about people jerry-rigging their own adapter to feed from the optical drives, but I’m still intending to use at least one of these. How have other people with a GTX 780 connected their card in their own 2010 Mac Pro? I’d really appreciate some advice here!

 

[echoout]

Hey there, a lot of us with more powerful cards like yours are using external power supplies. Whether you power your 780Ti off the board might depend on what else you have in your MP as far as drives and cards. Look for cable adapters by companies like StarTech to properly power your card off the board. Might be too much to risk damaging your motherboard.

That all being said, the 780Ti only works using new beta drivers, and even then has no CUDA support if you were wanting to use it for After Effects or Octane or something like that. It's looking like it will be supported once OSX 10.9.2 is released though.

This thread should help clarify.

 

[kapowaz]

Can you tell me any more about the kind of external power supply you're using? I've not encountered one of these before.

I'm aware of the driver issue — I've already installed the reverse-engineered beta driver.

 

[kennyman]

Can you tell me any more about the kind of external power supply you're using? I've not encountered one of these before.

I'm aware of the driver issue — I've already installed the reverse-engineered beta driver.

Hello kapowaz,

You would require something like this;

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817101044

It would power your GTX 780Ti safely, without messing with your motherboard dedicated power.

How to do this, here are couple of useful posts;

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1520765/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1472518/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1684482/

Pls do a search on this forum, there are some many similar posts with AUX power in DVD bay.

 

[echoout]

The FSP Booster in my sig has been great. I run with the door off though, which hasn't seemed to be a problem.

I'm ready for the CUDA support. I have 2 780Tis ready to pop in.

 

[riggles]

The FSP Booster in my sig has been great. I run with the door off though, which hasn't seemed to be a problem.

I'm ready for the CUDA support. I have 2 780Tis ready to pop in.

You're switching from Titans to 780Ti's?

 

[echoout]

You're switching from Titans to 780Ti's?

I have 2 workstations. I'm going to run benchmarks on each pair to see which work best for what in my workflow.

AE vs Octane vs C4D, etc.

 

[riggles]

I have 2 workstations. I'm going to run benchmarks on each pair to see which work best for what in my workflow.

AE vs Octane vs C4D, etc.

Gotcha. Perhaps this question is better in a new thread, but how much of an AE render can be offloaded to GPUs? I'll need to set up a small render farm for my wife at home in a couple months. (She does mostly keying, camera tracking, and final comping. No motion graphics). Wondering if a single GPU station could replace a small CPU farm.

 

[echoout]

Gotcha. Perhaps this question is better in a new thread, but how much of an AE render can be offloaded to GPUs? I'll need to set up a small render farm for my wife at home in a couple months. (She does mostly keying, camera tracking, and final comping. No motion graphics). Wondering if a single GPU station could replace a small CPU farm.

Yeah, I do a decent amount of that work myself and the GPUs offer almost no benefit at this point in time. It's all about Ray-tracing which I'm just now starting to find uses for. Mostly for motion graphics though.

Sorry for being off-topic, OP!!!

 

[NukeUser]

In AE, right now the GPU just handles the viewport, not the renderer. But it's really worth it to speed up the viewport, that's where I work!


Everyone who uses AE on a daily basis knows how much more productive you are with extremely fast response from the program when using lights, shadows, and plugins like Element and Particular....!

 

[echoout]

In AE, right now the GPU just handles the viewport, not the renderer. But it's really worth it to speed up the viewport, that's where I work!


Everyone who uses AE on a daily basis knows how much more productive you are with extremely fast response from the program when using lights, shadows, and plugins like Element and Particular....!

You're saying the GPU handles the viewport of AE in CS6/CC? What are you referring to? The OpenGL previews?

And you're also saying the GPU speeds up Particular?

This is all news to me as a 15 year daily AE user! (but then I don't ever claim to know everything)

 

[Sinx2oic]

Yeah, I do a decent amount of that work myself and the GPUs offer almost no benefit at this point in time. It's all about Ray-tracing which I'm just now starting to find uses for. Mostly for motion graphics though.

Sorry for being off-topic, OP!!!

I Have found Ray Tracing in AE terrible! I just don't get it! It seems slow and useless with my superclocked 680. Cinema 4D is so much better.. even 3D Element is faster. I have never used the octane renderer though and I'm told its's amazing!

Said it before but I never get the CUDA and AE thing and def won't miss it when my nMP comes.

Also Sorry for being off-topic and ranting!

 

[echoout]

I Have found Ray Tracing in AE terrible! I just don't get it! It seems slow and useless with my superclocked 680. Cinema 4D is so much better.. even 3D Element is faster. I have never used the octane renderer though and I'm told its's amazing!

Said it before but I never get the CUDA and AE thing and def won't miss it when my nMP comes.

Also Sorry for being off-topic and ranting!

I just finished a big job using Raytracing and it was actually really nice looking (after me complaining about it). Some uses I hadn't thought about. I flew on my machine.

 

[NukeUser]

echoout-

My comment was regarding your “GPU offers almost no benefit.. It’s all about ray-tracing” comment..

Before CS6, the CPU was drawing the interface. Now the GPU does more than JUST raytracing in AE. Having a faster GPU is going to give you faster performance when working in AE. It’s too bad right now rendering is still all CPU.

But my point is this: in your experience, is working (not rendering) in AE faster for you when use a Titan or a slower card like a GeForce 8800GT? The speed/VRAM of the GPU is handling all OS interface drawing as well.

In CS6 and later,…from Adobe, “OpenGL supports the drawing of interface items, such as, composition, footage, and layer panels….This feature is also known as the "Hardware BlitPipe." from http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/rendering-opengl.html

I am not claiming to know it all. All I know is I really saw a major speed working speed difference with CS6 and the GTX680 cards. I also work in AE/Nuke everyday, AE since 1998.

And I am glad to get a chance to talk someone who has worked in AE for as long as I have !

Here is a story you might like that would bring back some old memories- in 1999/2000 I was hired to do a high profile AE project in 2D, tons of animated high-res pics timed to music.. AE didn’t even support real-time audio playback at that time, so in order to animate this comp to certain parts of the music, I added markers in the audio in Peak (app), then exported a text file of the markers with timecode and used the text file to hit the marks. So we spent weeks making this project, and finally rendered the final version- It took 144 hours nonstop to render it (I HATED YOU LENS BLUR BUT YOU LOOKED SO GOOD BACK THEN!) rendering on an Apple B&W G3 350mhz loaded with 512MB RAM!). I would have split the render up between two machines, but (remember OS9 slowed down background processes!) I needed to have one machine free to edit.

Anyway, a year after the project was done, Adobe released v.5.0 with 2.5D…I was hired by the same producer for a new project.. He saw the new 2.5D capabilities in AE and was like “WHAT PROGRAM IS THAT!!!?????” I spent weeks convincing him he didn’t have enough time or money to remake the old 2D video.

I would have sold a kidney to have access to a Flame back then….

 

[echoout]

Crazy, I don't see/feel any difference between working on the GT120 I teach on at school and my dual Titan setup. None. I just did the heaviest lifting I've ever done on the new Transformers game and it felt the same (as far as UI) on my MBP, MP and Windows workstation. Weird. I must be missing something.

And yes! Good to see other veterans here. Always read my posts in a positive voice, I'm more into learning than arguing.

 

[NukeUser]

Have you ever seen a difference toggling Preferences>Display>Hardware Accelerate Composition, Timeline Panels?

 

[echoout]

Crazy, nope. I have never heard that setting mentioned in any shape or form. I still see lists of features related to GPU in AE that don't have this listed. They're certainly not doing a very good job getting the word out on that one. I pour through so much literature too.

Thanks! That's new to me. I'll give it a go.

 

[funwithdesign]

Here is a story you might like that would bring back some old memories- in 1999/2000 I was hired to do a high profile AE project in 2D, tons of animated high-res pics timed to music.. AE didn’t even support real-time audio playback at that time, so in order to animate this comp to certain parts of the music, I added markers in the audio in Peak (app), then exported a text file of the markers with timecode and used the text file to hit the marks.

This reminds me of an animation that we did around the same time. Used Flash/Livemotion (remember that?) but neither program had decent audio syncing so we imported the flash into Director and added the audio that way with markers.

 

[NukeUser]

Yes- Director/Shockwave/Lingo was amazing back then, it generated very FAST low-level code for graphics... Much faster than action scripting when compiled. I mean, I couldn't believe how great the animation was in-browser for that time. It died like a Beta-VHS death...Flash became the larger installbase... Looks like it is still being developed by Adobe! http://www.adobe.com/products/director.html

 

[echoout]

Yes- Director/Shockwave/Lingo was amazing back then, it generated very FAST low-level code for graphics... Much faster than action scripting when compiled. I mean, I couldn't believe how great the animation was in-browser for that time. It died like a Beta-VHS death...Flash became the larger installbase... Looks like it is still being developed by Adobe! http://www.adobe.com/products/director.html

I initially was into Director Lingo scripting. I started with Flash 2. Amazing vector tool with no authoring whatsoever. I owe my whole career to Flash really.

 

[funwithdesign]

I initially was into Director Lingo scripting. I started with Flash 2. Amazing vector tool with no authoring whatsoever. I owe my whole career to Flash really.

I had so much hope for Livemotion, an AfterEffects timeline with Flash action script. However reality was much different. So disappointing.

It's amazing to think that a large part of my business back then was CD-Rom authoring. Before internet connections caught up to people's needs.

That and splash page animations...

 

[mastermamo]

You're saying the GPU handles the viewport of AE in CS6/CC? What are you referring to? The OpenGL previews?

And you're also saying the GPU speeds up Particular?

This is all news to me as a 15 year daily AE user! (but then I don't ever claim to know everything)

News to me as well...
What I think he meant was the hardware accelerated panels using the GPU texture memory (see pic below)

Particular is not hardware accelerated but Element 3D is