New videocard for 2nd MacPro 5,1

[Mac Hammer Fan]

My 2nd MacPro has an ATI Radeon 5870 which is rather old and slow and doesn't support Metal
I want to replace it with a more powerful card.
I was thinking at Geforce Founders Edition reference card 1080 nvidia or a ATI radeon 7970.
I definitely want a card that I can connect with 2 6pin-connectors to the logic board.
The card must me compatible with the Mac Pro power supply, therefore not too power hungry.
I live in Belgium and it is rather difficult here to obtain these cards cheap.
A Geforce Founders Edition reference card 1080 nvidia seems more difficult because it hasn't a boot screen, needs a 8pin-2x6pin adapter which isn't include in the box I guess and runs a 2,5 GT/s.
Are there any other suggestions? I can buy a Geforce 980 for 300 EUR, but I prefer a faster card if possible.
Is a RX 580 pulse compatible and are the connectors 6pin?

TIA

 

[weckart]

At this stage I would wait to see what Apple's suggestion for a suitable card for Mojave is. That should come sooner rather thsn later.

 

[h9826790]

My 2nd MacPro has an ATI Radeon 5870 which is rather old and slow and doesn't support Metal
I want to replace it with a more powerful card.
I was thinking at Geforce Founders Edition reference card 1080 nvidia or a ATI radeon 7970.
I definitely want a card that I can connect with 2 6pin-connectors to the logic board.
The card must me compatible with the Mac Pro power supply, therefore not too power hungry.
I live in Belgium and it is rather difficult here to obtain these cards cheap.
A Geforce Founders Edition reference card 1080 nvidia seems more difficult because it hasn't a boot screen, needs a 8pin-2x6pin adapter which isn't include in the box I guess and runs a 2,5 GT/s.
Are there any other suggestions? I can buy a Geforce 980 for 300 EUR, but I prefer a faster card if possible.
Is a RX 580 pulse compatible and are the connectors 6pin?

TIA

1) AFAIK, no 7970 can officially compatible with just two mini 6pin output. All 7970 I know has at least 6+8 pin.

2) If you consider 7970 as protential candidate, I can’t see why you consider the 980 is a slow card. It’s way faster than the 7970.

3) The 1080FE will run at 5GT/s in MacOS.

4) PULSE RX580 has no 6pin, but just a single 8pin.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Well, the 1080FE will run at 5GT/s in MacOS. That is good news, because the 980 runs at 2,5GT/s according to my system info in High Sierra. Are there drivers for the Pascal card in Sierra too?

 

[h9826790]

Well, the 1080FE will run at 5GT/s in MacOS. That is good news, because the 980 runs at 2,5GT/s according to my system info in High Sierra. Are there drivers for the Pascal card in Sierra too?

System info often wrong. Use CL!ng to check the actual link speed.

https://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/cl-ing/id1244392031?l=en&mt=12

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Thanks for the link.
Memory Bandwith is the same on my MacPro with the GTX 980.
However Compute Performance is significantly slower:
Single Precision Scalar: 1300 GFLOPS
Double Precision Scalar: 86,5 GFLOPS.
Single Precision Vector: 1833 GFLOPS

 

[h9826790]

Thanks for the link.
Memory Bandwith is the same on my MacPro with the GTX 980.
However Compute Performance is significantly slower:
Single Precision Scalar: 1300 GFLOPS
Double Precision Scalar: 86,5 GFLOPS.
Single Precision Vector: 1833 GFLOPS

The compute performance difference is expected. That's a 980 vs 1080Ti.

Anyway, those host <-> device memory bandwidth reflecting the actual link speed. If your card only negotiate at 2.5GT/s, all those number will be cut by half.