Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Nvidia GTX 285 - What's going on?

EVGA Geforce 285 GTX installed

My card arrived today (pre-ordered it almost 6 weeks ago) and just finished installing it (replaced the Radeon 4870), along with the Apple Raid Card for Mac Pro 2009. It seems to work fine, display turned right on (ACD 30), and it ran through xbench without a problem. In the about this mac system profiler, it shows up properly, and works like an apple product. The driver is generic from nVidia, about 30mb. Let me know if anyone has questions about the card itself. Kind of busy for the next two days, Sunday will be my first free day to really play with it.

Peace,
Noushy
 
would love verification...

...and not just marketingspeak from Apple / EVGA on whether or not the card will work in 2006 Mac Pro. Perhaps Barefeats has an 06 box for testing?
 
noushy said:
My card arrived today (pre-ordered it almost 6 weeks ago) and just finished installing it (replaced the Radeon 4870), along with the Apple Raid Card for Mac Pro 2009. It seems to work fine, display turned right on (ACD 30), and it ran through xbench without a problem. In the about this mac system profiler, it shows up properly, and works like an apple product. The driver is generic from nVidia, about 30mb. Let me know if anyone has questions about the card itself. Kind of busy for the next two days, Sunday will be my first free day to really play with it.

Peace,
Noushy
Click to expand...
Can you please describe the installation process? I know how to put one into a Mac Pro but just wondering if the size of the card caused any extra adjustments or if there was something you had to do with the card itself that was non-standard.
 
EVGA 285 GTX Adaptors

Good news on the 285 GTX, EVGA is developing an adaptor so that you can use Apple's LED Cinema display with the 285 GTX, i'm going to wait it out until EVGA makes this adapter because I do want to use the 285 GTX with a 30-inch LED display when ever Apple's gets around to it hopefully by the October or about the same time that Apple released the 24-inch last year, I heard that CinemaView is also making adapters but don't know if it will work on Apples LED Displays and that adapter is going to be released in September, Do you guys think when Apple release the desktop LED they will include adapters or it's gonna cost us extra $$$
 
skyline r34 said:
Good news on the 285 GTX, EVGA is developing an adaptor so that you can use Apple's LED Cinema display with the 285 GTX, i'm going to wait it out until EVGA makes this adapter because I do want to use the 285 GTX with a 30-inch LED display when ever Apple's gets around to it hopefully by the October or about the same time that Apple released the 24-inch last year, I heard that CinemaView is also making adapters but don't know if it will work on Apples LED Displays and that adapter is going to be released in September, Do you guys think when Apple release the desktop LED they will include adapters or it's gonna cost us extra $$$
Click to expand...

here's the email
 
New video card

Sorry for the late reply been working all day. The card is really easy to install, especially if you have an existing radeon 4870 since the same power requirements work for the new card. The apple card is full length, so on the new 2009 mac pro, need to release the card cage lock (the older 2008 have card slots at the fan, no locking mechanism), so that the card can be lifted up, and removed. I originally did not know about this mechanism until I installed the Apple Raid Card. Then just remove the two pci express power connectors (6 pin standard), unscrew the pci card locking bracket (two thumb screws) and remove bracket. Then just push the release mechanism that catches the little lock by the card edge connector (it is a metal rod that goes from slot one through slot 4), and lift up the card. The new GTX 285 is not full length so it is even easier to install. The Apple cards go all the way to the end so they have a catch mechanism by the fan that has to be released. If I was home I would send you guys pix.

As for performance, you need to install the driver before shutting down the computer and changing cards. When you reboot all works perfectly. My ACD 30 comes right back up just like an Apple video card. Everything works well, the appearance is the same as my radeon 4870. Under system profiler it shows the new card, nVidia GTX 285, 1gb ram. The true test will be Snow Leopard, something using Open CL, or gaming.

One final note, my system runs great with both the Apple Raid Card and the Highpoint 4322 with battery. The bad thing is the Highpoint battery takes up a second pci slot, unlike the caldigit battery which fits on the card. Once installed the Apple raid card shows up as Xserve Raid card, and turns the 4 bays into raid card bays. The system profiler still shows bays 1-4 but they are marked as empty now.

Noushy

PS: 24usedtorock, the card looks exactly like an EVGA Geforce 285 GTX for the PC, other than decal differences it is exactly the same physically. In fact you almost cannot tell it is a mac card other than the macos decal. The Apple Radeon 4870, and Quadra 5600 are full length cards and much harder to install because you have no wiggle room, the cards must go down straight. This is like installing the 8800GT other than it takes up two slots with a larger cooler.
 
Just put my 285 in here. Working well so far in OS X. I'm going to go "test" it in Windows (ie play games). I must say that it's much quieter during POST and waking from sleep. My 4870 used to run at full bore for a few seconds. When my alarm clock (Awaken from Embraceware) would wake the computer before setting off the alarm, I would actually wake up due to the 4870's fan being super loud. The alarm itself was superfluous :)
 
New Driver!

Seems like Barefeats already did all the wonderful testing that is needed so I figured there was no need for me to do it :)

I am posting just to let folks know that there is ALREADY a new driver for the card available here:

ftp://ftp.evga.com/Driver/MAC285_2F16.dmg

I just saw this on the EVGA forums and figured some folks don't check there as often as here :)


- Stan
 
Watch out on the benchmarks - this card has multiple speed modes. I have put another thread up on the specifics. Probably explains the GT120 comparison. Some calcs go ten times faster in awake mode than in throttle back mode.
 
StanD said:
Seems like Barefeats already did all the wonderful testing that is needed so I figured there was no need for me to do it :)

I am posting just to let folks know that there is ALREADY a new driver for the card available here:

ftp://ftp.evga.com/Driver/MAC285_2F16.dmg

I just saw this on the EVGA forums and figured some folks don't check there as often as here :)


- Stan
Click to expand...
Wow. That's very encouraging :)
 
I want to buy the card but apple.com and amazon dont want to ship it to the Nederlands.

So i just called the Dutch apple store but they dont know when they are going to sell them. :(

Does anyone has a tip for me?
 
Barefeats, can you compare the results of the new drivers to the old? I've been trying to find OS X video benchmarking tools but haven't been able to do so :(. Anyways, interesting that EVGA put out a driver update so quickly. I've got it installed so hopefully it's better.
 
OpenGL numbers were moderately better under last night's driver update - a few %. More to the point it removed some other minor glitches with multiple monitors connected to other GPU. Still trying to figure out how to control the throttling - no difference with new drivers.
 
10THzMac said:
OpenGL numbers were moderately better under last night's driver update - a few %. More to the point it removed some other minor glitches with multiple monitors connected to other GPU. Still trying to figure out how to control the throttling - no difference with new drivers.
Click to expand...

Does the throttling seem arbitrary or is idling the card when not used by a 3D app?
 
justflie said:
Does the throttling seem arbitrary or is idling the card when not used by a 3D app?
Click to expand...
So far I have only fiddled with the benchmarks under OpenGL extension manager, and noted performance with CUDA before and after. So that particular 3D app (OGLEM) wakes it up. CUDA itself does not. As soon as the pressure is off it goes into slow mode. So it is not arbitrary, but I would kinda like a control panel to regulate its thresholds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back