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Nvidia Quadro 4000 appears on Apple Online Store (USA) [EDIT 3 Nov 12: Pulled again!]

K6-III said:
For those interested, the Quadro 4000 scored 23.46fps under 10.6.5 in Cinebench 11.5. The same card scores 55.90fps under Windows 7 64bit with Nvidia's 265.90 drivers.

My system is a 2.66ghz Mac Pro 4,1 Nehalem single cpu 2009 tower with 12gb memory.

It seems that yes, both ATI and NVidia are responsible for the drivers for their respective cards, but Apple provides the libraries that those drivers can interface with. Just as Snow Leopard vastly improved OpenGL2 support, it is likely we'll see something similar with OpenGL3/4 support in Lion.
Click to expand...

so dredging up my cinebench results from when I got my 5870 last month:
Cinebench 11.5 OSX 64bit:
OpenGL GT120 15.36
OpenGL HD5870 24.32

Cinebench 11.5 Windows 7 Professional 64Bit
OpenGL HD5870 44.67

just to reconfirm those results, now that I've burned it in for a month, I presently get:
(CB 11.5 as above 64 bit)
OSX 10.6.5 25.21fps (and that is with dual monitors now attached)
win 7 prof. 64 bit catalyst 10.11 (driver vers. 8.791.0) 43.22fps

OK I also decided to check with the new catalyst package that just came out on the 13th vers. 10.12 (new windows 7 catalyst control center preview package)

so win 7 professional 64 bit, catalyst 10.12 (driver vers. 8.801.0)
open gl (CB11.5 64bit) 45.33
(the CB bench references show a quadro FX5800 on a Boxx 8520 octo 3.33 to be 45.52fps)

So this shows that what, the quadro is at least close to the 5870/5770 (tests have shown that the 5770 scores about the same as the 5870 in osx) in osx, but seems faster in windows (no big big surprise there)

I have a 2.26Ghz octad (early 2009, MP 4,1) with 6gb ram
 
galstaph said:
so dredging up my cinebench results from when I got my 5870 last month:
Cinebench 11.5 OSX 64bit:
OpenGL GT120 15.36
OpenGL HD5870 24.32

Cinebench 11.5 Windows 7 Professional 64Bit
OpenGL HD5870 44.67

just to reconfirm those results, now that I've burned it in for a month, I presently get:
(CB 11.5 as above 64 bit)
OSX 10.6.5 25.21fps (and that is with dual monitors now attached)
win 7 prof. 64 bit catalyst 10.11 (driver vers. 8.791.0) 43.22fps
Click to expand...
I get 23+ fps with my old Mac Pro and its 4870. You should get much better results, unless you run the test at higher resolution (not sure if the resolution can be changed).

It should be stressed that the openGL test is actually NOT a good GPU test, as it's CPU-bound (it uses one core at 100%). As a matter of fact, the GPU fan doesn't accelerate during the test. That pretty much says it all. (it does get louder in GLView, single rotating cube with maxed settings).
 
jeanlain said:
It should be stressed that the openGL test is actually NOT a good GPU test, as it's CPU-bound (it uses one core at 100%). As a matter of fact, the GPU fan doesn't accelerate during the test. That pretty much says it all. (it does get louder in GLView, single rotating cube with maxed settings).
Click to expand...

I agree it's a bad test, but to play the devil's advocate here, most creative software is just as badly optimized, if not worse, so it provides an accurate approximation of most creative software performance. :)
 
I'll upload my xbench results if those would be more 'accurate'... however, I'm not sure of anything that measures gpu accurately...

Quartz Graphics Test 188.44
Line 162.69 10.83 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 210.11 62.73 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 172.57 14.07 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 186.79 4.71 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 223.27 13.97 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 208.19
Spinning Squares 208.19 264.10 frames/sec
 
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XBench is worthless for testing the GPU. I would recommend openGL extension viewer with screen resolution, AA an AF set to high, but rendering a single cube or face (the other scenes are CPU-bound).
This or a recent game.
 
galstaph said:
so dredging up my cinebench results from when I got my 5870 last month:
Cinebench 11.5 OSX 64bit:
OpenGL GT120 15.36
OpenGL HD5870 24.32

Cinebench 11.5 Windows 7 Professional 64Bit
OpenGL HD5870 44.67
Click to expand...
I like to throw my results from Cinebench on a MacPro 3.1 (2 x 2,8 QuadCore) equipped with a NVIDIA GTX 285 Mac Edition into the ring:

MacOS X 10.6.5: OpenGl 22,59 fps
Win7 32 Bit: Open Gl 35,95 fps

I am still waiting for the Quadra 4000 to be shipped likely today. I expect better rates as compared to the GTX 285.
 
A few updates after having the card for a few weeks.

There's definite stability issues under OSX that are not present under Windows 7.

Waking from sleep will sometimes make my Mac Pro hardlock on the blue screen. Likewise, occasionally shutting down the computer will lead to a crash (hold power button to clear kind).

Under Windows7, no problems of any kind to report, except that this card runs Incredibly Hot. We're talking about idling around 70C. I really don't get why they chose to use a single-slot cooling solution with this card when it runs that hot.

By manually raising fan speed in Nvidia's windows control panel from the default 36% to above 50%, the temperatures drop to around 50C, but the whine becomes far too noticeable.

Overall, it's still the best card for my uses, but keep in mind that we may have to wait until Mac OS 10.6.6 to see some of the Mac OS foibles be addressed.

I've been in touch with PNY Quadro Support to make sure they relay what we see to Nvidia. If any of you have other issues to report, please post them here and I'll be sure to forward this thread to PNY Support.
 
K6-III said:
A few updates after having the card for a few weeks.

There's definite stability issues under OSX that are not present under Windows 7.

Waking from sleep will sometimes make my Mac Pro hardlock on the blue screen. Likewise, occasionally shutting down the computer will lead to a crash (hold power button to clear kind).....
Click to expand...
That's really odd. I experienced the same shutdown problem before I installed the Quadro 4000 on my MacPro 3.1. Perhaps that's rather an MacOS X issue...

P.S.: Benchmark results of the Q4000 were poor on my Mac. Cinebench showed about the same fps under MacOS X as well as under Win7 compared to the GTX 285. With openGL extensions viewer, results were +18% compared to the GTX.
 
Looks like the 10.6.6 update today did not add support for the Quadro 4000. Falls back to software renderer after update.

We'll have to see if an Nvidia update is forthcoming or we just go back to the driver on the website.
 
Problem solved

K6-III said:
Looks like the 10.6.6 update today did not add support for the Quadro 4000. Falls back to software renderer after update.

We'll have to see if an Nvidia update is forthcoming or we just go back to the driver on the website.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I can confirm the problem on my MacPro 3.1 with 10.6.6. After the update, Mercury Engine of Premiere Pro CS5 is not available anymore. Latest CUDA Driver installed is 3.2.17 and Premiere Pro CS5 is 5.0.3. This is an disaster for me, since I was working on a major AVCHD project at that time! Apple, what's going on with you? They just introduced the Q4000 in the Applestore and shut it up by a minor system update. :mad:

Edit: Just found this: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2710351&tstart=0

I have just reinstalled the latest driver for the Q4000 for Mac from NVIDIAS homepage and got CUDA back to work.

Mercury Engine reloaded :D
 
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shorafix said:
Unfortunately I can confirm the problem on my MacPro 3.1 with 10.6.6. After the update, Mercury Engine of Premiere Pro CS5 is not available anymore. Latest CUDA Driver installed is 3.2.17 and Premiere Pro CS5 is 5.0.3. This is an disaster for me, since I was working on a major AVCHD project at that time! Apple, what's going on with you? They just introduced the Q4000 in the Applestore and shut it up by a minor system update. :mad:

Edit: Just found this: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2710351&tstart=0

I have just reinstalled the latest driver for the Q4000 for Mac from NVIDIAS homepage and got CUDA back to work.

Mercury Engine reloaded :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing, man. Brought my Quadro back to life.

It seems that now that AppleTv is not a hobby anymore, Apple has found itself a new hobby: screwing with our cards :D
 
Manzanito said:
Thanks for sharing, man. Brought my Quadro back to life.

It seems that now that AppleTv is not a hobby anymore, Apple has found itself a new hobby: screwing with our cards :D
Click to expand...

I've done CUDA development, and pretty much the Mac CUDA drivers have always been really awful. I'd be willing to bet it was something on NVidia's end.

Another advantage for OpenCL. :)
 
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