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Sufficient default fan cooling for GTX 285?

2

24usedtorock

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 26, 2009
166
0
Does the quad core early 09 Mac Pro have sufficient cooling for a beast like the GTX 285?

Usages: Gaming, Photoshop

Or will I have to plan on tweaking the fan settings (I hope not?).

Can't see how it wouldn't get hot...
 
Uh......why wouldn't it be sufficient?

You did notice the 285 has it's own ducted fan, right?
 
Not even close. You'll need to get an extra PCIe fan kit and modify your firmware to make it stay cool. You know, the typical Mac experience.
 
grue said:
Not even close. You'll need to get an extra PCIe fan kit and modify your firmware to make it stay cool. You know, the typical Mac experience.
Click to expand...

I was afraid of this. Can you please elaborate further sir.
 
24usedtorock said:
I was afraid of this. Can you please elaborate further sir.
Click to expand...

I think he's kidding. The GTX has its own fan that intakes inside the case and expels hot air out the back of the case via slots in the back of the card (top part of the PCI bracket).

tl;dr it will be fine.
 
Nice windup grue. My PC 285 has been chugging away for weeks in a Pro with an 8800 and the sys remains cool. I do have 285 card with two fans and cooling pipes and I am sure the system will explode without all this. Looks like a Mac Pro Turbo with the side of the case off.
 

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10THzMac said:
Nice windup grue. My PC 285 has been chugging away for weeks in a Pro with an 8800 and the sys remains cool. I do have 285 card with two fans and cooling pipes and I am sure the system will explode without all this. Looks like a Mac Pro Turbo with the side of the case off.
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Don't stand too close. That thing's gonna suck you in :p
 
Actually I have consulted with an industry expert and have been informed that if one is gaming at the highest settings that the system will overheat and freeze up.

Keep in mind most top of the line video cards have fan support on them, but that doesn't mean you can stick the suckers in any machine with a few fans and not expect performance issues. Most machines with cards this good are liquid cooled.

I am concerned that even the top of the line Mac Pro will lock up if used for gaming purposes, even if this card is excellent for gaming. Not enough cooling.
 
24usedtorock said:
Actually I have consulted with an industry expert and have been informed that if one is gaming at the highest settings that the system will overheat and freeze up.

Keep in mind most top of the line video cards have fan support on them, but that doesn't mean you can stick the suckers in any machine with a few fans and not expect performance issues. Most machines with cards this good are liquid cooled.

I am concerned that even the top of the line Mac Pro will lock up if used for gaming purposes, even if this card is excellent for gaming. Not enough cooling.
Click to expand...


Your "industry expert" is full of crap, and should be kicked in the ass and used as a snowshoe.
 
24usedtorock said:
Actually I have consulted with an industry expert and have been informed that if one is gaming at the highest settings that the system will overheat and freeze up.
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24,

Please don't take my comments as directed at you but more towards your "expert". I would highly recommend you seek a new one as the 285 EXHAUSTS the hot air out of the back of the case via the vents. Where does your "expert" get his information from?

I have lots of experience in this area so am excited to hear and review this info. Nonetheless my 2 GTX285's arrived today so I will see how many lockups I get tonight.


- Stan
 
They work fine. I've seen a Mac Pro with a GTX 285 in it getting thrashed at full load for hours on end with no problems. Your expert is an idiot.
 
StanD said:
Please don't take my comments as directed at you but more towards your "expert".
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That's fine, I used the term "industry expert" since he makes his living with computer hardware, and stays up to date with Apple news.

I don't remember what he said verbatim but basically that the video card would require extensive cooling in a PC, and that the Mac Pro fans are not sufficient cooling for a monster card like this when it is being used heavily. He says to even have a chance at not locking up when gaming at highest settings you'd need to tweak the Mac Pro fan settings with third party apps, and even then thinks it would inevitably hang up.

And if you think about it, at least to me, it kinda makes sense because a card like this IS commonly put in uber fancy liquid cooled systems, not just a big old case with a few fans, the fan on card notwithstanding (most high end vid cards have similar fan attachments).
 
That's still rubbish. The cards are designed to run at stock speeds (ie: not overclocked) on the air cooling provided by the card's own fans and heatsinks. I've known countless people buy top-of-the-range graphics cards over the years (all of them hot and power hungry by the standards of the time) and put them in any old case they happen to be using with zero problems. As long as your case has anywhere decent airflow, a GTX 285 will work.

Now, the reason you see top end cards in water cooled setups is because the people who spend huge sums of money on water cooling generally want the best system they can get, and also are usually overclockers. When you overclock that is when you need to ditch the stock cooling fan and heatsinks for something better.

If nVidia sold a GPU that couldn't keep itself cool enough to run they'd be out of business very, very fast.
 
peskaa said:
That's still rubbish. The cards are designed to run at stock speeds (ie: not overclocked) on the air cooling provided by the card's own fans and heatsinks. I've known countless people buy top-of-the-range graphics cards over the years (all of them hot and power hungry by the standards of the time) and put them in any old case they happen to be using with zero problems. As long as your case has anywhere decent airflow, a GTX 285 will work.

Now, the reason you see top end cards in water cooled setups is because the people who spend huge sums of money on water cooling generally want the best system they can get, and also are usually overclockers. When you overclock that is when you need to ditch the stock cooling fan and heatsinks for something better.

If nVidia sold a GPU that couldn't keep itself cool enough to run they'd be out of business very, very fast.
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I bolded the part of your post that I am commenting on.

That was really my original question, setting aside the airflow on the card itself, do you think the Mac Pro fans itself are sufficient for creating the required airflow to ensure the system does not get too hot? And please base answer on stock fans, i.e. no third party apps to up the cooling.
 
The Mac Pro provides plenty of airflow for a GTX 285. No ifs or buts. The very fact that EVGA are just about to release to the public a retail GTX 285 specifically for the Mac Pro indicates it is fine, as well as people running them under Windows partitions for months.

I personally have a GTX 275 installed (doesn't run any cooler than a 285), with zero issues.
 
The Mac Pro is one of the most efficient and effective air cooled computers on the market. Unlike most DIY jobs, there are distinct air "channels" that are independently controlled. The Mac Pro scoffs at cooling your GTX.
 
To add some real world experience to this thread:

I have an EVGA GTX 285 for Mac in an early 2009 Mac Pro. It's in slot 1 (the bottom slot). I have a RocketRAID 4320 in slot 2, and the GT 120 it came with in slot 3 (so that PhysX can use it as a secondary GPU). Slot 4 is empty.

When playing _any_ 3D game in Windows, this card overheats and locks up the system. The only way that I can play anything is to use EVGA Precision to set the fan speed at 90%. Then I can play Crysis without any problems, with excellent frame rates.

On the Mac side, if I'm doing lots of filesystem activity on the RAID, the GTX 285 can overheat and lockup the machine. This even happens when the 285 is doing nothing at all, just sitting at non-moving desktop. I imagine it's because the RAID gets hot enough (it has its own fan too) that the 285 just can't hack it.

My 285 seems to artifact and/or freeze at around 84C. I'm going to call EVGA tomorrow, as this is pretty unacceptable. It's OK on the Windows side because I don't use RAID much and I can increase the fan speed; but on the Mac side I have no option to increase the fan.

I have the AC running and the house is fairly cool. I even have a small task fan sitting near the back of the machine, trying to evacuate all the hot air coming out of the back of the Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro itself says the ambient temp is 31C and its running the Expansion Slots exhaust fan at around 1200rpm right now (the fastest fan in the whole box).
 
You are blocking intakes to GTX285 with the ROcketRaid.

If you moved it to another slot you would increase air to GTX285.

I have run a variety of GTX285s in my mac Pro. Hours of Crysis in Vista and COD4 in Mac and never an issue. But then I don't have anything blocking the air inlet to the GTX285s. Also...never seen them get to 84C.

They have a great fan on them, when air can get to it.
 
JWiegley said:
To add some real world experience to this thread:

I have an EVGA GTX 285 for Mac in an early 2009 Mac Pro. It's in slot 1 (the bottom slot). I have a RocketRAID 4320 in slot 2, and the GT 120 it came with in slot 3 (so that PhysX can use it as a secondary GPU). Slot 4 is empty.

When playing _any_ 3D game in Windows, this card overheats and locks up the system. The only way that I can play anything is to use EVGA Precision to set the fan speed at 90%. Then I can play Crysis without any problems, with excellent frame rates.

On the Mac side, if I'm doing lots of filesystem activity on the RAID, the GTX 285 can overheat and lockup the machine. This even happens when the 285 is doing nothing at all, just sitting at non-moving desktop. I imagine it's because the RAID gets hot enough (it has its own fan too) that the 285 just can't hack it.

My 285 seems to artifact and/or freeze at around 84C. I'm going to call EVGA tomorrow, as this is pretty unacceptable. It's OK on the Windows side because I don't use RAID much and I can increase the fan speed; but on the Mac side I have no option to increase the fan.

I have the AC running and the house is fairly cool. I even have a small task fan sitting near the back of the machine, trying to evacuate all the hot air coming out of the back of the Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro itself says the ambient temp is 31C and its running the Expansion Slots exhaust fan at around 1200rpm right now (the fastest fan in the whole box).
Click to expand...

I think it might be because your case fans are not ramped??? Not sure, but worth investigating. I don't have crysis, but in 3DMark Vantage with my GPU fan at 65% I hit a max temp of 75c. Here's a post I made in another thread about the case fans. It's what I use while also bumping my GPU fan to 65%. Hope it helps...


Anyway, here's my 2 cents on this... When running 3DMark Vantage in Windows my CPU hits a max temp of 76c for a second or two but it never goes over with my current fan setting. I would prefer it stay under 75c but it's not possible if I want to keep my MP as silent as I like it in Vista... I find in OSX it's a different story, I never push my MP over 65c (ever) since OSX seems to measure the heatsink temp and not the core temp. This is why I don't really believe what I see using istat in OSX. I would hate to be close to "TJ Max" and not know about it.

To control my fans in windows (bootcamp not virtual) I first boot into OSX, switch profiles with smcFanControl and then reboot into vista using bootchamp (broken in SL). The reason is because the 2009 MP fans do NOT ramp up in vista. It's pretty much a sure fire way to fry your computer, since this is Apple's undocumented "feature" of bootcamp. I don't know if the new bootcamp in snow kitty solves this, but I don't really think it's fixed knowing Apple.

Anyhoo, these are my fan speeds in Vista:

Cooling Fans
Fan #1 1239 RPM
Fan #2 887 RPM
Fan #3 1217 RPM
Fan #4 1217 RPM
Fan #5 1817 RPM

OSX equivalent: #5 is BOOSTA, #3 & #4 Intake/Exhaust, #2 PS, #1 PCI

To control my fans in OSX I use this below. It's a awesome little application that Concorde Rules modded from an old program. Works like a charm in OSX on a 2009 MP. IMO, it's a billion times better than smcFanControl because fans are adjusted dynamically. You don't have to switch between profiles (like you have to with smcFanControl) the fans will go up and down as needed. Plus you won't be abusing your fans by leaving them ramped up as a constant in OSX.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/738163/

Please thank this guy for this, to me he's not getting the credit he deserves!
 
The Rominator said:
You are blocking intakes to GTX285 with the ROcketRaid.

If you moved it to another slot you would increase air to GTX285.
Click to expand...
Sadly, I don't have that option. The RocketRAID needs PCI x8 or x16, and the top two slots in the Mac Pro are x4.

Also, the RAID card is very tiny. It ends well before the part of the case where the 285's fan is. Plus, I've made sure that the SAS cable and the 285's power cables are not directly over the fan.
 
Does it actually require x8, to operate, or do you need it to be operating at x8 speeds? Those are two different things; many cards will continue to function, just at the lower speed.

I experienced something similar when I tried running a Radeon 2600 right on top of a flashed 4870. Dual Slot graphics hoover air from directly above out through the exhaust and the 2600 blocked it off completely.

It was only for extra displays, though, so I just moved up to an x4 slot and I was fine.

As an additional thought, you could remove PCI brackets and just leave gaps for increased airflow. It's an option. Or an aftermarket cooler.

It's a little ridiculous to suggest that OS X can't handle the EVGA card by its lonesome. If you're running extra hardware that heats things up or blocks off hardware, that's one thing, but on its own, it should be fine.
 
JWiegley said:
Sadly, I don't have that option. The RocketRAID needs PCI x8 or x16, and the top two slots in the Mac Pro are x4.

Also, the RAID card is very tiny. It ends well before the part of the case where the 285's fan is. Plus, I've made sure that the SAS cable and the 285's power cables are not directly over the fan.
Click to expand...

The card is designed to be able to handle 8 disks, right?

If you're only running 4 you should be able to move it to a 4x slot just fine. 4x should be more than enough to handle 4 disks.
 
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