RED Rocket power consumption / fan noise

[Tony Lorentzen]

Does anyone know how much power the RED Rocket card uses?

When it's installed my Mac Pro sounds like a jet plane and at one point Deanan pointed out that the card is drawing so much power that the internal power supply turns up its fans to cool down the system. I just pulled out the Rocket and installed a Quadro 4000 in the same slot (16x) and the noise disappeared completely; the Mac Pro is silent again. Even if I push the Quadro to the max for 20 minutes there's no increase in fan noise - at all.

So - I'm thinking the Rocket's fan might have had a problem with it's fan when I bought it. One thing came to mind, though: If the Rocket draws more power than the Quadro 4000 then why doesn't it have it's own power cable going to the motherboard - just like the Quadro?

Hopefully someone can shed some light on this :-)

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Rocket originally was to have its own power cable, but too many people complained. Mac Pro systems, as well as many PC motherboards, only have two PCIe aux power connectors on them and many GPUs already use both of them. RED made the Rocket work by only using the power available through the PCIe slots. There are times I suspect it over-draws, but I've never had an issue with it. So if the Rocket were to require a PCIe aux power connection, many of us would have to start borrowing power from elsewhere or using an external power supply for it.

Quadro4000 uses more power, but the system handles it differently as it pulls in power through one of the separate PCIe power connectors.

If your Rocket seems unusually noisy, it may have a fan issue. Is your system clean with un-obstructed air flow? The system will step up its own fans if it doesn't feel things are cool enough inside. Yes, the PSU fan in the Mac Pro does kick up a notch while running the Rocket. Not an issue in most environments, but if your work area was dead-silent other than your Mac, adding in the Rocket (or some other common GPU cards) can suddenly make the system seem a lot louder.

[Tony Lorentzen]

I'm very meticulate about making sure my Mac is always clean on the inside. I'm basically cleaning it at least once a month to make sure nothing gets stuck in there to prevent the air from flowing smoothly. It's usually around running at around 45 degrees Celsius (around 105 Fahrenheit, I think).

I just installed smcFanControl so I'm able to see what's going on in terms of heat.

I think the difference in how the Mac Pro is leveraging power must be the reason why the internal fans are going bezerk when the Rocket is installed. I'll try installing it in a 4x slot and see how the fans behave before and after. I might get a new fan for the Rocket just in case. It's about $14 so it's worth trying out.

[Alberto Caprioglio]

Hi Jeff, we can't have the rocket working. Redcine-x recognizes the Rocket (rocket's latest firmware and driver), but the Rocket simply doesn't do its job. Our system is: asrock 990fx etreme4, AMD x6 1100t black edition, nvidia gtx570, and 600W power supply. Do you know if it could be a power problem, or a compatibility problem with nvidia graphic card + amd system? thank you in advance!

[Will Keir]

Tony. Did you figure out the fan issue?