Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Need advise for Nvidia MacPro

as you guys can see my EVGA GTX 590 running on my mac pro 2009. the problem here is the second cuda core, is only 512mb and show as a generic NVIDIA. Any suggestion to fix this ? nvidia guys, THANK YOU f** awesome.
b49h9ppb5


http://postimage.org/image/b49h9ppb5/
 
May be a driver issue, as in the drivers aren't smart enough to set it up as a second GPU with the right parameters, so it's defaulting to what you're seeing. Not sure if there's much you can do about it.

It could also be a power issue. As Walter inquires two posts above about the 580, he's correct and I've said it further back in the thread. The 580 doesn't fit within the power profile of the Mac Pro tower. People are doing it, but it has to be over-drawing on the PCIe power connectors. The GTX590 takes MORE POWER than the 580 card does. ...Just something to think about. I would not attempt running a GTX590 without supplementary power or placing it in a PCIe expander. But would be curious to see if it worked in that situation or still does what you're reporting. When it all comes down to it, I'm still betting there's only so far the drivers will go. It looks like the current nVidia set only supports the GTX580 and below, on down to the GTX200 series.
 
Hi Jeff, thanks for the tip. It seems that there is not a power problem, but the driver. Testing here and I'll give you news. I'll test the DaVinci and the premiere CS5.5. It seems that 3d software, use only one core. For those 3d softwares I think a quadro will be better choice.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
. The standard Cubix GPU-XPander boxes will only hold two of the GTX580 and nothing else as they are only sold with two double-width slots or 4 single-width slots.
Click to expand...

The Cubix GPU-Xpander 4 Pro I have has 4-double-wide slots, two power leads per slot.
 
Paulo Emílio said:
Hi Jeff, thanks for the tip. It seems that there is not a power problem, but the driver. Testing here and I'll give you news. I'll test the DaVinci and the premiere CS5.5. It seems that 3d software, use only one core. For those 3d softwares I think a quadro will be better choice.
Click to expand...

Let us know what you figure out. :)

As for the 3D software and Quadro support, depends on the specific application. Many of them like ZBrush, Modo, Lightwave, and a few others do just fine with the GeForce cards as they don't make use of any of the Quadro's few extra features. Some others, namely Maya as far as what's available on OSX, does benefit from the Quadro. I really don't know how complete the Quadro driver support is on OSX currently and if there is any benefit to using a Quadro 6000. There are reports out there of people getting them to work, but I wonder just how well they work. Even with Quadro-specific features being used, an over-clocked GTX580 w/3GB should still be comparable, if not better in most situations. At least that's the way it works in PC land. For my PC workstations, the only workstation I've been able to justify the Quadro for is the one that runs XSI and SolidWorks and it's all about edge precision and stencil buffers and stipple masking functions of the Quadro.

Only 3D apps I run on OSX are Modo and Lightwave and that's out of convenience here and there. Most all my 3D work is done on Windows and I primarily live in Lightwave, Modo and Maya.

Paul Nordin said:
The Cubix GPU-Xpander 4 Pro I have has 4-double-wide slots, two power leads per slot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I should've been a bit more clear on that one... Cubix has several different models. I was thinking only of their compact desktop one at the moment I posted that. And it comes in two flavors with the same form-factor, either 2 double-width slots or 4 single-width slots.
 
Without a RR?

Josh Negrin said:
I have an NVidia gtx 580 in my 2010 mac pro running the latest version of lion. I can speak from experience in how awesome it is to playback 4k footage in realtime in premiere pro cs 5.5. Also, I switched over to premiere pro for editing a 2 hour show every week. I haven't comepletely ditched fcp yet, but I'm getting there. :)

-josh
Click to expand...
 
I saw a youtube video suggestion the ATI Radeon X1900XT graphic card is the faster on mac pros.
 
Will Keir said:
I saw a youtube video suggestion the ATI Radeon X1900XT graphic card is the faster on mac pros.
Click to expand...

What was the date of the video? 'cuz the X1900XT was out of production before the '08 Mac Pro was EOL'd. And it was a crappy card anyway, not even as good as the nVidia 7800GT that a lot of people ditched in favor of it. Only reason people bought the X1900XT was because it could drive dual 30" displays, whereas the 7800GT could not. The only other card to do it at the time was the Quadro FX4500.
 
Jeff, can help me with this one? What is the fastest graphics card current for the Mac Pro line? I am having a 2009 Mac Pro revival weekend. The rig currently has a GTX 285
 
Sit tight with the GTX285. The only faster card that has full Mac support is the Quadro 4000 and when I say faster, I mean it's like 5% faster at some things, mostly equivalent for others. The GTX285 is slower at texel operations, fill operations, memory moves and whatnot, but actually can push more polygons.

Other than that, you could install a GTX480 or one of the GTX5xx series in place of what you have now, using off the shelf cards. Some are reporting success with the GTX580, but I'd be wary of that one -- great card, but it draws more power than the Mac Pro logic board is designed to put out via the PCIe connectors. The nVidia drivers do support them. However, those cards don't have the Mac EFI support, which means you can't do certain things with them, like option-boot to pick which drive to start from. Also by not having the EFI and official support, you will want to be careful about when and how you update OSX and drivers. For example, the current nVidia drivers are incompatible with the 10.7.4 developer beta seeds. I'm sure nVidia will have it sorted by the time the update releases or shortly after, but just one example of potential issues.
 
Good to know, thanks Jeff. It's amazing, I got this computer almost two years ago and it's still one of the faster Mac Pros you can build. Good investment at the time. Even then, without a RR card, it's wasn't able to get the job done I was expecting of it.

The physical limit for Ram is 32GB, but I heard you can install up to 64GB with OWC. Is there much of a reason to go from 32gb to 64gb? Will I see a difference?
 
some of the newest mac pros can take up to 96gbs of owc ram....128 even, but mac os wont use more the 96...
 
Doesn't have to be OWC RAM, just the proper spec. And yeah... OSX locks you at 96GB. :-/
 
Hey guys,
I'm putting together my editing/color correcting suite and I need help picking the most effective equipment. I know that there is a lot of hesitation in buying equipment because of the uncertainty around the next generation of MBP's but I need to get to work now! Whether it's a macbook pro with thunderbolt and raid storage, mink R, iMac, or mac pro whatever I get I want to be able to integrate what ever new ted comes in the next 6 months or so. I'm shot with the Epic and I'm planing to with Adobe CS6, Davinci Resolve, and possibly Smoke. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks

Will
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Sit tight with the GTX285. The only faster card that has full Mac support is the Quadro 4000 and when I say faster, I mean it's like 5% faster at some things, mostly equivalent for others. The GTX285 is slower at texel operations, fill operations, memory moves and whatnot, but actually can push more polygons.

Other than that, you could install a GTX480 or one of the GTX5xx series in place of what you have now, using off the shelf cards. Some are reporting success with the GTX580, but I'd be wary of that one -- great card, but it draws more power than the Mac Pro logic board is designed to put out via the PCIe connectors. The nVidia drivers do support them. However, those cards don't have the Mac EFI support, which means you can't do certain things with them, like option-boot to pick which drive to start from. Also by not having the EFI and official support, you will want to be careful about when and how you update OSX and drivers. For example, the current nVidia drivers are incompatible with the 10.7.4 developer beta seeds. I'm sure nVidia will have it sorted by the time the update releases or shortly after, but just one example of potential issues.
Click to expand...


So Jeff you're saying either this card -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130759&Tpk=GTX480

Or a 4000? inside a mac pro?
 
The catch with the off-the-shelf nVidia card is that you're at the mercy of nVidia driver support and long-term compatibility with OSX. For the moment, the nVidia drivers from the nVidia web site will work and you can use that GTX480 card. It does not have Mac EFI support on the card though as it's not made for the Mac, so with it as the primary GPU, you won't be able to Option-Boot and see a list of bootable volumes to start your computer from. You won't be able to do a clean install of OSX on that card as it won't drive the monitor from the EFI system...

The other option is obviously the Quadro 4000 card. You can get the Mac-specific version for about $725, less if used. I just sold one for $650 and that seems to be the going rate for used ones...

Personally, I would go with a Mac-specific card like the Quadro 4000 for my primary GPU. Then dabble with other cards as secondary GPUs for Resolve and CS6. Just be aware that there's only two PCIe power connectors in a Mac Pro. So if the Quadro 4000 takes one of them (it does), then for a second card you only have one connector, which means you have to pull extra power from the lower optical bay or an external power supply. There is also only one double-width slot in a Mac Pro. So you can install a card like that GTX480, but you will be wasting a precious slot if you go to install another double-width card.

Should also note that with Adobe CS6, FCPX and Resolve all supporting OpenCL, the nVidia GPU is not as necessary. The readily-available AMD 5870 card that is common in the current model Mac Pro systems is similar in power to the Quadro 4000 or GTX285 for compute functions. I personally have not tried these applications with that card, so can't quantify performance with those app/hardware combinations, however it seems to be a completely valid option now.
 
Last edited:
The FX 4000 is more recent than the FX 4800. But it's from one step farther down the product line.
 
The info in the Blackmagic white paper is old... FX4800 is a few generations old now, it's actually a bit slower than the GTX285, whereas the current Quadro 4000 is about the same as the GTX285 to about 5% faster or so. Depending on what you're doing with it. Quadro 4000 is the way to go at the moment -- it has the most current and capable driver support on OSX and is readily available. It also only requires a single 6pin PCIe power connector and takes a single slot width. It's much less of a power hog than the other two older cards. Both the GTX285 and FX 4800 are discontinued and getting harder to find. The FX4800 seems to actually be the easier of the two to locate, but it's expensive since it's apparently still on a lot of corporate purchase or approved hardware lists. By today's standards, it's a crap card, and yet they still sell for $1000 or more in a lot of cases. I kinda wish I still had a couple of them because I could sell them for more today than what I was able to sell them for a couple years ago. haha.

For CUDA acceleration in Resolve (and so it seems in Adobe CS6 as well), you can also use non-Mac video cards. The GTX 460, 480, 580, etc.. all provide superior CUDA acceleration over the Quadro 4000. But before you start buying any of those cards, pay attention to their width and power requirements and know if they're going to fit in your intended configuration or have a plan on whether you need PCIe expansion and/ or additional power.
 
I see... well i'm going to build a Edit/Color-Corrector module but i dont know what it is that you've been talking up there. So... i have a MacPro 12-core with DaVinci Resolve and FCP7 (i can work with Premier CS6 if needed), what do i have to buy to get my module work in real time? i suppose the RedRocket its the first in list but what else?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top