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  • 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 :)

Best graphics card for Resolve Lite on Mac Pro

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Matt W.

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We have a 5770 on one machine and an 8800GT on the other.

Willing to upgrade hardware to a 2013 Mac Pro (base model) or a <$500 graphics card.

Will be working with primarily Alexa, F5, CX00, and 5k RAW Epic footage. Thanks. Primarily Alexa. Thanks. Want real-time performance of course... GT 680?
 
Another vote for the GTX 780

10433906823_2c51a9b17f.jpg

2009 Mac Pro 4.1 | GTX 780 by Sunny Jhooty, on Flickr
 
Does the 780 perform better in a Mac Pro than the 680? Were kinda crippled by the mac speed (pcie 2.0) vs. card speed (pcie 3.0). Also, how is power consumption of the 780? Anyone have any issues?

Finally, anyone compare the 780 to the 680 4GB version?
 
Jett He said:
The GTX 580 fares better than the 680 in resolve.
Click to expand...

That was true in the beginning, but not anymore. And there's no contest for OpenCL, the 580 isn't even in the same ballpark.


Best card right now for the Mac Pro is the GTX680 Mac Edition. It's the most user-friendly and readily available in that it's specifically designed to fit the power requirements of the system and already has the proper EFI support right out of the box to ensure the fan and GPU clock speed responses are correct. So no tracking down EFI ROMs to flash a card or trying to buy one.

If you do want to go the flashed card route, the GTX770 and GTX780 may be interesting choices. The 770 isn't any faster than the 680, but the 780 is quite a bit more powerful. It also over-draws the PCIe power allocation in the Mac Pro. So be aware of that. Need to be running Mavericks to get the best support for the 780.
 
Peter Chamberlain said:
Sorry, not true. The GTX680 is significantly better.
I dont even list the 580 in the new config guides.

We will review the new Mac Pro config closer to their shipping date.
Peter
Click to expand...

Actually it is http://barefeats.com/gpu680v6.html

The 680 was optimized for games, not computing power. But with the recent price drop the 780 is the new best option.
 
Jett He said:
Actually it is http://barefeats.com/gpu680v6.html

The 680 was optimized for games, not computing power. But with the recent price drop the 780 is the new best option.
Click to expand...

Not that I'm trying to argue it, although I guess I am, and I'm going to agree with Peter. 680 Mac Edition is noticeably faster now. The Barefeats test you link to is from May -- nearly 6 months old, reposted in July for some reason, but you can see that it's still the same one from before due to the 2013 Mac Pro speculation toward the bottom. And it doesn't take into account current drivers, software releases or OS revisions. The GTX580 cards in the Barefeats test are also EVGA Classified editions, which are overclocked. All the other cards were operating at stock speeds. The EVGA Classified editions don't even fit inside a Mac Pro, these tests were done by placing these cards in a Cubix expander.
 
Matt Ryan said:
Does the 780 perform better in a Mac Pro than the 680? Were kinda crippled by the mac speed (pcie 2.0) vs. card speed (pcie 3.0). Also, how is power consumption of the 780? Anyone have any issues?

Finally, anyone compare the 780 to the 680 4GB version?
Click to expand...

http://barefeats.com/gputitan.html

The 780 will perform dramatically better than the 680. With the recent price drop it's possibly the best bargain. You will however need to flash the card to be mac compatible. That could be done easily from Macvidcards for about $130. They are located in LA and service takes 2-3hours. Power consumption is not an issue once flashed so the dual 6pin will work. Do not use a 6to8 pin adapter as that can damage your mac pro due to overdrawing.

Macvidcards has confirmed the 780 to be stable without external power, but the titan on the other hand will require more power to be stable.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Not that I'm trying to argue it, although I guess I am, and I'm going to agree with Peter. 680 Mac Edition is noticeably faster now. The Barefeats test you link to is from May -- nearly 6 months old, reposted in July for some reason, but you can see that it's still the same one from before due to the 2013 Mac Pro speculation toward the bottom. And it doesn't take into account current drivers, software releases or OS revisions. The GTX580 cards in the Barefeats test are also EVGA Classified editions, which are overclocked. All the other cards were operating at stock speeds. The EVGA Classified editions don't even fit inside a Mac Pro, these tests were done by placing these cards in a Cubix expander.
Click to expand...

Hey Jeff, you might be right the 680 is possibly faster now. But I haven't seen much recent benchmarks/test where it does exceed the 580 besides Games. It's true the 680 mac edition would be the best option as it's fully compatible with the MP.
 
So, Jeff, just to be clear, the GTX 680 Mac Edition can replace my current 5770 with no additional power source needed?
 
Jett He said:
Hey Jeff, you might be right the 680 is possibly faster now. But I haven't seen much recent benchmarks/test where it does exceed the 580 besides Games. It's true the 680 mac edition would be the best option as it's fully compatible with the MP.
Click to expand...

Yeah, big changes with the past could OS and driver updates, both Windows and OSX. The Kepler architecture is really starting to shine. Also a good thing because those 580 cards are getting hard to find, at least new ones. ;) OTOH, I have a Quadro 6000 I need to unload if anyone is interested. It's a wonderful card for CUDA / OpenCL with its 6GB RAM and the superior onboard memory bandwidth plus the extra capacity propels it beyond the GTX680 for a lot of things. Too bad it doesn't play all that nice in a Mac Pro.

The GTX 780 if flashed by MacVidCards looks to be a great option for the more adventurous. It's not that it's a big deal, but it becomes a more expensive option and sometimes it's easier and better to just buy the guaranteed solution that works out of the box (GTX 680 for Mac).

Sunny Jhooty said:
That is correct. The gtx 680 has two 6 pin inputs which will correct to both 6 pin outputs on the logic board.
Click to expand...

Yep. The Mac edition has the proper power connectors and power draw to work in the Mac Pro. No extra power needed. You would need to add extra power from somewhere though if you were to add a second GPU to the mix...
 
Jett He said:
http://barefeats.com/gputitan.html

The 780 will perform dramatically better than the 680. With the recent price drop it's possibly the best bargain. You will however need to flash the card to be mac compatible. That could be done easily from Macvidcards for about $130. They are located in LA and service takes 2-3hours. Power consumption is not an issue once flashed so the dual 6pin will work. Do not use a 6to8 pin adapter as that can damage your mac pro due to overdrawing.

Macvidcards has confirmed the 780 to be stable without external power, but the titan on the other hand will require more power to be stable.
Click to expand...

I don't run a mac now, but I thought you don't need to get nvidia cards flashed anymore to have them work in macos.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1440150
 
Ah the endless conversations regarding which is the best price/performance GUI & GPU card... I've been happily working with a Quadro4000 as my GUI board, and 2-GTX 285s along with a RedRocket in my Cubix. But, Its getting time to retire the old GTXs in prep for Dragon, plus they are no longer supported in Mavericks. So, I'm thinking two GTX780s in the Cubix would be a great upgrade, particularly with the last price reduction. Now, I'm just wondering if there is any reason I should replace the Quadro 4000 GUI board in my MacPro slot1? I do a lot of Adobe and Davinci Resolve on the same system. What I really don't want to do is to overstress the aging power supply in my MacPro chassis (its a 2009 model). I would love to get another 2-years on my MacPro before looking to replace it with either a PC or newer MacPro trash can.
 
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