Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register 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 :)

Nvidia GTX 980 for older Mac Pro ?

Yeah, it was probably drawing too much power, or attempting to. :-( That other card may have worked with supplemental power, as others have run more demanding or power-hunger GPUs in these towers.

Definitely something to note for others who may go for a similar upgrade. Be aware of power requirements of the GPU your considering. It's something that gets talked about here off and on -- more so in the past when the GTX780 and Titan cards really want to draw a lot of power. The 970 and 980 cards are much better in that regard, but we're seeing a number of these overlocked or larger spec'd cards hit the market now.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Yeah, it was probably drawing too much power, or attempting to. :-( That other card may have worked with supplemental power, as others have run more demanding or power-hunger GPUs in these towers.

Definitely something to note for others who may go for a similar upgrade. Be aware of power requirements of the GPU your considering. It's something that gets talked about here off and on -- more so in the past when the GTX780 and Titan cards really want to draw a lot of power. The 970 and 980 cards are much better in that regard, but we're seeing a number of these overlocked or larger spec'd cards hit the market now.
Click to expand...

I actually tested pulling auxillary power off the optical drive bay, but that did not work either. So I think one would need to be very specific about matching the power draw, as well as using an external power supply as well for those other cards.
 
Wich the best VGA Card (Budget Price) Best / Good performance For Davinci (Mac and PC)?
 
Can someone post a link to purchase the version of the GTX 980 card that works in the MacPro tower without flashing please? At somewhere like B&H, Amazon, or Newegg. Just want to make sure I'm buying the right one. There's always a lot of versions of these cards out in the wild. Thanks!
 
Ed Riew said:
Can someone post a link to purchase the version of the GTX 980 card that works in the MacPro tower without flashing please? At somewhere like B&H, Amazon, or Newegg. Just want to make sure I'm buying the right one. There's always a lot of versions of these cards out in the wild. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Basically you want a single fan, 2 x 6 pin power connector, "silver" version, which is really 1st generation and spread out across most of the third party after market manufacturers, before they developed into further iterations.

Should look something like this:

NVIDIA_GeForce_GTX_980_3Qtr.png


You will have no Apple logo boot screen for Mac, but arrive directly at the login page. You will need the latest Nvidia firmware (Quadro for Mac) and also another one for the CUDA drivers, which you will need to install before putting in the new card. You must also be running at least Mac OSX 10.10 (Yosemite) in order to do this.

If anyone has found any other versions of this card, besides the "silver" one, please post a photo of it here.
 
I'm falling out of the loop here as I no longer have any Mac Pro towers to work and test with, but... That card fits well within the power specs with the proper connectors. Everything about it seems fine. If MacVidCards is recommending it, ask them for clarification, but I see no reason why this wouldn't be a good choice.
 
Ed Riew said:
Here's the one I was thinking of with the ACX 2.0 Cooler. (Has 2 fans). MacVidCards seem to be recommending this one as well. (to attempt to answer my own question). What to you guys think about this one? Anyone tried it and worked?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1085204-REG/evga_04g_p4_2981_kr_geforce_gtx_980_acx.html
Click to expand...

That was the only other card I was considering, but didn't want to take a chance after returning the previous one. (Merchants are far less tolerant for returns in europe). It does have two 6 pin connectors and isn't overclocked, so likely it should work.
 
It's not the number of fans, but how much current they draw. Not sure how accurate published TDP specs are, but if installation in an old school Mac tower without adding an auxiliary PSU is your goal, anything over 200watts is pushing your luck, especially if you're hosting other power hungry PCIe hardware like an RR-X…

Cheers - #19
 
Works for me

Works for me

I just did the install and used a version that has one 6 pin and one 8 pin. Picked up a 6 to 8 PCI Express Adapter and it works great. The key is to install the drivers first. Select the web drivers in the upper right corner pulldown menu and you're good to go.
 
From my research on the same subject I found that a GTX 980 is only about 10% faster than my current GTX 680, which equals about 7 Frames Per Second more. That could be the tipping point or just not good enough. I'm thinking about the GTX 980 Ti as the last upgrade for my aging "legacy" Mac Pro Tower.

Clayton Burkhart said:
It has been suggested to me on another thread to update my Mac Pro 5,1 classic tower with this video card. I currently have two GTX 470's in there for dual Adobe and Davinci workflows, but with a single faster card I could free up some space for a RAID host controller card. Obviously, I am interested in the 980's CUDA capacity, however it is unclear if this card is really usable at this date in a Mac. Some people say that Yosemite has provision for it in an unofficial capacity, however others say it needs to be flashed in order to have PCIe 2.0 capacity, etc. The only reseller that does sell flashed 980's is MacVidCards, but the cards are so expensive and the import duties plus shipping to Europe are so prohibitive, I might as well buy a new Mac.

So can I use an unflashed card? Could I flash it myself? Are there resellers who do what Macvidcards does in Europe? Or should I forget the whole thing and just get a GTX 680, which is the last blessed card available for Mac?

Waddya think?
Click to expand...

According to this rather limited test, it appears the GTX 980 is much faster than 10%.

Billy Jim said:
Here's a recent comparison of GPUs.
Click to expand...
 
Is there an "external" PSU that could be placed "internally" into a Legacy Mac Pro Tower's optical bay?

Ben Graham said:
External power supply is the best option. Having to replace a failed 5,1 PSU is $300.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top