Nvidia Video Cards and MacPros

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scottmd80

Active member
OK, Time to call in the big guns. I have a MacPro 5,1 with OS X 10.6.8, 26 GB Ram, ATI Radeon HD 5870 Graphics card. I want to upgrade the video card to speed up Premier Pro, After Effects....Several times I was about to buy the Nvidia Quadro 4000 for Mac then reading the reviews scared me off. Kernel panic, crashes, only one DVI port. My Radeon is rock stable, I prefer stability to speed. Is anyone using Nvidia cards (CUDA) with a MacPro and do you have these problems? Thanks
 
i was looking into this quite awhile ago and "macvidcards.com" sells all varieties.

the guy at this place "reflashes" pc versions to work on macpros. i was looking into a GTX285 which always seemed very solid when they were made for mac and most people on the Premiers forums said this was the best bet to get. of course its hard to find an authentic mac version these days so a reflashed one is what most people do.

now the negative...this guys that does this is not responsive at all. i posted several posts/questions on his website forum (that has almost no traffic and maybe he doesnt look at it much im thinking) and i got *ZERO* information back from him in the least so, i never ordered. i have a 4,1 macpro and an older 2,1 macpro. i was trying to find out if it would work on the older one since i wanted to outfit both but later i found out thru other internet research that the 1,1 macpro would not work.

if you can figure out exactly what your wanting to order from his site i gather that the guy is reputable from the research i did. just dont expect to get any info from him.

one package he was selling was a dual GPU setup with a flashed GTX285 plus the old GT120. this was the ultimatte Davinci Resolve setup on his site. the GT120 was just for the displays and the other dedicated for the app.

ill be curious to see what kind of luck you have. id still order if i could could get a pulse out of this guy.

david

EDIT: ok i just checked the forum on macvidcards.com and the guy did finally answer some stuff (4 months later haha). still i cant really clearly understand WTF he is talking about or at least im not really sure what to buy and the pitfalls of a few of the options.

maybe someone on here thats either smarter than me or has been down this path with getting reflashed card can inform us a bit.

thanks
david
 
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Hi guys, i'm currently looking forward to build an "hackintosh - mac pro" there are several unofficial cards working on osx, just by installing kexts which are drivers or batches to enable those cards - get more information, how-to's and kexts on http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

You can specify your system on this page and check out which operating system supports which cards... hmmm was that correct spelled in english? ^^

regards

Stefan
 
Thanks everyone. I could not image I was the only one with these questions. I will keep you updated on my search.
Thanks again,
Scott
 
I bought two GTX 470's from Macvideocards and they work fine. The issue is power connectors, you may not have enough if you want to keep your graphics card and ad an Nvidia card as well.

Here is a thread where I explain how to deal with all of these questions:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/11710#11723

Here is an excerpt from that thread in which I responded to someone else:

Re: Configuring both a GTX470 and a Quadro in a MacPro 3,1
by Clayton Burkhart on Nov 11, 2011 at 12:33:21 am

Ok there is a smart way to do this which allows you to cable internally without having to keep the door of your Mac Pro open:

If you look very carefully you will notice there is only one small place where you can pass your wires through from the drive bay to the lower portion of your computer. It is in the front upper corner just above the 1st hard drive bay. That is where you will pass the Molex wires through.

Next you need to determine if it is a conventional molex or an Sata adapter in your optical drive bay. I forget which generation Mac passed over to Sata. If it is Sata you will need this kind of adapter (ignore the French, you can find this in the US as well):

http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350384917315

You will then need a molex extension cable which you are going to cut off the male plug on. This can be a Y splitter cable if you need two power plugs (as on a GTX 285 or GTX 470) or only a single cable for something like the Quadro 4000.

You then pass the cables through the corner slot I spoke about and reattach a new male plug from a cheap kit like this:

http://www.aquatuning.us/product_info.php/language/en/info/p7334_Stromverso...

What I did actually was very carefully break the original male molex plug, keeping the wires intact on their little pins. I then just reslotted them into a replacement plug from this kit.

After you just need to connect a cable like the following to your extension cable:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mac-Pro-6-Pin-4-pin-Molex-Video-Card-Power-Cable-/2...

This cable can be found much cheaper elsewhere and if you are near a cheap reseller for gamers, he probably has a ton of extra cables like this which come with many video cards today.

I use the app "Hardware Monitor" to check temperature and power usage for my two cards, but honestly I have never seen my two internal GTX 470's go over 380 Watts combined when working in Davinci, FCP, AE etc. For gaming it might be an issue, but for our work there really is not an excessive load on the power supply.
Click to expand...


Hope that helps.
 
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that GTX 580 looks inviting but i noticed in the specs that its rigged to work in Lion with no mention of SL. ive been holding off going to Lion because of a lot of plugs for many programs that i use. i know i probably need to bite the bullet and upgrade all of those plugs at some point.

thanks to those that have provided good information to this thread.

david
 
I had a 5870 in my 12 core MacPro running Lion from the start but later on decided to downgrade to a 5770 to make room for an additional quadro 4000 for cuda. Works perfectly fine. I got a 30" NEC and an old 23" ACD hooked up to the ati, the quadro is only for gpu power for resolve. For performance in resolve you will need two cards, one for the gui and one for speed. As I also use a blackmagic decklink for monitoring from premiere and resolve, the mercury engine in pp does not work as of cs 5.5. This should have changed whith cs6, but I had no time to try that yet.
All in all, I am happy withe that setup.

cheers
martin
 
For a long time I’ve been considering the Nvidia Quadro 4000 for Mac. The reviews I read were split, greatest thing since sliced bread to worst thing ever invented. Recently I had a Premier Pro project with several video tracks with several effects added. My MacPro usually is fine, although I might have to lower the resolution. This project really taxed my system. I can see more of these kind of projects on the horizon so I took the leap and purchased the Nvidia Quadro 4000 for Mac from B&H. I upgraded the Mac’s operating program to Mountain Lion, I read it has the drivers built in for the Quadro. I installed the Quadro next, could not have been easier. Started the computer downloaded the Cuda update from Nvidia so the Adobe programs can use the Quadro’s Cuda functions. Both monitors work great, all my programs work. Now Premier Pro will run everything I can throw at it, full resolution, always a green light. Same for After Effects, I cannot believe how fast it renders now. All my fears were put to rest. I had no problem with installing the new operating system, and no problems installing the new video card. I hope this helps if you are sitting on the fence like I was.
 
Hey all,

First of all, thank you to the OP for posting this question. I really need to upgrade my ATI Radeon 5770 that is my Mac Pro 5.1. It is prohibitively slow in Premiere and After Effects. I have been looking at the cards from Macvidcards and have been impressed by the reviews. However, I don't know what option would be best for my machine.

Right now, I use 3 displays and would really like to keep it that way. Does anyone have any input about whether the card package here would give me a strong efficient GPU that would allow me to continue using 3 displays? Essentially, should I disregard my want to use 3 displays and instead focus on getting the most bang for my buck? Does anyone have any thoughts on the package above verses this package?
 
hi, are you using davinci? if yes i would recommend the gtx470+120 package, as far as in know, davinci gives the best response if one card runs the GUI and one is processing the footage.

I'm currently using the 1,3GB Version of the 570 (patched windows version of course), and it works flawlessly with my hackintosh... The cuda hack does awesome work with this card, runs incredible fast in comparison to my late 2009 iMac :)

if just using after effects and premiere i would suggest the 570. There is no support for dual GPU's so far, so i guess you will achieve best results with a strong single card - the 570 has a slightly higher amount of CUDA cores as the 470 - read here: http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
hi, are you using davinci? if yes i would recommend the gtx470+120 package, as far as in know, davinci gives the best response if one card runs the GUI and one is processing the footage.

I'm currently using the 1,3GB Version of the 570 (patched windows version of course), and it works flawlessly with my hackintosh... The cuda hack does awesome work with this card, runs incredible fast in comparison to my late 2009 iMac :)

if just using after effects and premiere i would suggest the 570. There is no support for dual GPU's so far, so i guess you will achieve best results with a strong single card - the 570 has a slightly higher amount of CUDA cores as the 470 - read here: http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for your response. No, I'm not using da Vinci, just Premiere and After Effects. So, in your opinion, it would be worth the extra $150 to get the 570. Is that correct?

Do you happen to know if the 570 offered by Mac vid cards will support 3 displays? I have found that whoever is running that site is very unresponsive.

Thanks for your input!
 
i am currently running my iMac as Display via Displayport to MiniDP Cable and another 27" monitor via DVI as second Display, i havent tried a third one yet, sorry... but if there are a HDMI and a DVI left i guess it will work... why not?
 
Appreciate you guys are wanting the MAC EFI versions of these cards i.e. those you can buy from macvidcards however, mountain lion has support for nvidia cards so, a mac efi version isnt totally necessary. The macvidcard EFI versions will give you a boot screen. Others wont, but still work. Be sure to check power needs before you go out and buy something like a GTX680 etc. FWIW the GTX570 seems to be the easiest to use in this regard at the moment requiring nothing additional.

On the Quadro 4000 unfortunately its easily out performed by many other nvidia offerings that are much cheaper.
 
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