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PC Graphic cards and OSX...


GreenElf
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Hi folks,

 

I have read many pages about how Apple now "officially unofficially" supports 3rd party (PC) GPUs; Is there some complied list of what works stright out of the box with which OSes? As in supported by 10.6.8/10.7.x/10.8.x.

 

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

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Thanks for the response Rampage. What about a Radeon 6670? I've read a lot that these should be pretty plug-n-play in 10.8.x. I'm considering it, but would rather not have to install hacks to have it run. This is a MacPro 3.1 (2008) I'm looking to put it in. Thank you again!

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Buy a AMD 6870 and then got to Netkas to flash the card with EFI to get the boot screen. Also Nvidia cards will work OOB with the Retail drivers so I would not get the AMD 6670 that you had said since I have never seen people getting that to work on a real mac.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the response Rampage. What about a Radeon 6670? I've read a lot that these should be pretty plug-n-play in 10.8.x. I'm considering it, but would rather not have to install hacks to have it run. This is a MacPro 3.1 (2008) I'm looking to put it in. Thank you again!

 

So wait... an ATI 4870 would be plug and play OOTB? (no EFI withstanding of course)

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  • 2 weeks later...

....And here I go again... :D Thoughts on a Radeon 6870, workable without flashing in 10.8? and I'm sure I know the answer, but crossfire does not work with non-EFI cards?

 

Edit: Hrm... So some of these cards I see on NewEgg, e.g. an MSI GT620, list 96 cuda cores, but list it as a fermi card? I've done a lot of reading, but can't seem to find a definitive answer on what will work and what won't... :/

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....And here I go again... :D Thoughts on a Radeon 6870, workable without flashing in 10.8? and I'm sure I know the answer, but crossfire does not work with non-EFI cards?

 

Edit: Hrm... So some of these cards I see on NewEgg, e.g. an MSI GT620, list 96 cuda cores, but list it as a fermi card? I've done a lot of reading, but can't seem to find a definitive answer on what will work and what won't... :/

 

Get at least a 650. Its cheap for its performance.

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The GTX660TI is near identical performance with the GTX580 with much lower power usage, if that's of any concern to anyone. In testing with Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine, the difference between the two cards was 1 second.

 

Offhand, I'm not 100% sure what the Mac Pro power supply is (likely far more than it needs), but being cautious in terms of power usage is always wise.

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The GTX660TI is near identical performance with the GTX580 with much lower power usage, if that's of any concern to anyone. In testing with Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine, the difference between the two cards was 1 second.

 

Offhand, I'm not 100% sure what the Mac Pro power supply is (likely far more than it needs), but being cautious in terms of power usage is always wise.

 

The spec sheet says 300W max

 

No Crossfire or SLI in Mac regardless the card.

 

GT cards are still fermi.

 

I thought so about XFire. And is Fermi inherently bad, even if they state CUDA cores?

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A standard Mac Pro has a 980W power supply, at least from the information I can muster up. The GTX660Ti has a max TDP of 150W. The rest of the Mac will use a fair amount of wattage, under full load, probably close to 400-450W. Given the source of many parts within the Mac Pro, I wouldn't want to put the PSU under a high load, as I wouldn't be surprised if the PSU failed under a 60% load or higher in prolonged situations.

 

The GTX580 by nVidia's website lists a TDP of 244W, significantly higher than the GTX660Ti.

 

If you're looking to use the card for Adobe hardware rendering with the Mercury Playback engine, despite the higher boost clock of the GTX580, the GTX660TI will be nearly identical in performance, but it will use a significantly lower amount of power. The GTX660Ti also has more CUDA cores, which the Mercury Playback Engine will be able to utilize better.

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