Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

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Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby crmoberg » Tue Jun 02, 2015 7:23 pm

crmoberg Tue Jun 02, 2015 7:23 pm
Hello All,

I am new to the forum and to Octane. I have been watching some training videos on it and it seems very powerful.

I would love to try and get it set up on my own machine. It's a Mid 2010 Mac Pro currently using a ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB. Has anyone found a good setup for a Mac Pro in terms of video cards?

Any mac users please let me know your setup and what seems to be working best. Is it worth upgrading my machine or should I be thinking about investing in something newer?

All advice is much appreciated! Thanks!
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby bepeg4d » Wed Jun 03, 2015 3:38 pm

bepeg4d Wed Jun 03, 2015 3:38 pm
hi,
you can buy first one or two GTX and put them in your Mac Pro 2012 and then, when your needs are changed, create a PC or buy an external expander for your Mac.
The Mac Pro 2009/2010/2012 can only power one GPU with 6+6 pin connectors, so only the GTX 970 or below is good in this condition.
On ebay is possible to find modified cables with connections from 6pins to 6+2pins that are good for powering one 980, 980ti or Titan X.
The easy way to put a couple of nvidia cards is to use an external PSU with the paperclip trick in order to correctly powering them and to take off the lateral opening for better internal cooling.
Another solution is to get an external PSU with the form factor of a DVD bay and put it in the second DVD bay.
If I remember well, after Lion is possible to install any recent pc nvidia cards but you need a mac card for the monitor like the GT 120, but from Maverick you can use even a pc GTX card also for the display, the only disadvantage is that the gray apple is not visible during startup and the desktop suddently appears from black screen.
ciao beppe
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby crmoberg » Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:21 pm

crmoberg Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:21 pm
Thanks for all of this information bepeg4d!

I would curious to know which route is the safest or most reliable? Have you tried or tested any of these methods?

I am not the most tech savy in regards to computer hardware. Even links to some of the video cards or products you mentioned would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again!
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby crmoberg » Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:50 pm

crmoberg Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:50 pm
Thanks for all the information Bepeg4d!
I'm wondering what would be the safest and most reliable method? Have you tried any of these setups?
I'm not the most tech savy in regards to computer hardware... Any links to the cards or products you mentioned would be great!
I managed to find this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I511l7b99zI
Looks like this is similar to what you are talking about?
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby bepeg4d » Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:31 pm

bepeg4d Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:31 pm
wow, sincerely i have watched this video from corsair and it's extremely more easy, now are 4 years that my Mac Pro works with this setup with no issue. Also the need of one PSU per GPU seems a bit overestimated for me
Here is the video from corsair:

ciao beppe
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby Areandres » Fri Sep 18, 2015 11:32 am

Areandres Fri Sep 18, 2015 11:32 am
Hi there,
i use a MAC PRO 2010 with one GTX 680 4GB(patched with APPLE EFI) and one TITAN X
the system works very very well.
I use also an seperate PSU in my DVD Slot this PSU is conected with the Titan.

Octane is phenomenal fast with my RIG.
I am quiet happy with this configuration.
This is just an information for my rig.

Greets Andy
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby sanagustin » Mon Jun 06, 2016 12:15 am

sanagustin Mon Jun 06, 2016 12:15 am
I have a 12 Core 2010 Mac Pro which I recently upgraded for Octane. I kept the stock AMD card to run the display and added a EVGA GTX 980 TI 6b solely for Octane. The new card required more power so I've hooked it up to an external 850 watt EVGA battery that sits on top of my Mac Pro. The system runs great and I've had zero problems with it.

This is what I learned.

- Make sure to install the CUDA and Web Drivers before installing the new card.
- The latest web drivers on Nvidia site did not work with my machine. Mac Pro 5.1 running on El Capitan 10.11.5. I found an updated driver on a hackintosh site I believe. I wish I bookmarked the site. I will track it down soon and post a link.
- You must turn on the external battery before powering on the mac pro.

Questions that I have.

- Want to install another GTX 980 or a new 1070. I have more then enough PCIE slots but I don't think I have enough room for three cards to fit. Anyone have a solution for this?

I will shoot photos of my rig soon since I am sure it will help other mac users.
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby rrward » Thu Jun 09, 2016 6:01 am

rrward Thu Jun 09, 2016 6:01 am
sanagustin wrote:I have a 12 Core 2010 Mac Pro which I recently upgraded for Octane. I kept the stock AMD card to run the display and added a EVGA GTX 980 TI 6b solely for Octane. The new card required more power so I've hooked it up to an external 850 watt EVGA battery that sits on top of my Mac Pro. The system runs great and I've had zero problems with it.

- Want to install another GTX 980 or a new 1070. I have more then enough PCIE slots but I don't think I have enough room for three cards to fit. Anyone


Is your AMD card a single-slot or dual-slot card? (is it as wide as the 980ti?) I have a GTX680 (for the display) and a GTX980ti (for Octane) in mine and an OWC PCIE SSD card and that's all that will fit. The issue is that the lower PCIE slots (3 and 4) are only PCIE 4X, so you will lose performance on your display card if you move it down there to make room for the second Nvidia card.

Also be aware that Octane does not support the GTX1070 cards yet and wont until the Nvidia updates CUDA to work with the cards.
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby glimpse » Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:05 am

glimpse Thu Jun 09, 2016 7:05 am
sanagustin wrote:- Want to install another GTX 980 or a new 1070. I have more then enough PCIE slots but I don't think I have enough room for three cards to fit. Anyone have a solution for this?


The solution would be to build eGPU, that would allow You to take PCIe signal from one slot & add 2,3 or 4 GPUs. https://twitter.com/tomglimps/status/724861734201233411 - that's one of custm boxes I've made, but there are different solutions on the market that does not require watercooling single slot mods for GPUs.
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Re: Video Cards - Mid 2010 Mac Pro

Postby sanagustin » Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:09 am

sanagustin Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:09 am
I totally forgot about this thread and have some updates.

I now have to Nvidia cards running in the Mac Pro both being powered by an external PSU. No boot screen but the machine works fine and rendering speed has nearly doubled. I had to ditch the stock AMD card but that thing was garbage anyways. Maybe I'll get 40 bucks or so for it on Ebay.

I am toying with the idea of getting a couple PCIE risers and trying attach two more cards externally. From what I've read the mac should be able to read 4 cards.

I keep trying to breath new life into this machine but it has to stop at some point.

P.S. The cards running in my machine now are a GTX 980ti and GTX 780ti.

Anyone else have tips on making the 5.1 even better?
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