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Julien_deka
Known Participant
May 28, 2012
Question

Best graphic card for Mac Pro + CS6

  • May 28, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 30324 views

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry if this question has been asked several times... But it seems technology moves so fast... And also I found lots of cards that seem to me being PC only... That's why I'm having this question for Mac only.

I'm on a Mac Pro, Snow Leopard CS5.5 , and I want to re-instal a clean new system with Lion and CS6... mostly to edit 5K footage from the Epic (+ VFX and grading)... So it is mostly about PPro and AE (not quite sure about Speed Grad, still have to try it out).

What are my best options, as of today, in terms of graphic cards... ? I'm talking about boosting the Mercury Playback Engine through CUDA, as well as supporting the softwares as much as it can in term of OpenCL and OpenGL...

In this chart from nVidia's website, I only see the quadro 4000 and 4800 being available for Mac...

http://www.nvidia.com/content/PDF/product-comparison/product-comparison-master-revised.pdf

But we do have a GTX 285 in one of our computer at the office, and it works too...

Then I know some CS6 users are referring to other cards, like the GTX 570... and there is probably more to the list.

I'd like to to be able to compare what card gives you the best performances, at which price point.

Thanks in advance for sharing

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    R
    RjL190365
    Legend
    May 28, 2012

    Unfortunately, with a Mac Pro, your choice of GPUs is extremely limited. None of the GTX 570 cards are compatible with any official Apple Mac Pro at all (or put it this way, the card will require major modifications that will completely break compatibility with Windows if you want it to be Mac-compatible). With NVidia you are limited strictly to a GeForce GTX 285 or a Quadro 4000 or FX 4800 (but both the GTX 285 and FX 4800 are old-generation GPUs). You see, a Mac-compatible graphics card absolutely requires a BIOS that's fully compatible with the Mac Pro's EFI in order to even access the EFI or see the boot screen. None of the Windows-compatible graphics cards are compatible at all with the Mac's EFI.

    In other words, all of the users that you have noticed that are running a GTX 570 are all using Windows, not Mac.

    J
    Julien_dekaAuthor
    Known Participant
    May 29, 2012

    Thanks for this very detailed answer...

    So the GTX570 for Mac that we find online are only for Mac Pro running Windows on Boot Camp? Or have they been "re-configure" to fully work on Mac?

    I found this on eBay, and it's my understanding that it work on Mac... hoppefully as well on both Snow Leopard and Lion

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-GTX-570-Apple-Mac-Pro-2-5-GB-CUDA-DaVinci-Resolve-Adobe-Premiere-570-/230797067695?_trksid=p4340.m263&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D15%26pmod%3D330727171344%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D8746718267608062183#ht_1793wt_1398

    Thanks again for the answer...

    jasonvp
    jasonvp
    Inspiring
    May 29, 2012

    Julien_deka wrote:


    I found this on eBay, and it's my understanding that it work on Mac... hoppefully as well on both Snow Leopard and Lion

    That video card has been prepped by a known good Mac video card hacker.  He adds the appropriate EFI-compatible chips to PC nVidia cards so that they'll boot properly in a Mac Pro.  In order for them to run properly, you must be running Lion and the latest nVidia-provided drivers (NOT the Apple-provided ones).  They won't work properly in Snow Leopard (really: it's time to move on).

    I have one of his cards and it works wonderfully well in CS6 with the appropriate text file edit.

    jas

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