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Julien_deka
Known Participant
May 28, 2012
Question

Best graphic card for Mac Pro + CS6

  • May 28, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 30320 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
    June 15, 2012

    I think benchmarks are very relevant when choosing a graphics cards for an editing business situation. But so is performance over time. Failures due to overheating or frugal system design is harder to measure but just as important to evaluate. We are told that the Quadro line is better built and ventilated than the GTX line. It would be nice to see some hard statistics on performance over life in products as well. If a GTX craps out from constant use, its speed is not enough of a good reason to buy it.


    lasvideo wrote:

    I think benchmarks are very relevant when choosing a graphics cards for an editing business situation. But so is performance over time. Failures due to overheating or frugal system design is harder to measure but just as important to evaluate.

    True, but if you think that professional video editors put their rigs through more abuse than hard-core gamers do, you're greatly mistaken.  The GTX line continues to expand and succeed purely due to the crazy gamers out there (far more of them than there are editors).  And those gamers aren't having any issues with the GTX line.

    People constantly overclock the snot out of the GTX lines so that they run even faster (and even hotter) than stock.  And the cards just eat it up and keep chugging along.

    That all said, if you would rather spend $800+ on a Quadro 4K and get half the performance out of it than you would a card that costs less than half that much: it's your money.

    jas

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