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Configuring both a GTX470 and a Quadro in a MacPro 3,1
I think I’m at an impasse, but maybe someone can help: To run Resolve and CS5.5 PP, I bought a GTX470 from Dave P., to add to a previously purchased Quadro 4000. The issue is, of course, power. I bought a Netstor NA211A thinking this would give me the additional slots necessary to run the GTX470, the Q4000, an SAS array card, my BM Decklink card, and a UAD2 (Universal Audio) card.
The problem is that the GTX470 needs both power outlets in the MacPro, and if I run the Q4000 in the Netstor Turbo box, it’s running at only 4X. Not good, right?
Anybody see a way to do this?
Thanks in advance –
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16 Replies
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You can pull power from the optical drive bay for the second vid card. Molex to Y splitter will give you two extra plugs. This is what I have done and it works. No your power source will not be overtaxed doing this despite the fallacy propagated by Apple.
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So that solves my power issue, certainly. Thanks! However, I think I am still missing a fast slot: if the GTX470 is in Slot 1, the BM Decklink in 2, my SAS array card in 3, that just leaves Slot 4 for the Quadro. That doesn’t work, does it?
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No, the first two slots are reserved for your video cards. The last slot (4) is for the Blackmagic. This is pretty standard. That’s how I have it anyway…
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OK, that works. BlackMagic says they like Slot 1 for best performance, but that any slot will work. I just figured maybe the performance issues I was having with PP had to do with BMD in that forth slot, but probably it was a slow (GeForce 8800) card for display, which I’m now replacing.
You can pick up a Molex to Y splitter pretty much anyplace? Is that a four-pin on the disk drive side, to two-four-pins on the Y-side?
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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):
https://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:
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:
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.
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Wow – very generous reply. Thanks!
I’ll try to find the components tomorrow and see what I can come up with. Thanks again –
J
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My pleasure. It took me ages to sort through all the possibilities and half truths myself and in the end this was the most expedient way.
Why should anyone else waste their time if the answer is already in my hip pocket?Good luck with that mod.
Cheers,
Clayton -
The power from the Superdrive works fine for the Q4000; however, only the Displayport side of the Q4000 seems to be working – the DVI side of the output isn’t live. Is this a setting in Sys Prefs someplace? Not Displays, because that’s showing me two Displays in the correct configuration. Its just that one is black: no power indicator, no USB/Firewire passthrough.
Just as a reminder, I’m trying to run the displays off the Q4000, reserving the GTX470 for CUDA processing.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
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NEVER MIND – HOLD IT – DON’T ANSWER. The power supply for the display got unplugged in the shuffle. Let me give this another try …
J
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I just got the same question if you can run 2 displays from 4000 and have scopes on one of them.
And having 470 just for gpu.
Scopes question came along in an other thread where it seems that ultrascope is 422 only but
some workflows need 444 material to used. Maybe it does not matter but interesting still
if it will work 4000 with 2 displays and 470 just for gpu and scopes also live on second screen.—
Margus
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