GTX 580 on Mac Pro 3,1 CS 5.5 and Lion?

[Petros Kolyvas]

That’s interesting! Can you tell us where you found this information on official NVIDIA drivers of OS X that support GTX 5xx series cards?

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger

[Petros Kolyvas]

Also, doesn’t the GTX580 require a second power supply on exisiting Mac Pro platforms?

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

[Keith Moreau] “Should I take out my Quadro 4000 and put in a GTX 580?”

Maybe, Maybe not.

While the GTX580 is technically faster, if the Quadro 4000 is giving you realtime playback then the performance increase in some situations may not be worth the cost.

If you were deciding which one to buy, the GTX is a far better choice, since it’s faster and cheeper.

Since you already own the Quadro, however, unless you’re pushing the limits of the power of the quadro, the upgrade probably isn’t worth the price. (unless, that is, you can sell the Quadro…)

If you do decide to buy the GTX, you should buy from a company that doesn’t charge a restocking fee for returns. Then, if you don’t see enough of a performance increase, you can send it back.

[Keith Moreau]

Thanks John

Do you know how much faster the 580 is than the 4000? I would ‘try’ it out, but I’m always trying to eek out the last bit of performance out of my aging Mac Pro. If new ones come out soon, I can transfer it over to the new one, hopefully, or if Apple kills the Mac Pro line and I go the PC route, use it in that.

What card do you use?

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

A GTX480. I’m waiting for Nvidia’s next GPU architecture, then I’ll upgrade. (I guess if the naming convention continues that’d be the GTX680)

How much faster it would be depends entirely on the kind of editing you’re doing.

As far as I know, the CPU is still responsible for encoding, so straight renders will be no faster. If you apply lots of effects and compositing you might see quite an increase.

The point is that only in places where the GPU is currently the limiting factor will a new GPU make any difference.