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GTX 690 Video card in Mac
Hey,
I saw a few post regarding the GTX 690 card. Has anyone got this working in a Mac? My understanding is it is supported with Mountain Lion 10.8. However are both GPUs running and working with resolve and Adobe CS6 (I am told this is really a doubled 680). So do those programs see both GPUs or is just seeing one and the other one is going to waste? For those of you who installed it, what about power. Does the mac have enough or did you have to connect to external power supply. The card pulls like 300 watts and NVIDA recommends a 650 watt power supply. Requires two 8 pin power connections as well. Not really even sure how to hook up power supply to a video card in a mac.
My plan was to drop this card in mac along with GeForce 8800 GT as the GUI. In the future would expand by adding more GPU cards to cubix external PCI expansion chassis. Was hoping to put off buying 2700 expansion chassis at this time. But sounds like I may have to go with expansion chassis on power requirements alone.
So if anyone has the GTX 690 working in a Mac running 10.8 let me know. Also let me know what you did to hook up the power.
Thanks for your help.
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16 Replies
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That MacPros internal power cannot support a 690.
Colorist | Online Editor | Post Super | VFX Artist | BD Author
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What about in the Cubix expansion chassis. Does resolve see both GPUs on the GTX 690? This would be ideal as you would get two GPUs per slot. Potentially could have 8 GPUs running in the expansion chassis.
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Todd – keep in mind that OSX has a 4 GPU limitation. Think GUI + 3x CUDA accelerators. Other than this limitation, yes the Xpander would be able to host at least 2x GTX 690 cards.
Eric Fiegehen
Cubix -
Hey Eric,
Is it possible to run a GUI from the cubix box? I know DaVinci Resolve configuration manual states to have GUI in slot 1 of the Mac. That would be neat to have two GTX690 in the expansion chassis providing GUI/GPU. Then the slots in the mac would be available for other items. -
Hi Todd – I’ll ask Mic Grover, Cubix Technical Support Manager to comment, but we recommend installing the GUI card in Slot 1 of the Mac Pro. Doing so provides maximum bandwidth for both hardware acceleration processes plus other types of I/O traffic such as reads and writes from 8-channel SAN or RAID cards which you might want to run from inside the Xpander.
Eric
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Todd – the following info comes from Cubix Technical Support in reference to your question:
“Cubix has not tested NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 running in Xpander and connected to Mac Pro yet; however, this should work. Install the HIC in MacPro_Slot2. Install only two GTX 690s in Xpander Desktop 4, for example. Connect two 8-pin auxiliary power connectors to each 690. Connect only one display to only one 690. Boot the Mac Pro and install the Mac OS X driver version 304.00.00f20 dated 20120910 located here:
https://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.00f20-driver.html.”Eric Fiegehen
Cubix Corporation
ericc@cubix.com
https://www.cubix.com -
Just a little update…
Installed GTX690 in a 2008 MacPro. Worked about 2 hours then Mac crashed and wouldn’t restart. I mean dead, no chime on startup. Multiple apple genius visits and multiple attempts to reinstall card failed with same result of dead machine after a couple hours of use with GTX690 installed primarily in MacPro.
Anyway… the GTX690 is working fine on same computer in a Cubix expansion chassis. Running MacOSX 10.8.2, Adobe CS6, DaVinci Resolve 9.03, ProTools HD 10.3 and Red Rocket without any problems at this point. Keeping fingers crossed. Render times and playback speed are notably quicker, though haven’t bench tested them yet.
T
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Hey there,
great post, that’s exactly what I want to do. I have some questions.Does Resolve see both GPUs?
Also, if you could give more details about your setup, like, what slot did you connect the Cubix? what is your GUI card and what slot it’s connect to? etc…Thank you in advance.
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Resolve sees both GPUs on the 690. (though note Resolve Lite only runs one)
GUI is GeForce 8800 GT in PCI Slot 1. If you can put a Quadro 4000 in Slot one as it is recommended.
Slot 2 has Cubix GPU-Xpander Desktop 4 with 4 PCI Express 16-Channel Slots
Slot 3 Blackmagic Multibridge Pro
Slot 4 Apple Raid CardCubix Expander
Slot 1 GTX 690
Slot 2 Red Rocket
Slot 3 Empty
Slot 4 Avid ProTools HD Core CardAll on 2008 (3,1) MacPro 8 core with 24 Gb RAM. Playing back Red 5k files at 24 fps on 1920×1080 timeline without issues in Resolve. Though a faster raid setup would be a lot better. Card works well with After Effects and Premiere CS6. I am holding out for a MacPro with thunderbolt. Come on Apple, enough with the iPad mini…
Cheers,
Todd -
Thank you very much.
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