Need advise on The Quadro FX 4800 for MAC

[Chris Borjis]

I have the Quadro 4000 and I have to say I couldn’t work without it.
It really speeds things up for me.

Any reason you’re not getting the 4000?

It would appear the 4800 has half the cuda cores but costs more.

Plus its a double height (2-slot card) Do you have 2 slots free?

the 4000 is only single slot.

[Phil Lebeau]

I just did more research and I was wondering about the 4000. Is the 4800 an older card? After doing the research, I am thinking the 4000 is the better card for me.

Thanks for your reply!

Phil LeBeau
http://www.phillebeau.com

[Robert Brown]

You may want to check out the GTX 285 for Mac as well. On many tests I’ve seen it’s right there with if not better than the 4000 and can be had for around $250 on Ebay. I’ve got one and it’s great in OSX and Windows in Boot Camp. Barefeats.com has some benchmarks on it.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

https://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos

[Mark Wilson]

I have the FX 4800 for MAC, It’s older then the 4000 and more expensive. The 4000 will do the job.

Mark Wilson
Creative Communication Inc.

[Roel Bus]

I actually have a very similar set up and was considering upgrading to CS6. I am worried now, because I have the same computer with 3.2 GHz processors, but only 8 GB RAM. Plus I run my storage from inside, so it’s 3 SATA drives configured in RAID 0. It sounds I’m going to have a lot of stuttered video as well…
Will the Quadro make the difference, or will I need to upgrade the rest too…?

[Phil Lebeau]

It’s like doing remodling in a house, once you tear out a wall you find other problems that need to be fixed. I thought I had to go to MAC OS 10.7 but then I found this:

This is the minimum from the Quadro website

Mac OS x 10.6.5 or later with
MacPro3,1 (Early 2008), MacPro4,1
(Early 2009) or MacPro5,1 (Mid-2010)
Microsoft Windows through Boot Cam

From what I am hearing, the Quadro 4000 for MAC should make your system sing. If you are running off of local drives you should be good to go.

I am running through a fibre channel card that is running to a server at least 100 yards away – I really don’t know the exact distance but I am on the at least 6 floors above our main media servers.

For someone using local drives, I would think that the 4000 would be amazing!

Phil LeBeau
http://www.phillebeau.com

[Greg Jones]

If you want a really fast card go for the GTX 570. It’s much faster than the 4000. While not officially supported for the Mac you can find them on eBay that have been flashed to work with the Mac.

Greg Jones
Orlando,Fl.
https://www.d7-inc.com

[Keith Moreau]

I used both 4800 , 4000 and 285. I thought the 285 added some instability to the system, I think at the time perhaps because the drivers were older. I settled on the 4000 and like it. I don’t think the 4800 is worth the extra money and is bigger and hotter.

I do think that experimenting with non-supported cards might yield some better performance, mostly in real time rendering of effects and on export, it does make a big difference.

I am in a quandary though because I have the same system as you, the 3,1 and really wanted to upgrade to the “New” Mac pros that were refreshed but the refresh is so lame… I’m actually contemplating a PC! Wow.

Still there is a bit of struggling and lagginess with AVCHD footage though it is usable. Ram helps as well.