2 HD 5870s in 2010 MacPro

@ StooMonster.

I have the same MacPro you do (mid 2010). I was thinking of adding a second GPU.

I already have a 5870 (factory installed) and i am adding an Nvidia Quadro FX 4000. (the 4000 requires a single 6 pin power cable).

My Mac has 2 SSDs installed and 2 (2TB) Hitachi HDDs.

There are also 2 more PCI cards installed. A UAD Quad and a ProTools HD Native card.

Do you think that the internal PSU will handle it, 'cause i really can't choose the route of an external psu.

Thanks.

1. Don't even bother with the quadro series, Just don't. It's pointless and worthless, buggy, and a ripoff. Use hacks or mods to circumvent the Quadro requirements of Premiere. Otherwise, Quadro makes no difference for anything.

2. If you try to go under windows with a Quadro and a 5870 you'll run in to trouble. Windows will not allow Nvidia and ATI cards to be present at the same time, it will only use one of them.

3. No. The Mac Pro internal only has 2 power connectors. The 5870 occupies both of them, and the Quadro would require a nonexistant third one.

@ Fouel;

That item number doesn't work for some reason. I recommend giving a direct link to the listing.

BoyHowdyDoo wrote:

I "heavy" game on the Mac Pro. It is quieter than my PC's ever were. And everything is still tweak-able under Windows. Don't see what the problem is there. If you have to have serious power for OS X and you like to game, it is a great choice. If you just like to game than yes, it is a waste of money.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/10/tri-screen-cpu-monitor-ars-reviews- the-12-core-2010-mac-pro.ars/2

They did it with just a Y-split no need for smaller extra power supply. A 1000 watt supply can do like 12 HDD's, Dual Quad Procs and Crossfile/ SLI at the same time no problem. There are few PSU's rated over that anyway.

I do not know anyone that has crossfired Apple's 5870's.
This guy did 2x4870's. So it should be similar.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36197914@N08/sets/72157616169842077/
And thread for this to make sense.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=665034&page=10

That should get you going. Don't believe the naysayers.

What a refreshing, awesome gentleman you are, sir. Take heed, all ye frequenters of these Apple discussion boards. The above-quoted text is is the ideal post that you should all strive towards.

Note the features of the above post:

* intelligent

* informed

* posted links

* exemplifies a can-do attitude (Macs can do anything a PC can)

When the US Army was looking for a computer in the late 1980s that could drive up to six external monitors with resolutions over 2 megapixels each, and capable of loading images for those monitors over a network in under two seconds flat, they found that there was only one computer in existence that was capable of this feat. The Macintosh IIfx. They had Loral Medical Imaging Systems (now a part of Lockheed Martin) customize a Macintosh IIfx with special fans and a raised case, fiber optic and custom parallel dedicated file transfer that went alongside with Ethernet, and specialized software of course.

Sure the original Macintosh was an all-in-one. But from the debut of the Macintosh II all the way until the mid-1990s, the Macintosh platform kicked the PC's behind when it came to video game graphics. Color Mac games were always at least 640x480 minimum on everything. PC games always defaulted to 320x240. Bungie was solely a Mac developer for years, and showed Halo alphas running on Mac G4s right before Micro$oft cherry picked them for some secret project called "XBOX."

Ever since that happened... Mac gaming kind of went into a downspin... we've been living a collective nightmare while half of Mac people are like freakish Mac-fan equivalents of Stepford Wives if they had demon children with the Hitler Youth... you dare not question anything about anything about the way Apple does anything! Let alone try to customize your Mac with any NON-APPROVED PRODUCTS... ! Then the other half are just regular people who just wanted a computer that works and really know jack abot gaming.

And despite the best efforts of all of us Mac gamers, who harken back to the old days when Macs always had the best graphics, it just feels like gaming can't get any traction on the Mac. Apple refuses to support the DIY hardware that is at the core of the PC gaming thing. They don't tend to offer "hardcore" GPU options in anything except the Mac Pro. They don't even offer an affordable desktop with PCI slots for in case you wanted to customize it. Even the advent of Steam on Mac and the huge success of iOS as a gaming platform has not really seemed to change very much for the Mac as a gaming platform.

M$ retains its dominance in that last area of things that it's annoyingly still better in. Apple now has the resources however to COMPLETELY DESTROY the gaming market... if it only cared...

Imagine a $500 thing that looks like a MacBook Pro but with no screen, no keyboard. Just a thunderbolt port and power cord. That's it. Then another $250 thing that's just like an API Lunchbox except it takes four PCIe cards and has a thunderbolt port. All aluminum. And top it all off with an entire new department at Apple dedicated to supporting top-end game developers on the Mac platform. My friends, I'm not giving up hope.

In the meantime you can find me at the above-quoted post's author's gentleman's gaming table, the one in the back, over there, with the cool people sitting at it. We'll be playing Skyrim on our Mac Pros booted into Windows 7, feeling slightly dirty and wishing we didn't have to reboot into Bootcamp to do this, and hoping someday the sleeping gaming giant that is Apple fully awakens, and rages.

The Mac Pro has an insanely powerful power supply. Two 5870s should never draw over 600W. Usually they won't come anywhere close to that. The Mac Pro can draw 12A... that's 1440W at 120V. It tripped the breaker in my house the first time I turned it on! I'm sure you will be fine. If there's one thing you can say about the Mac Pro, it's way over-engineered.

The lack of two 8-pin along with the two 6-pin PCIe aux power connectors and you want to try to feed two cards...

And while it has 980W range PSU they are not always the best most efficient either, ae they?

So I like to see the "if you want to do it, do it right" is all. Get the $40 450W aux PSU.

Build a PC if you want off the shelf GTX 580s

People spend $1000 on GPUs alone in gaming crowd, @ $500 per gpu too.

Can do? with using splitters? That sounds nuts to me or at least "at your own risk" then.

You realize this thread : Sep 20, 2010 11:52 PM