CUDA NVIDIA video card to Mac Pro 2013

As with all MPs running Mavericks it isn't necessary to install CUDA, but you should be able to. This is the latest release: NVIDIA CUDA Drivers 6.0.51.

Yes, but.

You would have to install such a card in an expensive external chassis.

You would need some Drivers that were not included in your Mac, but may be available from hobbyist sites.

You would get the equivalent of about a 4x PCIe slot ("normal" is 16x) but that may not be a big deal if you are not actually using it to drive displays.

Apple has said they are unwilling to bet their company on proprietary CUDA technology when NVIDIA is not forthcoming about internal workings of their Hardware and drivers. They have signed up with [Vendor-agnostic] OpenCL instead.

Adobe is taking their good old time in getting the needed OpenCL pieces to market.

You would have to install such a card in an expensive external chassis.

You would need some Drivers that were not included in your Mac, but may be available from hobbyist sites.

You would get the equivalent of about a 4x PCIe slot ("normal" is 16x) but that may not be a big deal if you are not actually using it to drive displays.

How so, Grant? The Nvidia like the AMD cards require two slots' space, and the more recent MPs have at least two adjacent 16x slots. Mavericks has the drivers built in for some of the 7xx models. Most of the hobbyists use them quite satisfactorily with OS X and CUDA. I am pretty familiar with this world.

The OP specifically asked about the late 2013 model, which has no internal slots.

So a ThunderBolt expnsion chassis would be needed.

I am looking for the article of some guys who did this for a lark.

http://www.coreyrobson.com/post/52451664259/thunderbolt-gpu-is-alive-and-mostly- well

The new one has two slots for both installed cards. Those can be removed and replaced with other cards. In fact I've come across a couple of online articles about such swaps. I don't know if the space allows for a card requiring the space of two adjacent slots. Most newer cards cannot be installed in the space of a single slot. Amongst the Nvidia cards I know the GTX 640 only requires one slot as does the bottom of the GTX 650 line-up. The rest use up two slots.

The places to install a graphics card in the 2013 Mac Pro do not accept industry-standard PCIe cards. It is a real stretch to call them "slots".

The card outline and power (and cooling) appear to require installation with heatsink paste onto the central cooler. The power and connections for the two graphics cards are not standard, and the two cards are not identical.

I do not believe there are any cards for sale today that can be installed in the late 2013 Mac Pro, except the ones supplied by Apple, and I believe they are not for sale unless you are a bona fide service provider.

In fact I've come across a couple of online articles about such swaps.

I'd love to read about that if you can find them.

I suppose it's possible the swap was for cards that were compatible. I don't remember. I recall one article talking about a daughter card that is removable on which the GPUs are installed.

If I actually stumble on them again I'll pass them on. As of now I don't plan on buying one. If I did I would have the answer in no time. 🙂

This graphic from ifixit.com shows the two special cards, still with heatsink paste in place, just after removal. The silver diamond surrounds the big graphics chip, just inside the RAMs on the card. Those RAMs contact heatsink pads on the central cooler. The whole business is secured with four screws beyond the RAMs, roughly centered on the sides of the diamond. So the Big GPU chip and the RAMs are pressed with heatsink paste and heatsink pads, respectively, against the central cooler. This is in lieu of allowance for a separate fan (which in many "standard" cards is what takes up the space of the second slot.

Power appears to be supplied by lugs in the outer corners of each card, so the cards are deliberately not interchangeable. One has connections that feed to the graphics outputs, the other has connections for the PCIe SSD socket.

The text says those connectors resemble the CPU daughter card connectors used in the late G4 and G5s.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+Pro+Late+2013+Teardown/20778

and this is the cards in place, still screwed in with the "lozenge"-shaped bracket. Also note the connector below.

also from ifixit.com article.

Has made the Mac Pro 2012 with one or two GTX 7xx or 6xx cards more valuable and popular now that the Late 6,1 2013 has come to roost and is having graphic driver and display problems even now with the 10.9.4 update.

Thunderbolt2 cases do not supply the 16x or multiple 8x channels needed to drive a GPU or GPGPU fully.