Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 includes a new technology called Mercury Playback Engine. The engine can use GPU processing on nVidia cards using CUDA architecture to accelerate renders. When perusing the list for compatible cards for Mac Pros, there’s only 3 cards listed. These cards are now a few years old, overpriced and are nowhere near as powerful as nVidia’s current cards. But it’s NOT TRUE that these are the only cards you can use in a Mac Pro. You can get other cards, but you need to do a bit of work and understand the differences:
– These 3 cards (GeForce GTX285, Quadro 4000, and Quadro FX 4800) will be recognized by OS X 10.7 or 10.8 and will have the correct drivers to run them. Other cards will require new drivers from nVidia. If you need to reinstall the OS or boot your computer from an OS X disc, it will kernel panic if it doesn’t have an Apple-blessed card in the computer. So if you buy a new card, keep your old one.
– You can’t use a PC card in a Mac to drive a monitor. It needs to be flashed for Mac specifically. User macvidcards on eBay is one of the only sources I know of. I’ve ordered a few cards from him and they’ve all worked great. A few things you need to know about his cards:
- In the pictures, you may see 4 ports on a card. On the GTX570, theres 2 DVI, 1 Displayport and 1 HDMI. With the Apple flash, you can only have 2 ports activated. Therefore, macvidcards sells 2 different versions of the GTX570: one with dual DVI outputs activated, and one with 1 DVI and 1 Displayport activated. Know what you’re buying beforehand. If you don’t have a 27″ Apple Display with miniDisplayPort, then get the dual DVI version as both of those DVI ports are dual link. If you need dual link on the Displayport port, you may need an active adapter.
- Because there’s only 1 Displayport port on the GTX570, you cannot run two 27″ Apple Displays off this card. I’ve only had one client where this was an issue, so we bought 27″ NEC displays with DVI instead of the Apple displays.
- nVidia re-brands their cards. So you might not get the exact card in the picture from macvidcards, but under the plastic, it’s all the same.
- The GTX570 is currently the fastest CUDA card you can buy for the Mac Pro that doesn’t require more power than the Mac Pro enclosure provides. If you buy a GTX580, or a 600-series card, you will need to either modify the current power supply, or use an external power supply. If you’re putting these cards in an external PCIe expansion box such as those by Cubix, you don’t have to worry about power.
- The listings will say the cards are “used”. In most cases they’re brand new cards, flashed by macvidcards, then placed in a generic box to be shipped to you. They’re listed as “used” because macvidcards modified them.
– nVidia has a few different card classes: GeForce, Tesla and Quadro. Personally, I don’t know the differences between them as it relates to performance in Premiere Pro and Resolve. The GeForce is the lowest cost line designed for gaming with excellent CUDA processing power, so most Premiere Pro and Resolve users will lean towards the GeForce cards. The GTX570 I own is a GeForce.
– Almost all of the nVidia cards take up 2 PCIe slots, except for the Quadro 4000, which is a huge plus for this card even though it’s old.
I hope this post clears up any confusion about the current CUDA cards available for CS6. I met someone this week that was excited about his “new” Quadro 4000 card and I felt bad that he didn’t know he could buy a more powerful card for a third of the price.
UPDATE:
So I’m getting a LOT of feedback on this post. I’m also noticing in different forums a general confusion about GPU cards. I think I need to put together a GPU article…
It seems that the cards from MacvidCards won’t work anymore with Cuda (PP, AE). See comments on http://www.vidmuze.com/how-to-enable-gpu-cuda-in-adobe-cs6-for-mac/#comment-13559 “After updating to the latest AE build, this seems no longer to be an option on getting Cuda working on non Adobe certified cards.”
Have you more information about this? I was intending to buy the 570 from MacvidCards.
I just recently updated my home Mac Pro from OS X 10.7.5 to 10.8.2. I didn’t go to 10.8.3 on purpose. Too new. The GTX570 was still listed in the Supported Cards .txt file for both After Effects and Premiere Pro after the update. AE is still set to use the GTX570 GPU for Ray-Tracing. However, I had to re-do the OpenCL fix because you have to change a different HEX code in Mountain Lion than in Lion. Everything is working great. I have read that some Premiere and AE updates will change the Supported Cards .txt back to its original list. So you might have to run the fix every time you update Premiere or AE. I have the GTX570 2.5GB and had no problems in 10.7.5 and it’s been error-free for the last 2 weeks on 10.8.2. I think you will be fine buying the 570.
Keep in mind though, Mountain Lion includes a lot of new nVidia drivers. You can use the new 6xx series nVidia cards on Mountain Lion without needing them to be flashed by macvidcards. You won’t get the boot screen when you start your computer. But other than that, they work as advertised.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I have two boot-disks in my Mac Pro: one with 10.6.8 and one with 10.8.3 Will I be able to boot in Snow Leopard with this card? It’s not mentioned here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-GTX-570-2-5-GB-for-Apple-Mac-Pro-DisplayPort-Version-/330898968185?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4d0b1d8e79
It says ‘OSX 10.7.5 or later required’.
No. For 10.8.x, the nVidia graphics drivers (not the CUDA drivers) are built into the OS. For 10.7.5, you need to download them from nVidia. There are no drivers for 10.6.8.
So summarized, one of the few (best?) possible upgrade options for my situation via Macvidcards is then this?
http://www.ebay.nl/itm/Nvidia-GTX-480-for-Apple-Mac-Pro-Internal-Power-Version-/261160747617?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3cce64c261
Or do you have an other recommendation?
Under 10.8, I work with Creative Cloud + Resolve (+ Smoke 2013 in near future). In 10.6.8 I still work with FCS3 + Adobe Design Standard CS4.
If you get one of these cards, you can’t work in 10.6.8 at all. If you try to boot 10.6.8 with the card installed (even if you have your monitors connected to a second card, such as the GT120), your computer will kernel panic while booting. I’ve tried it. If 10.6.8 is critical to your workflow, then you can’t get any of these cards. FCS3 works fine on Mountain Lion. Why are you still using CS4 when you have Creative Cloud?
The higher the number, the faster the card. Look on Barefeats.com to see GPU tests using Resolve.
While nearly all of the information presented here is correct this bit about the GTX 480 is not. The card will run in 10.6.8 so long as you install the 10.6.8 Quadro 4000 drivers from Nvidia.
Additional cards that will run in 10.6.8: Quadro 6000, Tesla 2070 and the GTX 470.
Good to know. Thanks Bob!
Thanks for your help! Thought that FCS3 couldn’t work under 10.8. I try to install it under 10.8 tomorrow. I’ll keep you informed.
I just switched last month to Creative Cloud, so I use CS4 still now and then. But if FCS3 can work under 10.8.3 (while switching bit by bit to PP) , then I stick to this and buy me the 570.
Thanks again.