Re: Mac Pro hacking diary

[DonaemouS]

just one thought: you are watching the temperatures right?
otherwise you need a new mac with a new mac os

Yes, Is part of things scaring me. Actually, the fan noise is the same of my previous 8800GT, and it's good now. The power consumption, is lower

I still didn't pushed the card to high levels, just assured myself working with certain games and apps.

you can to use the full versions of Mid-Ohio and Nordschleife, right? Could you before?

I would able to play them, but with frame rate issues. I now have a smoother race in both Mid-Ohio and Nordschleife... THX AMD!!!

[djpimley]

Donneymouse -
though my really honestly meant advice for you is to get a linux box, compile the kernel and try to bring it up with these graphics cards too.

Then Don can play all those great Linux FPS and racing games... oh, hang on.

[alphonse]

Then Don can play all those great Linux FPS and racing games... oh, hang on.

sure - using a mac emulator software. if he manages to bring the ethernet-adapter to work even in mp

[DonaemouS]

[img width=300 height=400]https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img687/6387/schermata20110331a13485.png[/img]

Doom 3 1.3.1
GeForce 8800GT UltraQuality 1600x1200 -> 110fps
Radeon HD 6870 UltraQuality 1920x1080 -> 130fps

Halo 1.4.1
GeForce 8800GT Pixel and Vertex Shader 1280x1024 -> 46,45fps
Radeon HD 6870 Pixel and Vertex Shader 1280x1024 -> 55,57fps

Code:

Running on...
 Device GeForce 8800 GT
 Quick Mode
 Host to Device Bandwidth for Pageable memory, direct access
 ...
 Transfer Size (Bytes)   Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432      4271.0
 Quick Mode
 Device to Host Bandwidth for Pageable memory, direct access
 ...
 Transfer Size (Bytes)   Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432      3973.5
 Quick Mode
 Device to Device Bandwidth
 ...
 Transfer Size (Bytes)   Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432      33807.9

Running on...
 Device ATI Radeon BA Prototype
 Quick Mode
 Host to Device Bandwidth for Pageable memory, direct access
 ...
 Transfer Size (Bytes)   Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432      2281.1
 Quick Mode
 Device to Host Bandwidth for Pageable memory, direct access
 ...
 Transfer Size (Bytes)   Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432      3104.5
 Quick Mode
 Device to Device Bandwidth
 ...
 Transfer Size (Bytes)   Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432      72167.8


[djpimley]

Nice.

[Kenners]

So.. Thanks to a generous tax refund, I'll be getting a new Mac Pro soon. Am I to understand from this thread that I could get a kickass PC ATI/AMD video card and it would work? Any issues, Don? If not, I'll just get the cheap base model card & upgrade a little later.

Cheers,

Kenners

[alphonse]

I am not a principle-inductor or anything thelike - i dont want to force things to be unchangable...

... but. For me i buy a mac as i want it - i use it and i dont have all the trouble with screw- and other drivers for things to work. Its like apple-style. i buy it - i use it.

If you want to tinker - just do it kenners. If you feel like being productive is cool and you dont want to mess around with any problems that might arise - just buy the mac you like - built to order.

i personally would fear the trouble and unless if have time for a new hobby would not screw-drive-around on a mac.

maybe its just me.

alf

[NoNameBrand]

Am I to understand from this thread that I could get a kickass PC ATI/AMD video card and it would work?

If it's running 10.6.7, I think. Am curious as well. There should be some topics on the MacRumors forums.

Edited to add after some reading:
Apparently you need to download some drivers if you aren't running 10.7.
Apparently some games and apps don't work, and won't work until the community does something with "QECI", whatever that is (Quartz Extreme).

[DonaemouS]

So.. Thanks to a generous tax refund, I'll be getting a new Mac Pro soon. Am I to understand from this thread that I could get a kickass PC ATI/AMD video card and it would work? Any issues, Don? If not, I'll just get the cheap base model card & upgrade a little later.

Actually there are issues with certain products, but just cause there are no real drivers yet. The issue you can get in a Mac Pro with an AMD Radeon 6xxx series is due to the ATIFramebuffer.kext, that is not able to handle the Quartz engine correctly. Otherwise, you can easily buy any Radeon 5770 or 5870 and they work properly. It's like the FERMI drivers are much more forward in development stage.

I'm going to add an nVidia GeForce GTX 550 in a my friend Mac Pro, and I will let you know how it will work. His Mac Pro has issue with the original GT120 and Apple wants 249,00 Euros to replace the card with the same model... with about 199,00 Euros he will get twice the power and connectivity!

Is supposed all the issues will be fixed once the new iMac will come out (they will sport ATI Radeon 6xxx desktop series) Or even in July with the MacOS X 10.7.

The idea of Apple is relaunch the Mac Pro market, today stuck and completely eat by the iMac Core i7...

[Kenners]

I am not a principle-inductor or anything thelike - i dont want to force things to be unchangable...

... but. For me i buy a mac as i want it - i use it and i dont have all the trouble with screw- and other drivers for things to work. Its like apple-style. i buy it - i use it.

If you want to tinker - just do it kenners. If you feel like being productive is cool and you dont want to mess around with any problems that might arise - just buy the mac you like - built to order.

i personally would fear the trouble and unless if have time for a new hobby would not screw-drive-around on a mac.

maybe its just me.

alf

Ahh... There's nothing quite so satisfying as putting in a faster CPU or video card and immediately seeing the benefits, and keeping that beloved Mac Pro on top of its game for a while longer.. I've always loved tinkering. My Mac Pro 1,1 has been through 3 video cards (the original X1900XT, a retail 3840 or something, and it's current 4870) and a CPU upgrade, from 2 dual core 2.66GHz "woodcrest" chips to 2 quad core 3.0GHz "clovertown" chips, as well as replacing a failed optical drive, and adding a Blu-Ray drive. Oh, and of course, from 1 160 gig hard drive to 4 drives. Never done a SSD, but soon - still too much $$ for me.

Cheers,

Kenners

[djpimley]

For me i buy a mac as i want it - i use it and i dont have all the trouble with screw- and other drivers for things to work.

Then you've never owned a Mac Pro or a Power Mac. These mighty beasts can keep doing great work for many years with a little extra RAM, bigger disks, and a new GPU. My second-hand Quicksilver is even now humming away happily for my parents - a few extra MB of RAM and a flashed Radeon 8500 is all it took to keep this 10-year-old Mac useful. My 3-year-old Mac Pro is on top of its game and with a new SSD will hopefully be faster than anything I can buy on the shelf today.

[NoNameBrand]

I keep watching for deals on X5355, X5365 (yeah, right) and the incredibly rare E5340 Xeons that can be overclocked to 3GHz with conductive ink (BSEL mod).

[DonaemouS]

My Mac Pro 1,1 has been through 3 video cards (the original X1900XT, a retail 3840 or something, and it's current 4870) and a CPU upgrade, from 2 dual core 2.66GHz "woodcrest" chips to 2 quad core 3.0GHz "clovertown" chips

My second-hand Quicksilver is even now humming away happily for my parents - a few extra MB of RAM and a flashed Radeon 8500 is all it took to keep this 10-year-old Mac useful.

I keep watching for deals on X5355, X5365 (yeah, right) and the incredibly rare E5340 Xeons that can be overclocked to 3GHz with conductive ink (BSEL mod).

+1

finally I found some friends in my passion... Hey my name is DonaemouS, do you want to play with me?

btw, DVI GAAAAAAAAALORE!!!



The GIGABYTE GeForce GTX550 1GB is here!!! But doesn't work (yet)... Had no time to check if I did all correct...

[Tomte]

Do you place 10 screens around your desk or do you even have one on the loo? In that case, does your remote control work from there to stop the porn entertainment show when you're done?

[djpimley]

Tomte rudeness

Loool

[Tomte]

That's not rude, that is banter between friends. And the truth.

[djpimley]

That's not rude, that is banter between friends. And the truth.

Easy, tiger. I meant rudeness in the best sense of the word.

[Tomte]

Easy, tiger. I meant rudeness in the best sense of the word.

I'm easy... It's not that easy to offend me.

[DonaemouS]

we flashed the Radeon HD6870 and finally is working completely on my Mac Pro, even with Steam games, DVD players, and all.



I almost doubled the performance in every games, like Left4Dead 2, Bioshock, StarCraft 2. It's just insane how fast is this videocard!

[djpimley]

Mm, tasty.

Here's a question: who knew about this Mac Pro RAM configuration voodoo?

There is a small speed benefit to using 4 matching modules, organized in corresponding banks - for example, a 1 Gb module each in A1 A2 B1 B2 - this enables 256-bit access across the 4 modules. However, do not buy smaller RAM modules solely to preserve 256 bit access. There is a speed penalty (longer latency) to using slots 3 and 4 of the risers, so your largest RAM modules should be concentrated on slots 1 and 2 of each Riser.

And an interesting though somewhat outdated diagram:

[djpimley]

And, as ever, a little further investigation invalidates other people's "facts."

Anandtech explained it nicely. Each FBDIMM has an onboard controller that receives the IO instructions from the CPU. If the instruction is for the first FBDIMM in the chain then it executes, otherwise it passes it to the second FBDIMM, and so on. This means the FBDIMM at the end of the chain has to wait longer to receive the message = higher latency. So your most badass memory should be in slots 1/2 BUT ONLY IF slots 3/4 are also filled. There is no magic voodoo associated with slots 1/2.

Also there is no such thing as 256-Bit access to FBDIMMS, but the 5000 series CPU has four independent memory channels, so if you have four FBDIMMS in your Mac Pro then you are getting the highest possible bandwidth from CPU > RAM because the CPU will dedicate one channel to each FBDIMM.

Thus endeth the lesson.

[DonaemouS]

yes, is always true. But pure performance test, showed in past that there is no benefits at all. Also, the four independent memory channels should be shared with 4 differents Risers. We just have 2, with 2 independent memory channels.

I don't remember each Riser has 2 memory channels.

[djpimley]

I saw mention of some terrible latency penalty for the 4th FBDIMM in line, as much as 7 nanoseconds!

[20FingerS]

I don't think the language gap can be an excuse to not understand everything you say...

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