Upgrading a Mac Pro 5,1

Quixotry

Hi everyone,

I am upgrading/building a Mac Pro 5,1 (12-core) and wondered what the best graphics card would be for fast Iray rendering. Right now I’m looking at this card because I know it works with Mac Pro 5,1:

Sapphire HD 7950: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sapphire/100352MAC2/

Is anyone here using this card for 3D work?

 

This has also been recommended to me by a friend's friend, who bought it mostly to use with Final Cut Pro X on his Mac Pro 5,1:

Quadro FX 4800: http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_fx_4800_for_mac_us.html

 

I’m afraid I’m about as technical as clam when it comes to graphics cards. Does anyone know what the best/most powerful cards are that would work in my machine? For example, how can I tell if the GeForce GTX 1080 would work or not? Any suggestions? My machine’s memory and storage will be maxed out during this upgrade as well, so I’m stuck being bewildered about how to pick the right graphics card now. 

I found this setup already built and available online. Thought I might copy it. It’s supposed to be a pretty hefty workhorse (hence my question about the Sapphire 7950 card):

System Configuration:

• Memory:
  • 32GB (4 x 8GB) PC10600 1333MHz DDR3
• Storage:
  • 3.0TB Toshiba 7200RPM HDD
  • 480GB OWC Mercury Accelsior_E2 PCIe SSD
• Video:
  • SAPPHIRE HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics processor
  • Two Mini DisplayPort ports
  • One HDMI port
  • One dual-link DVI port

Tottallou

I don't know anything about Mac Machines but I know that the Sapphire card mentioned is not Nvidia so Iray will not use it and you will be CPU rendering (slow)

The other card  Quadro FX 4800 appears to only have 1.5 memory so scenes will not fit into the cards memory & you will be back to CPU rendering :(

I have a 1080 and its a good card with 8GB Memory but I use Windows so have no idea if it would work on your Mac - hopefully someone else can give the answer 

Quixotry

Thanks Tottallou, that gives me something to think about. So, I guess I've been misunderstanding the way Iray works. I was under the impression that one did not absolutely need a Nvidia card to use GPU rendering in Iray. 

 

Looking at this, I see that there are options for Mac. Is anyone using these cards with a Mac Pro?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-desktop-gpus.html