Mac Pro 2011 with Davinci Resolve

The configurations manual says 2010 or 2012, but I have a 2011, so how does this effect me. What do I need to do in order to get my ATI Radeon HD 5870 to work with the Quadro 4000?

Get a Nvidia Card Upgrade See BMD List under Davinci FAQ

[Dwaine Maggart]

Mac Pro models 3,1 and 4,1 and 5,1 are supported.

You don't need anything to make your ATI 5870 work. What you need to make the Quadro 4000 work depends on what version of OS X you are using. If you are using Mountain Lion, it should all just work.

Are you having some specific issue currently?

I am running mountain lion. Here is what the configuration manual says:

Slots 1 and 2 in the Mac Pro are most suitable for
graphics cards as they provide maximum bandwidth
and run the cards at full speed. Slot 1 is doublewidth and slot 2 is single-width. Some graphics
cards only need a single-width PCIe slot whereas
others require a double-width slot.
The Mac Pro provides two auxiliary PCIe power
connections. The number of power connections
required by a graphics card might be 2, 1 or none.
When choosing GUI and GPU cards for your Mac
Pro, ensure the total number of auxiliary PCIe power
connections is no more than 2, and that no more
than 1 of these cards requires a double-width slot

Are the ATI 5870 and the Quadro 4000 both double-width cards? Aren't there more than two auxiliary PCIe power connections? If so, what do I need to buy in order to make these cards run together?

[Dwaine Maggart]

I should have said "Aside from power, you don't need anything to make the HD5870 work".

You are correct that the HD5870 requires 2 Aux power connections, and the Quadro 4000 requires 1 Aux power connection, leaving you 1 Aux power connection short. Which is why we specify using an HD5770 and Quadro 4000 card, and NOT an HD5870 and a Quadro 4000 card. the HD5770 card only requires 1 Aux power connection, leaving one for the Quadro 4000 card.

There are various ways you could deal with this. You could use the recommended HD5770 card. If you are not using all the hard drive locations, you could use a SATA to Aux power adapter cable. You might even be able to use an Aux power splitter cable, though this is probably not a recommended thing to do, and might exceed the power capabilities of the motherboard Aux power connector it's plugged into.

The HD5870 (and HD5770) are dual width cards that must go in slot 1. The Quadro 4000 is a single width card that can go in slot 2.

Mountain Lion has native driver support for the Quadro 4000 card, so no issues with that.

From all the forums I read, it seems that the HD5770 with the Quadro 4000 is a great combo. However my Mac shipped with an HD5780. I feel that it would be a waist to get rid of the HD5780 to buy an HD5770, but I don't know what else to do... is this my best option? If you know of what would make the HD5780 work with the Quadro 4000, can you send me a link to what I would need to purchase? If I did get them to work together would it be faster than the HD5770/Quadro4000 combo? I cannot find help on this anywhere. Thanks for your help!

[Dwaine Maggart]

The HD5870/4000 combo is not likely to perform any better under Resolve than the HD5770/4000 combo.

For Resolve use, you would be better off replacing the HD5870 card with a GTX570 card, IF you are using an OSX version that can support it. Mountain Lion will support the GTX570 with no changes. If you use a stock PC version of this card, you will not have the Mac boot screen. This is normally not a big deal, but if you needed to boot into the repair partition, you could not.

If you need (or ever needed) the Mac boot screen, you could keep a Mac graphics card to stick in as needed.

Or you could buy an EFI BIOS modified GTX570 card from MacVidCards that would give you the normal Mac boot screen capability. Also, using a normal PC GTX570 will prevent the Mac System Profile PCI Cards display from working properly, which the MacVidCards EFI modded GTX570 will also solve.

Or, you could buy a Mac GT120 card, which will fit in slot 2, and requires no additional power connection. This would perform a bit better than just the GTX570 card alone, and give you the Mac boot screen.

Again, this would be for a Resolve only system. If you plan to run other apps on your system, like an NLE app, it's possible that the HD5870/4000 combo might be better for that. But that is out of my area of experience, and I can't comment specifically on those areas.