Graphics Card recommendations CustoMac Pro

im building a custom Mac Pro im excited about it

So far ive purchased

Gigabyte Z97x UD3H -BK
NXZT s340
Corsair H60 Water cooler
Tpi Wireless card
I need a recommendation for a video card im not a gamer but want the flexability someone said use the onboard card will that work out of the box and support two monitors? Thanks for the help.

What are you using your CustoMac Pro for ? This might help us give you better advice

some card manufacturers make different sized cards which fit different case situations, cards have different cooling solutions, and some are pre-configured to be overclocked out of box. And of course, some cards have different port configurations. Prices vary based on what you want. Of course only you can determine that. I have a huge full tower case and I had no budget so it was easy for me to go with a dual 980ti configuration for my 4K gaming rig. (I run windows as equally as I do mac).
I have a 4 year old Sapphire Radeon with dual DVI and 1GB GDDR5 and if you don't game a lot even that old "clunker" would do you well. (averages 50 bucks on eBay). I'd sell you mine in a heartbeat if it were so easy

Graphics card benchmarks

Observed Cinebench scores ( Higher is better ).

Nvidia Geforce GTX 980...................................( OpenGL 149fps ) ( CPU 824cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan.................................( OpenGL 126fps ) ( CPU 811cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX 780...................................( OpenGL 122fps ) ( CPU 802cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX 970...................................( OpenGL 114fps ) ( CPU 573cb )
AMD Radeon R9 290x......................................( OpenGL 112fps ) ( CPU 812cb )
iMac 2014 5K AMD Radeon R9 M295x................( OpenGL 105fps ) ( CPU 781cb )
AMD Radeon R9 280........................................( OpenGL 94fps ) ( CPU 560cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX 650ti……….........................…( OpenGL 89fps ) (CPU 1056cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX 750ti..................................( OpenGL 85fps ) ( CPU 637cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX 760....................................( OpenGL 82fps ) ( CPU 581cb )
Nvidia Geforce GT 740......................................( OpenGL 79fps ) ( CPU 206cb )
AMD Radeon R9 270.........................................( OpenGL 78fps ) ( CPU 240cb )
Nvidia Geforce GTX 960....................................( OpenGL 73fps ) ( CPU 914cb )
Mac Pro 2014 Dual AMD FirePro D300 ................( OpenGL 73fps ) ( CPU 736cb )
AMD Radeon R7 260x….................................……( OpenGL 73fps ) ( CPU 337cb )
DELL XPS 8700 , Nvidia Geforce GTX 745.............( OpenGL 72fps ) ( CPU 463cb )
Mac mini 2014 Intel HD 5000 graphics.................( OpenGL 23fps ) ( CPU 228cb )
Lenovo TS140 , Intel Haswell HD 4600 graphics....( OpenGL 22fps ) ( CPU 213cb )
Nvidia Geforce GT 610 ( Lenovo Hackintosh )........( OpenGL 16fps ) ( CPU 338cb )



Nvidia Geforce GT 610 Graphics card benchmarks out twice better/higher than Intel HD 4000 graphics and better than an Intel i5 graphics. I just used the 610 because it was inexpensive and it has all the ports ( VGA, DVI, HDMI ). Plug and play for OS-X and MS-Windows. The AMD R9 280 appears to be the best value budget video card judging by it's performance specs. However I was able to create and render this video just fine with the Nvidia Geforce GT 610 and can run dual monitors just fine at 1080p. Movie play back in Blu-ray or standard DVD works fine.

Thanks for this nice summary. I think I will got for the X290

apfelwurm said:

Thanks for this nice summary. I think I will got for the X290

Click to expand...

Be careful, the 290X is NOT well supported. I'd check very, very carefully that you know what you are doing before you buy a 290X. Check the forums here and see what issues people have had and whether they have resolved them. They have been a LOT of issues getting the 290X to be recognised and working.

Your previous comment says you want an out the box card, the 290X is NOT that. The best out the box AMD card for FCPX (I have chosen those very words very carefully) is the 280X. If you want more power than a single 280X for FCP X buy two of them.

You describe yourself as a newbie, the 290X needs careful work to get it up and running.

Your choice but I wouldn't (and didn't) buy a 290X for FXP X. I went with dual 280X cards.

Rob

rwillett said:

Be careful, the 290X is NOT well supported. I'd check very, very carefully that you know what you are doing before you buy a 290X. Check the forums here and see what issues people have had and whether they have resolved them. They have been a LOT of issues getting the 290X to be recognised and working.

Your previous comment says you want an out the box card, the 290X is NOT that. The best out the box AMD card for FCPX (I have chosen those very words very carefully) is the 280X. If you want more power than a single 280X for FCP X buy two of them.

You describe yourself as a newbie, the 290X needs careful work to get it up and running.

Your choice but I wouldn't (and didn't) buy a 290X for FXP X. I went with dual 280X cards.

Rob

Click to expand...

Hey Rob,

I am considering getting a new video card (or 2). I am a heavy FCPX, AE and 3D graphics user. Can you provide a link to what cards you have in your setup. How easy would it be to install two of them on Yosemite and would they be OOTB supported?

Thanks.

geminii said:

Hey Rob,

I am considering getting a new video card (or 2). I am a heavy FCPX, AE and 3D graphics user. Can you provide a link to what cards you have in your setup. How easy would it be to install two of them on Yosemite and would they be OOTB supported?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I have the Sapphire Vapor X R9-280X. The SKU is 11221-12-20G. This is a UK model though I believe it has been superseded now. There are different versions with different output ports. Mine has two DVI, Displayport and HDMI. I only use DVI though.

I have two of them and they are easy to install with Yosemite and Clover. You need to do the EFI mod to make the system bootable but thats 15mins of work, the rest is standard Clover. no special kexts, no special boot instructions.

I installed Clover with -maxmem=8192 and -v and that was for installation. Yosemite recognises them as native cards so nothing extra is needed apart from the EFI mod. (search for it on the forum).

I have two that are connected together through SLI, OS X doesn't recognise them but Battlefield 4 does

Apart from that they just work.

Rob

rwillett said:

I have the Sapphire Vapor X R9-280X. The SKU is 11221-12-20G. This is a UK model though I believe it has been superseded now. There are different versions with different output ports. Mine has two DVI, Displayport and HDMI. I only use DVI though.

I have two of them and they are easy to install with Yosemite and Clover. You need to do the EFI mod to make the system bootable but thats 15mins of work, the rest is standard Clover. no special kexts, no special boot instructions.

I installed Clover with -maxmem=8192 and -v and that was for installation. Yosemite recognises them as native cards so nothing extra is needed apart from the EFI mod. (search for it on the forum).

I have two that are connected together through SLI, OS X doesn't recognise them but Battlefield 4 does

Apart from that they just work.

Rob

Click to expand...

I had quite a bit of trouble getting Yosemite installed with Clover on my box. I was able to get it to work with Unibeast though. But currently not using EFI mode.

You said OSx doesn't recognize the cards through SLI, but does FCPX take advantage of the dual setup? That is the primary issue for me. I want to modify my system to be as close to a Mac Pro as possible and be able to edit and monitor 4K. We might start shooting with Black Magic Ursa soon.

Thanks.