How do I know if a graphics card is hackintosh compatible?

Everything is in the title


I was thinking this GTX 980 looks pretty cool, (cheaper than the gigabyte wind force or reference asus one i found):

[AMAZON-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gainward-GeForce-Phantom-graphics-card/dp/B00O9EUX0A/[/AMAZON-uk]

There's only a few differences between graphic card brand from a compatibility point of vue. It mays happen that not all video ports are usable simultaneously (for multiscreen purpose) and as a general issue that DP/HDMI audio doesn't work.

But what is really important is which chip powers the card. Here it's a Nvidia GTX 980 which happens to work under Mac OSX Yosemite. However the Maxwell generation (GTX 750Ti, GTX 9xx) are not natively supported by OSX as it doesn't ship with appropriate drivers.

Thus you need to install the drivers provided by Nvidia (called Nvidia Web Drivers). Be aware that NV drivers are released for specific version of OSX (for example 343.02.02.f01 only supports 10.10.2).

Related tonymacx86 topics for each version of OSX (please note that linked drivers are the minimum required version of each OSX version, please also note that the one linked for 10.10.1 checks from system definition, read the topic)
- 10.10.0: http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/...1-01-maxwell-geforce-gtx-970-980-support.html
- 10.10.1: http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/...ate-graphics-drivers-10-10-1-343-01-02-a.html
- 10.10.2: http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/...ate-graphics-drivers-10-10-2-343-02-02-a.html

Be ware that these drivers should be considered experimental.

so your saying it only depends on the chip and driver, nothing else, so not like the company or something else

Based on my experience and from what I've read, that's my understanding.

Looking at this post: http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-advice/141637-gtx-970-gtx-980-here-23.html#post949398 it seems that the Phantom works well.

what about clock speed

It doesn't matter. I had different factory overclocked card and never had problem.

then whats the difference between these 3:

[AMAZON-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gainward-GeForce-Phantom-graphics-card/dp/B00O9EUX0A/[/AMAZON-uk]

[AMAZON-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nvidia-GeForce-Graphics-GDDR5-Express/dp/B00NFGWL1C/[/AMAZON-uk]

[AMAZON-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-NVIDIA-1228MHz-Express-Graphics/dp/B00NZRCHJM/[/AMAZON-uk]

Are we still talking about compatibility?... All three card are based on NVIDIA 980 chip, then each brand chooses which cooler, factory OC, PCB design, connectivity they gonna use. If game/cooling performance are different for each model, it doesn't affect the compatibility with Mac OSX.

The graphics cards in the tonymacx86 Buyser's Guide, Graphics Card section, closely match the port configuration of the nVidia Reference Card design. Apple, typically, only supports the Reference Card when it writes it's drivers. So, to be surer of achieving success, pick a card that "looks like" the nVidia GTX 980 Reference card.

Oh I didn't know that. Fortunately my GTX 960 match the reference card port configuration. However we don't know when Apple will support Maxwell generation... As it's going it might never happen: iMac 5k + Mac Pro with AMD GPU, IGP for most of laptop, PowerVR for iDevices...