NVIDIA Releases Alternate Graphics Drivers for 10.9.5 (334.01.03f01)
EVGA GTX 780Ti Classified 3GB user results:
I did a new install of 10.9.5 on a Z77X-UD5H w/ i7-3770K using integrated graphics. After a no-DSDT simple config with MultiBeast I was able to start up using integrated graphics with no problem. (Same results with same components except using Z77X-UP5-TH mobo, but used Thunderbolt out to DP in on my monitor for 2560 x 1440 display). Both builds have been running pretty solid for 2 days w/ no issues other than sleep, which likely has to do with a firewire board which has caused issues in some mobos but worked perfectly in others- Sonnet Tango 3.0 PCIe combo firewire/USB 3.0, no drivers necessary. Also using a Sonnet Presto Gigabit Pro PCIe (the GE1000LAB-E version which uses a Broadcom chip, not the GE1000LA-E which uses a Marvell chip).
After spending many hours trying to determine what I needed with 10.9.5 to get my 780Ti Classified working, most of what I found were Classified or 780Ti user posts that were trying to get it to work with earlier versions of Mavericks, pre- 10.9.5. I decided to just stick the Classified in the Z77X-UD5H and see if anything worked on it with the OS X stock drivers... to my surprise, the Display port, the HDMI port and both DVI ports are all fully functional, I did not disable the integrated graphics before testing the Classified, I've run Maps and haven't encountered any issues. HDMI audio does not work natively (I didn't expect it would) so I still have some work to do on that, and I need to do the fixes so discrete audio is coming out of the correct connectors. Internal gigabit ifaces are disabled, the Sonnet card works flawlessly with Apple native kexts. I have not installed any of the security updates yet, so my 10.9.5 is still build 13F34, and so if I install web drivers at this point it looks like they should be 334.01.03f01, or if I do the security updates the build should become 13F1066 and the drivers should be 334.01.03f02.
I installed my second Classified in the Z77X-UP5-TH and have the same functionality with it.
After running benchmarks on both systems in both Windows and OS X 10.9.5, I've found that performance is significantly better in Windows than with 10.9.5. The Classified is reported in OS X as Chipset Model:Ashley, Vendor:NVIDIA (0x100a), Device ID:0x100a1, Rev ID 0x00a1; Quartz, OpenCL and OpenGL all loaded. I have not loaded CUDA yet.
Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate:
[Heaven 4.0: 67 FPS, Score 1696] [Tropics 1.3: FPS 85.4, Score 2152] [Valley 1.0: FPS 46.2, Score 1935]
Mac OS X 10.9.5:
[Heaven 4.0: 57.4 FPS, Score 1446] [Tropics- not ported to Mac OS X] [Valley 1.0: FPS 39.9, Score 1671]
***EDIT- for more accurate comparison, see results at end of this post***
All benchmarks run at 2560 x 1440 fullscreen, 8xAA, trilinear, 16x Anisotropy. Quality was preset to highest at beginning of benchmarks but Mac OS X Heaven quality downgraded to Medium and Mac OS X Valley downgraded to High (from Ultra)
Windows benchmarks were rendered with Direct 3D 11, Mac OS X were rendered with Open GL. I'll be re-running Windows benchmarks with Open GL for a more accurate comparison, I ran the Windows benchmarks first without thinking about the lack of Direct 3D in Mac OS X.
Ran same benchmarks with new EVGA Titan X SuperClocked 16M under Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate:
[Heaven 4.0: 88.3 FPS, Score 2224] [Tropics 1.3: FPS 109.6, Score 2760] [Valley 1.0: FPS 58.1, Score 2429]
***EDIT
Some of the differences between the 780 Ti Classified in the above benchmarks are due to Direct 3D 11 vs Mac Open GL, and after re-running the benchmarks using OpenGL for both the Windows and Mac OS, so the driver for Mac OS X is much less likely a secondary issue due to the card being reported as 'Ashley' instead of it's correct model number. I'll re-run the tests again once it's running under the correct drivers and recognized correctly as a 780Ti , perhaps that will only require having the Nvidia Web drivers installed. Right now, I think it's promising that it works on a fresh install of 10.9.5 without doing anything, and that it displays throughout the whole boot process right to the final desktop display, and that power and memory clock speeds are ramping up and down based on the graphics workload.
Also, the Titan X SC driver is NVidia's first (Windows) driver for this model and generally driver performance improves significantly in later versions after it's been better optimized.
I hope this saves others still using Mavericks some time, and if anyone wants to chime in with any words of wisdom or thoughts on how I should proceed, you're help will be greatly appreciated.
jwk
EDITED:
After re-running the benchmarks using OpenGL for both Windows and Mac OS X 10.9.5 as the renderer, the differences between the two systems shrunk considerably:
Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate:
[Heaven 4.0: 46.6 FPS, Score 1174] [Tropics 1.3: FPS 71.6, Score 1879] [Valley 1.0: FPS 41.2, Score 1725]
Mac OS X 10.9.5:
[Heaven 4.0: 57.4 FPS, Score 1446] [Tropics- not ported to Mac OS X] [Valley 1.0: FPS 39.9, Score 1671]
@ toleda: thanks for the rapid response, have to finish doing some other work and then I will get the information you need to help me get the 780Ti recognized properly.