Hey Thi,
This looks like a LOT of work but if you can decipher this Thi, then let us know if this possible and maybe you can reach out to this guy and compare notes... Again, I always like to network with others...
You're probably right with SL issue and I just decided to purchase the EVGA GTX 480 Superclocked GPU. I got it off of eBay for $254.00 total (includes the shipping). I'm also going to water cool it and OC it to get more out of it. No big deal. I think all I need to do to OC the 480 (which I should be able to do in Windows 7 using their EVGA OC Scanner) then go back to my Mac OS X and use OC'd card. If there is a way to do it on Mac Nvidia drivers then I will do that instead as I really don't want to go between Windows 7 and Mac OS X. If for nothing else at least it's the Superclocked version. But I just watched this video:
and this thing can be OC'd pretty high and still run cool. the Koolance Water Block is just fine... I'll still get great performance out of this card and and will do better than the stock (or even the Superclocked) GTX 580. We'll see the results after I install this. Thanks for the help...
Regardless it's far better than the 6870 for the apps that I use, because the 6870 wouldn't be able to work with my apps on anything except the use of the monitor (and games - and I don't play video games).
Too busy trying to find the best GPU to work on my Mac Hak Pro - LOL !!! Ok, not funny...
Well, it was funny to me...
Thanks for all your input and now I'm just going to wait until I get everything...