My modest build + Santa's EVGA GeForce GTX 980: overkill or deal breaker?

[batpigandme]

Hi,


Having been bitten by the computer building/modifying bug after building a couple of machines for/with friends, and successfully revamping my old, old MBP (different from the one below) into a great Linux laptop, I decided building a hackintosh would be fun.


In all honesty, my current MBP (below) suits my needs quite well.
Specs:
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
Processor 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Startup Disk 840EVO SSD 500 gig
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB


Current MBP use: Adobe CS6 to polish graphics up, but mainly I'm dealing with lots of data ETL, retrieval, processing, visualizations etc (R is my best friend at work), and usually have a solid 20 tabs open in chrome, Firefox etc to try answer my boss'/everyone's questions on conference calls about any number of things.


Hackintosh needs:
I'd like to be able to do most of what I do now on my Hackintosh build (mainly because I'd like to leave my laptop at the office more often), but this is pretty much for fun.


My plan had been to do something between the CustoMac Mini and the CustoMac Mini Deluxe (definely the i7, but otherwise, depending on what goes on sale).


My question(s):
I received an EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB GDDR5 for Christmas from my mom. I'm pretty sure this is serious overkill for my graphics card needs-- right?!?


If I did decide to keep it, just how much would I have to ramp up the rest of my build to even accommodate it, let alone make good use of it?


Thanks for any advice/help, and, of course Happy Christmas!

 

[Going Bald]

My question(s):
I received an EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB GDDR5 for Christmas from my mom. I'm pretty sure this is serious overkill for my graphics card needs-- right?!?


If I did decide to keep it, just how much would I have to ramp up the rest of my build to even accommodate it, let alone make good use of it?


Thanks for any advice/help, and, of course Happy Christmas!

It is definitely overkill for your described usage now, but who knows, maybe you update the CS6 and want to do some intensive editing in the future.
You can use it with any build in the Buyer's Guide with the proviso that Apple does not support it natively in OS X. You will either have to install with CPU graphics or a supported GPU, download the drivers and install them and add nvda_drv=1 to your org.chameleon.boot.plist before you shut down and install the 980. Then on boot-up, if you used CPU graphics to install, suggest you boot to BIOS and change First Init Display to PCIe instead of iGFX.

 

[batpigandme]

It is definitely overkill for your described usage now, but who knows, maybe you update the CS6 and want to do some intensive editing in the future.
You can use it with any build in the Buyer's Guide with the proviso that Apple does not support it natively in OS X. You will either have to install with CPU graphics or a supported GPU, download the drivers and install them and add nada_drv-1 to your org.chameleon.boot.plist before you shut down and install the 980. Then on boot-up, if you used CPU graphics to install, suggest you boot to BIOS and change First Init Display to PCIe instead of iGFX.

Thanks very much for your reply and install details. If I do decide to keep the GPU, I'll definitely have to step up my CS6 usage just to give the thing a decent workout!


Again, many thanks for your help.

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks very much for your reply and install details. If I do decide to keep the GPU, I'll definitely have to step up my CS6 usage just to give the thing a decent workout!


Again, many thanks for your help.

No problem. I see the stupid spell-checker has had its way again. make the boot be

nvda_drv=1