Upgrading from 9800 GT to 640 GT or 660 GTX?

[ggeorge]

Whoa Whoa. . . . did I miss something? I thought that a single GTX 6X0 card can only support a maximum of 2 monitors in OSX? Man, this support would be clutch if this support finally came to OSX with nVidia cards.

Yes you missed something.

nVidia released drivers roughly 3wk ago that enable support for all 4 ports on the cards (assuming it has 4 ports of course). You need to be running 10.8.2 to install them though, which will probably require you to delete the oemsmbios.kext from within the fakesmc.kext (right click select show package contents).

It's version 3.04. something on their website.

 

[MechSoup]

yes you missed something.

Nvidia released drivers roughly 3wk ago that enable support for all 4 ports on the cards (assuming it has 4 ports of course). You need to be running 10.8.2 to install them though, which will probably require you to delete the oemsmbios.kext from within the fakesmc.kext (right click select show package contents).

It's version 3.04. Something on their website.

​Legit.

 

[ggeorge]

​Legit.

Does anyone here speak Jive?

 

[mhbalough123]

I agree with Turnipio. I also have an NVidia 9800GT (1GB RAM) - Zotac, and cannot say enough great things about this card. I do After Effects work, as well as editing in Final Cut Pro, and I still don't think there is a better card for the money. I know that will be disagreeable to some fellow hackintoshers, but this card is really excellent. I'm running it on my hackintosh P55M with Mountain Lion. I would advise you keep your card and try again to upgrade your system. I know it's kind of a pain, but it will be worth it. I also cannot remember how I got the card working since I built several hackintoshes in the meantime with different cards, but I seem to remember changing the boot flag Graphics Enabler. That was it. Good luck. Keep the 9800 GT. The 256 bit factor with this card - any video card, is a HUGE factor in performance.

 

[thomase]

well thanks to Gigabyte and their 20% refund, I changed my plans.

I have a Z77-DS3H motherboard and a core i5 already here and now I'm waiting for my crucuial m4 SSD which I have just ordered.
I will upgrade the system with these and eventually replace the 9800 GT with a beefier card. The processor, RAM and the 9800 GT will then go into my wife's PC which is currently running on an ep35 mobo, Pentium and an 8400 GPU.
I am a VJ and I really need good graphics - so upgrading will happen at some point.
mhbalough123, do you also use MOTION? That's my main soft and I have managed to crash it on a regular basis with some particles stuff that I was doing.

 

[mhbalough123]

Yes, I also run Motion on my hackintosh with my 9800GT and it has not crashed on me. I use After Effects CS6 more, but on occasion I'll use Motion as well. With both those applications, the card performs very well, even working with the particle emitter in Motion. I think perhaps because my card has 1GB ram vs 512mb - that may be making a difference in my case. I also forgot to mention how surprisingly quiet this card is as well. I know a lot of people don't care about a video cards noise levels, but this 9800GT is incrediably quiet - and that was an important factor to me.

Over the next year or two as I edit and create motion graphics into the 4K relm, I'll move on to another video card, but again, for me right now (working in 1080p), this 9800GT 1GB card is by far the best bang for the buck. The next time I see a card that's quiet, not huge in size, is greater than 256 bit, has 2+GB, and costs $150 or less -- I'll buy it. But I know that won't happen until around 2015 or so.

 

[thomase]

Thanks for your reply. As I said, I'm a vj and sometimes I do dual screen installations, that means some of my clips are 2048x768 or even bigger. I also have the 1 GB model, but still 20 sec. clips sometimes take hours to render... That's why I want to upgrade. Step one will now be to get this system running with the old 9800 and as soon as I can afford it, I'll get a new card with 2 GB and more outputs. The 9800 will still be of good use in another system.

After some reading, I have some more questions though:

- is the 670 worth the extra cash?
- do the 3 GB 660 ti cards work now out of the box and if so - are they much better than the 660?
Which one would you guys recommend?

 

[ggeorge]

- is the 670 worth the extra cash?

Vs what? A 660ti, the 9800?

There's no question it's a dramatically more powerful card for gaming than a 9800.

VS the 660ti, it's foggier. The 660ti is probably more bang for your buck as long as you are not working at resolutions greater than 1080p (aka 1920x1080). Higher than that and the narrower memory bus starts to hurt.

- do the 3 GB 660 ti cards work now out of the box and if so - are they much better than the 660?

More ram than stock on a graphics card is basically a scam to get you to pay more money for the graphics card. If you've been happy with a 9800, then 3gb of ram on the card vs 2 is NOT going to make a difference.

Which one would you guys recommend?

Unless you will be working at resolutions > 1080P (2560x1440 or higher) the 660ti should be plenty. Don't waste your money on a 3gb ram version though. If you were doing something that needed the extra ram, you would need a more powerful card.

 

[thomase]

Well, as I said, I am doing animations - I'm not gaming AT ALL. But the animations I create sometimes go to 2048x768. My main software is Motion, VDMX and hopefully soon After Effects.
Apart from rendering, live playback situations require playback of two or three videoclips at that resolution. That's why I also bought an SSD - I hope that'll help.

When I asked whether it was worth the extra cash, I was referring to the 660 ti. It is 100 € more after all - I just wonder whether it's really worth it. I was happy with the 9800 to a certain point - but the other machine I'm using is a '07 MBP with only 256 MB VRAM - so pretty much every new GPU outperforms that one. I really want to lower render times but I don't want to spend a fortune on that machine either. SSD, new mobo and processor were kept at the reasonable price, but the new GPU should be something that performs well but doesn't cost me an arm and a leg. So that probably means 660 ti.
Any brand that's particularly recommendable? I've checked the ones from the customac page - there are some price differences but that's the only difference I can see?

 

[thomase]

I ended up buying a gigabyte model - the overclocked one.
I just transplanted the 9800 into my wife's PC, now I can finally assemble the hackintosh. Will report back.