I have been looking into solutions to have two external monitors hooked up to my mbpro and found these two. Both get the job done, but with a huge difference in price. I was wondering if anyone has experience using both? The matrox seems better, but I think the eVGA will do well enough for what I will be using it for (light photoshopping).
View 12 RepliesFinally got around to testing out the differences in compression performance between my Matrox CompressHD PCI-e card and QMaster using 4 CPU cores.
Test was done using Compressor 3.51 on a MOV sequence captured at 1080i 60 (HDV) (Field upper) -- nothing was done to the sequence that is 1 min 2 secs long 206.4MB file size (not even de-interlaced).
Matrox CompressHD card software is 1.8.1 (firmware updated).
My goal was to get the 1920 x 1080 (actually 1440 x 1080) footage close to Apple TV 1280 x 720 progressive format (m4v).
The Results:
1. H.264 for Apple Devices 1280 x 720 (16:9 960 x 720) 5Mbps, progressive 44.1kHz Stereo (Medium quality 50) single pass without Qmaster:
CPU Usage - User 68-71% - System 5-7%
Time = 1 min 49 sec -- file size 39.9 MB
2. H.264 for Apple Devices 1280 x 720 (16:9 960 x 720) 5Mbps, progressive 44.1kHz Stereo (Medium quality 50) single pass with Qmaster 4 cores:
CPU Usage - User 87% - System 7%
Time = 2 min 01 sec -- file size 39.9 MB
3. H.264 (mov) Custom 1280 x 720 5Mpbs, progressive 29.97 fps - 44.1kHz Stereo High Quality Multi-pass using 4 cores Qmaster:
CPU Usage - User 88% - System 6%
Time = 4 min 02 sec -- file size 38.7 MB
4. Matrox MAX H.264 (mov) Custom 1280 x 720 5Mpbs, progressive 29.97 fps - 44.1kHz Stereo:
CPU Usage - User 28-30% - System 8%
Time = 1 min 06 sec -- file size 39.7 MB
What I find interesting is that the Apple TV quality was actually pretty good, the color was a little less vibrant that results from #3 and #4. What is really strange is that QMaster with 4 cores was actually slower than a without QMaster?? This leads me to believe the .m4v codec is able to detect and use more than 1 core regardless of QMaster -- in fact, adding QMaster just takes a little away from the efficiency of the .m4v codec.
It was nice to see the Matrox CompressHD only using 28-30%, allowing my system to be very responsive to doing other tasks.
Just a small sample of H.264 results, but with the type of work I do I get anywhere from about 2X to 4X faster compression times using the Matrox CompressHD.
This is probably old news for most of you, but it's new life for my aging 2007 MacPro
Has anyone tried this with the Dual Head DVI? I'm assuming that it would go MiniDisplayPort to VGA, then Matrox, and out. Does it work, and is there any lag?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI bought a 24" iMac to replace my 18 month old Macbook Pro. It's nice and everything but it doesn't want to cooperate with my Matrox DualHead2Go and I'm wondering if anyone might know why. When I had it attached to the DVI port of the MBP I was able to use the MBP display and two external monitors, each set to 1680x1050. When I attach it to the iMac, it works but the best it will do is less...like each set to 1280x960 or so. Is the video card in the MBP really more capable or is it because the iMac has a much larger screen or is it something else I'm missing?
View 17 Replies View Relatedven an everyday user may consider such a card if the price is within budget which currently isn't. It isn't targeted at gamers who need every ounce of performance though.
It appears to be geared towards Apple since it debuted with onboard DisplayPorts. However, it should be noted on their specs page that the system requirements currently do not list any version of Mac OSes. Matrox do list Linux support though. Do note that they didn't leave out regular DVI users. Direct Link for more details on the specs.
anyone using this mobo with SL or planning to?
2 Xeon E5620
EVGA SR-2
GeForce GTX 460
2 Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB hard drives
12GB RAM
EVGA is proud to announce the highest performing graphics card for the Mac today; the EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition! With 1GB of DDR3 memory and 240 processing cores, your performance is maximized with graphics-intensive applications like 3D gaming, motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering and animation. Take full advantage of the performance using NVIDIA CUDA and OpenGL applications. Upgrade your Mac Pro system with the EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition today for extreme performance!
This has probably already been asked before, but I can't find if it supports the 2006 Mac Pro models? Wait nevermind. It says that it supports 2008 and 2009 on Apple's website. Darn! I wonder if it will work anyway? If someone tries it please let me know.
Ok hope I am clear about this. I just got this little thing and works perfectly in my Mac Book windows and osx. I am trying to figure out why my MacPro OsX is not displaying but would display in Mac Pro bootcamp Windows XP. I tested different means but it would not indicate anything in the screen. Does anyone have any idea to this problem? I know its not the unit as it works with other computers but its something with Mac Pro OSX.
View 2 Replies View RelatedDoes anyone have any info on how loud the card is (compared to the ATI 4870, for instance)?
View 7 Replies View RelatedAfter about a year and a half, my EVGA 8800gt has gone bad, screen corruption, and eventual freezes, etc. and no problems with the original 7300gt in the machine. The part number on it is 512-P3-N801-AR, and it was used in a launch (1,1) mac pro.
Not a problem, the card has a lifetime warranty, my only concern is if I get a different card back from them. I have in the past, and just recently had a friend, perform a exchange with EVGA and had them send back a different card than was sent (it's always been a better card so no complaints at the time), but of course that would be an issue with the EFI32 firmware, etc. So if they end up being unable to send me another 8800gt which ones would be ok? I've read a bit about 9800gts flashed with the 8800 software working, etc.
I have a 7300gt in slot 3 at 4x and my 295gtx is in slot 1 at 16x. I'm on Snow Leopard, so didn't need drivers. I have two monitors, and I have my primary display on the 295 and the secondary on the 7300, which seems to boot just fine.
View 9 Replies View RelatedJust recieved my Mac pro last week and was waiting on whats going to be updated in the new Mac pros and after yesterday I just decided I wanted a Evga NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 but now that I want one it's hard to find one. Apple has 1 to 2 months before it's shipped and I checked ebay just not having much luck finding one.There's 1 Company I found that said they have 1 in stock just not sure if it's a ploy to make me order and try to sell me something else. I thought I would post in here maybe someone here knows where I can still pick one of these up.
I have ordered a new Mac Pro which will arrive tomorrow. It will have the standard "ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI)" video card.
Thinking it would be a good thing to do, I also ordered from Amazon this video card:
"EVGA 01G-P3-N983-AR e-GeForce 9800 GT Akimbo Edition 1GB DDR3 PCI-E 2.0 Dual Slot with Upgraded Cooling Graphics Card"
Will the EVGA card work in the MacPro?
I have an early 2008 Mac Pro with an EVGA 8800 GT installed. When I bought the computer the EVGA 8800 GT was almost silent even when under max load.
Now 15 months later the EVGA 8800 GT fan is making so much high pitch noise under load that I try not to use it for heavy 3d. The noises started after about 6 months after purchasing.
Monitoring the fan speed under Rivatuner shows that it goes to 100% performance under almost any load in order to keep it at a steady 80 degrees celcius.
I concluded that the fan was becomming less efficient over time and that it had to spin more and more in order to keep the temperature down.
Dust Cleaning
I try to clean the computer for dust every 4 month, blowing air backwards into the components of the computer to remove all the dust.
I normally use my mouth (trying not to spit) and a hairdryer. This seem to work okay for the most part, but not much for the EVGA 8800 GT.
After cleaning the fan is still quite audible and hovers at 85-90% under loading producing the annoying high pitch noise.
After only a few weeks its back at 100% under load. I tryed getting Apple to replace the video card, but they refuse to since it is still working. ( I hate this kind of deffinitions. )
- Would buying a can of compressed air and blowing it backwards into the EVGA 8800 GT remove more dust than the method I normally use?
- Would anyone recommend taking of the fan in order to clean it better or should the can clean enough? - trying to compare the risk of not being able to assemble the card again.
- Has anyone had any luck reducing the high pitch noise of the EVGA 8800 GT fan, and if so how?
Aftermarket Cooling
I did buy an aftermarket cooling system called Accelero S2 without the turbo module (fan) which recieves top reviews.
Despite having build some computers in the past I am a bit reluctant to install it by removing the fan completely because I am affraid that I will somehow break the video card in the process or accidently install it in a way that fries it when temperature rises under heavy load.
It sure is tempting to try the Accelero S2, but with the EVGA 8800 GT Mac going out of market I would have to dig deep in my pockets to get a replacement if something happends to the video card.
I think I also read somewhere that the instant you take of the EVGA 8800 GT fan you cannot put it back again. Which also makes me a bit nervous if the aftermarket cooler is not able to keep the card cool.
- Has anyone had luck installing the Accelero S2 without the turbo module (fan) and if so is it easy?
- Would anyone recommend installing the Accelero S2 without the turbo module? - I am not familiar with the success rate of aftermarket cooling and how skilled you need to be to be successfull.
- Has anyone had any problems not being able to keep the video card cool with the Accelero S2 and in that case was force to reinstall the default fan again?
I really wish I could reduce the noise of the fan so I can stand using it for 3d heavy stuff again.
Plan on ordering the following card from NewEgg later on today, as I can't find a retailer online that will sell an 8800GT and let me return it if something goes wrong.
View 6 Replies View RelatedOk, here we go about dual monitors. First and foremost I know that the Matrox is available but I haven't found a source that stated for MBP unibody 17" will it work properly. Even if it does, the price for it is expensive!
View 2 Replies View Related