CUDA double precision on 2008 Mac Pro

Accelerated Computing CUDA CUDA Programming and Performance
1

Hi All,

I have a Mac Pro purchased in June 2008 with a 8800GT card, on which only single precision using CUDA
is supported.

I understand that the Nvidia 200 series cards now support DOUBLE PRECISION floating point. Is it possible
to install a 260GTX in my machine, or any other 200 series card? I have not been able to find any source
of drivers for these cards and my Mac.

Thanks, Hans

2

No, it is not possible to install them under OS X ( they are missing EFI support).

3

Hi mfatica,

Thanks for the quick reply!

After a bit of Googling, a number of folks seem to have been able to put a 9800GTX

into their Mac Pro, with the System Profiler even properly identifying the card.

I also see that this card supports FP64, or double precision. I had thought that

only the 200 series supported DP.

So would you think all would work ok on my Mac Pro with the 9800GTX?

Any info would be GREATLY appreciated.

  • Hans
4

9800 GTX does not support double precision.

5

Hi mfatica,

Thanks for your help!

  • Hans
6

I have the exact same requirement for DP on a Mac Pro and now have the 8800GT and a Zotac 260 (216) working together on an 08 Mac Pro under bootcamp/Windows. I hope Nvidia/Apple will address OS X support, where only 8800 is working right now. (While I am up - Anybody got a rig like this with a 295 working and showing all 480 cores under device query - either as 480 or 2x240?)

7

Now have a Palit 285 with 2G running under bootcamp nicely. If anyone has run nvflash under windows/dos to find the rom size on a 200 series card I would like to know the outcomes - are there any brands with large rom chips? My 285 dumps a rom file of about 64k , half the size of the Apple 8800GT - this seems to be one of the factors that decided whether a PC 8800/9800 card could be flashed to work under OS X.