Latest OS X 10.8.3 Beta Adds NVIDIA Quadro K5000 Graphics Card Drivers

Wednesday March 6, 2013 10:22 AM PST by Eric Slivka
As noted in our forums, Apple's latest OS X 10.8.3 beta seeded to developers as build 12D76 yesterday contains new drivers for NVIDIA's high-end Quadro K5000 graphics card. NVIDIA announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac Pro last September, but has yet to actually release the product.

k5000_drivers_10_8_3
The first developer build of OS X 10.8.3 seeded last November added AMD Radeon 7000-series drivers, so it appears that the public release of the operating system update will include support for several high-end graphics options. Just yesterday, we noted that Sapphire was previewing its Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card at CeBIT.

Apple has not yet revealed when it will be releasing OS X 10.8.3 to the public, but we've heard that the latest build was distributed to company employees as a pre-release version, so it seems that its debut may be very close after over three months of developer testing.

Apple is expected to release a revamped Mac Pro sometime this year, although it is unclear exactly when the company is planning for the workstation to make its debut.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Don't Buy)
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epelba01
73 months ago
Forget Mac Pro. Lets start with the official release of 10.8.3. Appleinsider stopped mentioning the betas because it has become an almost weekly occurrence with no indication of official release. It's a joke.
Rating: 6 Votes
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scottishwildcat
73 months ago

Forget Mac Pro. Lets start with the official release of 10.8.3. Appleinsider stopped mentioning the betas because it has become an almost weekly occurrence with no indication of official release. It's a joke.

Of all the things to get irked about, this just about takes the biscuit. What possible difference does it make to you whether they release 1 beta or 12, as long as it's well tested before it's released? And since when did Apple ever give you an indication of the official release date in advance?
Rating: 4 Votes
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Bubba Satori
73 months ago

Isn't the GTX690 faster than k5000?


In games, yes. In professional applications, no.
Rating: 4 Votes
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Peace
73 months ago

Apple don't need to rush...they got ipad.


At this point we are beyond "rush".

;)
Rating: 4 Votes
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spaz8
73 months ago
I want opengl 4.2 and SLI/crossfire.. support.
Rating: 4 Votes
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satyrica
73 months ago
Don't get too excited. The card and these drivers will be old when the pro finally releases....
Rating: 3 Votes
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djacopille
73 months ago
Not a rumor

This one is not a rumor - it's officially on Nvidia's site now.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-k5000-mac.html

Occasionally a new Mac video card comes out. Often with a new Mac Pro, but not always.

Apple puts all available Mac video cards have drivers into the OS. There are so few Mac video cards it's the least they can do.
Rating: 2 Votes
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spaz8
73 months ago
Yes you are paying for drivers, but its way more than just the stability and certification. The Qaudro and FireGL card drivers have completely different rendering behavior than their gaming equivalents.

Workstation cards are for CAD, DCC (3d animation), medical vis, video I suppose. Lots of VRAM to store large data sets (textures, mesh) in memory.

Gaming cards are for gaming - 1/2 to 1/3 the mem, and different rendering behavior.

A gaming card treats the screen as one big dump of pixels and works to refresh the entire screen at 60hz+

A workstation card breaks the screen into individual graphic layers, and gets its great performance by only having to redraw layers that have been updated. So instead of redrawing the entire screen at 60hz ... perhaps only one viewport you're tumbling your model in needs redraw so say a 1/4 of the screen needs updating, and all the horsepower can be focused on that.

A game is much more chaotic than an application and has elements changing all over the place at teh same time, which is why Workstations cards don't fare as well at drawing games. Just as a gaming card aren't as efficient in an application because it is constantly redrawing the whole screen instead of just a fraction of it.
Rating: 2 Votes
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ConCat
73 months ago

I'm really looking forward for the announce of the new Mac Pro! :)


Wait till you see what the new Mac Pro will be able to do (at least I'm fairly certain). Core Storage hasn't spread its wings yet. It's still a mere hatchling. When it does, the only computer in which it'll be able to show its true power is the Mac Pro. It's only a matter of time.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Peace
73 months ago

I want opengl 4.2 and SLI/crossfire.. support.


Good luck with that.
Rating: 2 Votes
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