Video Card help!

I am sorry for asking such a noob question but,

• What is the difference between these?
  Which one would you consider?
  Are they Hackintosh-compatible?

EVGA GeForce 580

NVIDIA N580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC

Inno3D GeForce GTX 580 HAWK Edition

PNY GTX 580 PCIe

Any help would be appreciated, I am sorry if I am asking somewhere else than I should be, this is just really confusing for me .

The compatibility of high-end cards like the 580 is really iffy for Hackintoshes. Most users like to play it safe by getting a mid-end NVIDIA card in the 400 series. Support for the 500 series was recently added in Mac OS X Lion, and some people have gotten the 560 Ti (or was it 550 Ti? I forget...) to work. However, I strongly doubt that the 580 can work with OS X.

TheSmartGuy said:

The compatibility of high-end cards like the 580 is really iffy for Hackintoshes. Most users like to play it safe by getting a mid-end NVIDIA card in the 400 series. Support for the 500 series was recently added in Mac OS X Lion, and some people have gotten the 560 Ti (or was it 550 Ti? I forget...) to work. However, I strongly doubt that the 580 can work with OS X.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your reply
So I should just stick to graphic cards in the 400 series, or risk it with something below 560?
I was just thinking in context to what I would be doing, editing films and perhaps playing video games from time to time. Would that work fine with any 400 series graphic card?

A 400 series card would likely do the trick. However, if you want to try a 500 series card, here's a list of graphics cards that seem to work in OS X Lion (including a few models of the GTX 580, surprisingly).

TheSmartGuy said:

A 400 series card would likely do the trick. However, if you want to try a 500 series card, here's a list of graphics cards that seem to work in OS X Lion (including a few models of the GTX 580, surprisingly).

Click to expand...

Thank you so very much!

But I am thinking, if you can tell me whether I should choose 1536MB or 3072MB graphics card? (nVidia GeForce GTX 580).
That is in case I would risk it. And is there a greater chance one of them would work over the other?

As always greatly appreciated, and I hope I am not being too much of a bother... :C


.

Bobby Peru said:

TheSmartGuy said:

A 400 series card would likely do the trick. However, if you want to try a 500 series card, here's a list of graphics cards that seem to work in OS X Lion (including a few models of the GTX 580, surprisingly).

Click to expand...

Thank you so very much!

But I am thinking, if you can tell me whether I should choose 1536MB or 3072MB graphics card? (nVidia GeForce GTX 580).
That is in case I would risk it. And is there a greater chance one of them would work over the other?

As always greatly appreciated, and I hope I am not being too much of a bother... :C


.

Click to expand...

You can't just buy any version of the GTX 580 and expect it to work with OS X. Your best chance will be to choose one of the specific models that was in the list of compatible cards. As far as OS X is concerned, a Novatech GTX 580 is very different from an EVGA GTX 580, or an Asus GTX 580.

TheSmartGuy said:

Bobby Peru said:

TheSmartGuy said:

A 400 series card would likely do the trick. However, if you want to try a 500 series card, here's a list of graphics cards that seem to work in OS X Lion (including a few models of the GTX 580, surprisingly).

Click to expand...

Thank you so very much!

But I am thinking, if you can tell me whether I should choose 1536MB or 3072MB graphics card? (nVidia GeForce GTX 580).
That is in case I would risk it. And is there a greater chance one of them would work over the other?

As always greatly appreciated, and I hope I am not being too much of a bother... :C


.

Click to expand...

You can't just buy any version of the GTX 580 and expect it to work with OS X. Your best chance will be to choose one of the specific models that was in the list of compatible cards. As far as OS X is concerned, a Novatech GTX 580 is very different from an EVGA GTX 580, or an Asus GTX 580.

Click to expand...

Sorry for me being so noobish.
So, is there any difference between 1536MB and 3072MB, in relation to Hackintosh compatibility?

Cause I was thinking if I was to get myself a GTX 580, which would it be EVGA 1536MB or 3072MB?

3 GB is totally excessive. 1.5 GB will be enough for just about anything.

Bobby Peru said:

Sorry for me being so noobish.
So, is there any difference between 1536MB and 3072MB, in relation to Hackintosh compatibility?

Cause I was thinking if I was to get myself a GTX 580, which would it be EVGA 1536MB or 3072MB?

Click to expand...

A friend of mine helped me part my hack out, including the graphics card. I bought a Zotac GTX 480 on his advice(it was half off at the time), as the 500's have been iffy, and it works like a charm. It is a 1.5 and plays most modern games on ultra settings.

Recently though, I've noticed the NEW new games, things like RAGE and Battlefield 3, are a little bit out of my 480's league on ultra settings...just for comparison.

I'm new to building computers, and I have to say, the 480 is already somewhat loud and quite hot. I understand the 500 series is a little better, but I can't imagine a 3.0 and how loud/hot those cards are!!!