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3rd Party Graphics Cards for Mac Pro

nylon

nylon

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 26, 2004
1,412
1,058
What are the chances of a third party company like BFG etc. etc. releasing a graphics card that supports the Mac Pro. While I do not need an ultra fast graphics card, something that falls in between the Nvidia 7300 and the Radeon X1900XT would be a welcome upgrade to those who went with a stock graphics system.

I find the lack of third party graphics manufacturers supporting the Mac platform unacceptable.
 
3rd party - very very very doubtful. The best best is to wait for Apple to release one, then wait longer for someone to dump the ROM to be loaded into a 3rd party card.
 
I know. That's why I got the x1900 right away. They were selling those super expensive quad G5s with NVidia 6600 until this summer. That was really lame. If they were to release a cheaper headless box with Conroe and PCIe slots, it would sell well and maybe manufacturers would start releasing cards for this platform. But nooo, that makes it too easy. Apple needs a challenge. Let's woo them with the dumb commercials...
 
dusanv said:
I know. That's why I got the x1900 right away. They were selling those super expensive quad G5s with NVidia 6600 until this summer. That was really lame. If they were to release a cheaper headless box with Conroe and PCIe slots, it would sell well and maybe manufacturers would start releasing cards for this platform. But nooo, that makes it too easy. Apple needs a challenge. Let's woo them with the dumb commercials...
Click to expand...

We can go over these arguments til we're blue in the phase, but let's agree to disagree. Apple has two reasons to go with less advanced on the graphics card. First, to keep the price point at 2500 for the base configuration. And second, that a lot of us don't need or want to pay for a 3-d card. For my scientific computing needs, I can use the extra power that the mac pro delivers, but have no need whatsoever for anything more than the stock gfx card. Now I don't disagree at all that there need to be some more options and no reason that you shouldn't be able to get top of the line cards. And what marketing purpose would a cheaper tower do for Apple. Unless they are losing sales of the iMac to the competitor simply because of that, all they would do is eat at the share of their other computers (iMac and Mac Pro). I don't think that it is that Apple doesn't want video cards more readily available, but it is part of the tight hardware control that Apple has always had. The fewer options that they have to support with OS X, the easier it is to deliver a stable OS. It's a bit of a catch 22, though.

cheers.
 
The worries of no 3rd party graphics should go away soon.
Intel's road map clearly shows that EFI will be a requirement in next generation of chipsets. If manufactures want to be on the cutting edge (think Robson Caching), then they will be forced to accept EFI. Once you are at that point, PC / Mac graphics becomes a moot point, as EFI is EFI...
 
Last year there were some rumblings about a deal between video card manufacturer XFX and Apple. Whatever actually went on is unclear but nothing came of it.

From the point of view of a video card manufacturer, releasing a line of Mac video cards is a matter of getting a software team on the project, since there is no hardware difference between Mac and PC cards. Up to this point my guess is that it has been a volume issue - not enough potential sales.

ATI is currently the only 3rd party manufacturer for the Mac, and their current lineup is rather weak and damn expensive:

X1900XT
X1900 G5 Edition
Radeon X800XT (discontinued I think)
Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition
Radeon 9200 PCI (a billion years old and $$$)

As Mac sales increase the argument for a Mac line becomes stronger though, but between Apple OEM cards and ATI's offerings is there yet room for another vendor? the industry doesn't seem to think so yet.
 
video card - 2006 mac pro hellp?

i just got fcp x - for a 2006 dual core - its running pretty good - but it keeps suggesting i need a new video card - i still use 10.4 sometimes to run the old versions of pro tools and logic .. need a little help - whats the fastest or the best video card i can get for my computer -- someone suggested ati 4870 -
does anyone have an idea here?

thanks - tech
 
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