AMD ATI R600XTX Coming to Mac Pro

[Pressure]

Oh my god. SLI here I come .

SLI is NOT Crossfire ...

 

[TBi]

SLI is NOT Crossfire ...

Technically SLI (Scaleable Link Interface) isn't SLI (Scan Line Interleave) either

 

[Pressure]

Y.E.S.!

But yeah, I share the same sceptism with mini..

Few "weirdeses" in the post.

One is the crossfire, how well would,say,Macpro´s,the only Apple computer able to take it in, mobo/pci adjust to that?

Would it work in 2 x 8 channel mode? Would that be particulary effective?

Another is the power issue.

Wasnt there some first "estimates" that the OEM version would be 270W and the retail would be 240W? What´s that 225W thingy?

But otherwise,Im starting to get all giddy...

The 225 Watt is what the Mac Pro can supply through the PCI-Express slots and have nothing to do with external power sources.

You can power two R600 cards from the PSU alone.

And yes, it will work in an 2x8 configuration (which really isn't going to affect performance).

 

[CyberPrey]

PROVIDED....

the R600 does come out for the Mac Pro....

 

[trainguy77]

I'm pretty sure the Mac Pro has a 1Kw PSU that can make use of 960w maximum. Alot of overclockers are building machines with 1kw power supplies to handle the newer graphics cards in SLI.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html look under current...it says 12a at 120 or 6a at the 220v.

 

[Macinposh]

The 225 Watt is what the Mac Pro can supply through the PCI-Express slots and have nothing to do with external power sources.

You can power two R600 cards from the PSU alone.

Okay.

What about the talk (somewhere in the forum) that the pci´s on MP support 300Ws? Do they support 300W in total (all slots combined), or 300W for the 16 slot pci only+ more for the other slots?

So 2 x R600 = 600W.
You would prolly need to use the 2 extra cables from the PS to keep get them running?

And yes, it will work in an 2x8 configuration (which really isn't going to affect performance).

So the one R600 wont saturate a single pci 8 channel?


Indeed, nice looking card,that is.

 

[TBi]

Okay.

What about the talk (somewhere in the forum) that the pci´s on MP support 300Ws? Do they support 300W in total (all slots combined), or 300W for the 16 slot pci only+ more for the other slots?

So 2 x R600 = 600W.
You would prolly need to use the 2 extra cables from the PS to keep get them running?




So the one R600 wont saturate a single pci 8 channel?


Indeed, nice looking card,that is.

The Mac Pro already has connections for those cables on the motherboard.

Plus the loss in speed due to saturation of the PCI-E bus is not as much as you'd think. In most situations (as long as you don't run out of texture memory) there will be only a negligable hit on performance. Most software companies know this and program as best they can to keep the what's needed in graphics RAM.

 

[Umbongo]

http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html look under current...it says 12a at 120 or 6a at the 220v.

That isn't what is available to the system though.

http://forums.macnn.com/65/power-mac-and-mac-pro/306288/mac-pro-power-supply-wattage/

You can actually get a rough estimate on the Wattage by dividing the VAs by square root of 2 (approximately 1.41). This leads to an estimated 1060 W as maximum output for the psu.

If you want to get into a number game, then we can do the following: Let's assume the Mac Pro consumes a maximum of 980 W. The efficiency of common psus at approximately full load is roughly 70-85 %, let's take 75 %, so 735 W of power are at the disposal to the components inside the system. Each Xeon has a maximum power consumption of 80 W (65 W TDP), so we have 575 W left. Typical harddrives need 10-15 W each (SCSI drives may need a tad more, also during spin-up, drives need a lot more than that, as much as 30 W), so let's subtract 60 W (= 4x15 W), we still have 515 W.

Modern graphics cards may consume up to 140 W (x2), DVD burners need another 15 W each. 205 W are left for RAM, motherboard and one or two other PCIe expansion cards.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Half way there...

WOW.... imagine an 8 Core Mac Pro with this beast inside!!!

But, IMHO we still need a good Sound card in the Mac Pro, which will be supported in XP (Vista) under Boot Camp... Soundblaster, where are you???

Once that has been covered there is absolutely no reason to buy a gaming PC anymore.

I always was in the "get two machines" camp:
- one Mac for getting serious work done.
- one PC for getting serious gaming done.
Add these costs up, you have alot of money spent, and you need serious desk space aswell.

Getting the ultimate Mac Pro.... well, it's obvious to me.

 

[Cromulent]

SLI is NOT Crossfire ...

I am well aware of that fact. Thank you.

 

[/"\/oo\/"\]

IIRC, the chipset currently used in the mac pro does not support SLi or crossfire at a hardware level, so it's *probably* going to take a significantly updated mac pro to get two of these going in one machine.

Aside from that, with the amd/ati merger, apple (with intel alliance) is far more likely to move towards nvidia cards these days IMO.

 

[TBi]

IIRC, the chipset currently used in the mac pro does not support SLi or crossfire at a hardware level, so it's *probably* going to take a significantly updated mac pro to get two of these going in one machine.

Aside from that, with the amd/ati merger, apple (with intel alliance) is far more likely to move towards nvidia cards these days IMO.

No chipset supports SLI or Crossfire at a hardware level. It's all handled in software by the drivers. nVidia just limit what motherboards the sli graphics driver will work on. If they let it run on an intel chipset it will run.

All ATi have to do is put out crossfire enabled graphics drivers for the mac and it will work on any motherboard (as long as they don't cripple it) with crossfire graphics cards.

Oh and Crossfire/SLi will run across two PCI-E 1x slots (albeit slowly and you have to modify the slots), in case people think you need 8x or 16x to run it.

(Well aside from it being hardware dependent on the graphics card but this has nothing to do with what motherboard it runs on)

 

[stainlessliquid]

Every single time Ive read gpu news on the Inquirer they ended up wrong so I wouldnt take what they say as definate. Although I think in the past Ive just seen very optimistic release dates posted there, but still, theyve never been close everytime Ive come across them.