ATI Radeon HD 4870 Coming Soon For Older Mac Pros, Requires Unreleased OS X 10.5.7

[SPUY767]

Sorry for the double post but just looking at AUD prices:

http://store.apple.com/au/product/MB999ZM/A ($700)

http://www.gamedude.com.au/prod_show.php?art_no=viPAhd4870_512_sonic ($375)

and I could still get a better price on a PC card if I looked a bit harder.

It's a complete joke. $700??? I'll be keeping my 8800GTS 512mb flashed for awhile until the 4870 gets flashed.

Wow, for that price they can kiss my ass.

 

[orbital]

I have the 8800 GT on my 8core 2.8 mac from early 2008. My main issue with the card is that it doesn't support core image as well as the other available cards to. For instance I get hashing, almost a broken glass effect when I play back video in flash, Final Cut or any other system that uses core image or animation. In quicktime it works great. This is a well documented issue and I am wondering if people think this new card will correct this issue.

Thanks
Rob

 

[SPUY767]

I have a first-gen '06/07 Mac Pro, with the lousy Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT. Both Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 are often slow and difficult dealing with it - can someone recommend me a good GPU upgrade?

System Specs -

Mac Pro - Clovertown 8 cores (1st gen) @ 3.0 Ghz
8 GB RAM
1.5 TB software RAID storage (JBOD).

You don't have 8 Cores, you have four if your Mac is an '06 model, and you can go to fastermacs.com, or eshop.macsales.com, and find the 3870, it runs CI/QE faster than the 8800GT, and it only costs 215$.

 

[tezro]

Hey tezro i am in the same position as you (2008 macpro with the 8800GT) and in the netherlands too, are you on any dutch mac forum aswell, so i can keep track of your findings with the new card ?

Nope. Not that active on Mac forums at all.
Only other I really visit is Appleinsider. Any you can recommend?

PS: please PM me as these topics tend to get filled quick.

 

[grue]

You don't have 8 Cores, you have four if your Mac is an '06 model, and you can go to fastermacs.com, or eshop.macsales.com, and find the 3870, it runs CI/QE faster than the 8800GT, and it only costs 215$.

He said 06/07 model. The 2007 model was available in an 8x3.0 config.

 

[Pressure]

Where the hell did you get that from???

Go and read about OpenCL which will be included in Snow Leopard

 

[mikecorp]

What do they mean Early Mac?

I bought this machine and I can not find the papers anymore.
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Type: DDR2 FB-DIMM
Speed: 667 MHz
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz


On mac website they write about the upgrade.
Compatibility:

Requires Mac Pro (Early 2009 with 1066MHz DDR3 memory) or Mac Pro (Early 2008 with 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM memory) with PCI Express 2.0 slot

will the card work on my mac???

 

[tezro]

Mikecorp: I don't think so as the Early 2008 was strictly Quad-Core CPU's, unlike your Dual-Core CPU's.

 

[valdore]

You don't have 8 Cores, you have four if your Mac is an '06 model, and you can go to fastermacs.com, or eshop.macsales.com, and find the 3870, it runs CI/QE faster than the 8800GT, and it only costs 215$.

He said 06/07 model. The 2007 model was available in an 8x3.0 config.

What grue said - the first generation 8-Core model, early 2007.

 

[Data]

Nope. Not that active on Mac forums at all.
Only other I really visit is Appleinsider. Any you can recommend?

PS: please PM me as these topics tend to get filled quick.

I tried to send you a PM but your profile is set up so that i can not send you an email ;-). onemorething.nl , and macfreak.org are two biggest in NL wich i both regulary visit for info on all things mac, and iphoneclub.nl for iphone related topics, all 3 have been very informative for me for years now.

 

[tezro]

I tried to send you a PM but your profile is set up so that i can not send you an email ;-). onemorething.nl , and macfreak.org are two biggest in NL wich i both regulary visit for info on all things mac, and iphoneclub.nl for iphone related topics, all 3 have been very informative for me for years now.

Ah that is true. By a PM I do mean a PM on the forums, not to a email address.
Guess this forum doesn't do normal PMs.

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

 

[agile]

The 4870 standalone kit is available now in the online store. $349 and availability is 5-7 weeks.

 

[Cromulent]

You sure? I've heard that, but I've also heard that people can just use Boot Camp & boot up in Windows, & it'll work fine. So I think it's more than just something low-level like BIOS/EFI differences.

But do you know why Windows works fine on Macs?

It is because Apple included a BIOS portion in the firmware to allow them to boot Windows. Hardware (such as graphics cards) can not access that.

In fact Boot Camp is not necessary to install Windows on a Mac, all it really does is offer fancy partitioning features and a nice easy way to get all the drivers you need onto a CD.

 

[tezro]

Even that is not nescaserry as Windows Vista x64 version support EFI natively.
That's how I installed it on my Mac Pro. Just hold down the Option key on bootup and select the Windows partition. Easy.

 

[Tallest Skil]

will the card work on my mac???

No. You have the 2006 model Mac Pro and the card only works with the 2008 and 2009 models.

It has to do with the 2006 model requiring EFI32 ROM and the card only having EFI64 ROM.

 

[eiprol]

One question. I'm gonna buy an iMac with GT120M... Is it melted to the motherboard, or will i be able to change the GPU in the future?

 

[loveturtle]

No. You have the 2006 model Mac Pro and the card only works with the 2008 and 2009 models.

It has to do with the 2006 model requiring EFI32 ROM and the card only having EFI64 ROM.

You're absolutely right. I also have no doubt that Apple not only doesn't care about supporting the old mac pro but I would go so far as to say that they would intentionally not support it because that's just how they are.

That said, I do hold out a little hope that this card will in fact work. Remember that the HD 2600 has the same system requirements (requires earily 2008 with pcie 2.0 or later) but it does in fact work on the old Mac Pro's. ATI also has their 3870 that works on both. It seems silly that ATI would have firmware done and the space to support both on their cards and then just decide to go backward with this release (unless they were asked to).

So, there is a small chance that it will work.. Hopefully someone with more money than me will buy one and post their experience on the internets.

 

[tezro]

One question. I'm gonna buy an iMac with GT120M... Is it melted to the motherboard, or will i be able to change the GPU in the future?

Most likely not I'm afraid. I do not think it's soldered to the motherboard, but rather suspect a PCI-Express card they use in laptops. Forgot the exact naming of it.

But, you could wait for a hands-on review where they disassemble one I guess.

 

[Wild-Bill]

The 4870 standalone kit is available now in the online store. $349 and availability is 5-7 weeks.

$179.00 on Newegg for the PC version. So Apple is charging DOUBLE (minus seven bucks) for the card.

What balls.

 

[Chilz0r]

Go and read about OpenCL which will be included in Snow Leopard

There is no way a GT120 would beat a Quadro FX5600, it has nowhere near the bandwidth capacity.

 

[swissmann]

The Radeon HD 2600 cards that were released with the 2008 Mac Pros were claimed to be incompatible with the 2006 Mac Pros, but ended up working anyway. I know at least one person who bought one to replace a dead X1900XT and it works beautifully (and puts out maybe a quarter the heat too!)

The cards are PCI Express so unless they *purposefully* cripple the cards to not work on the older Mac Pros, they should work fine. Driver support is in OS X 10.5.7, and OS X releases are always the same across all hardware. I don't see why they would break it on purpose, but on the other hand this IS Apple, they are known for doing weird and brain-dead things at times.

I can vouch that the 2600 works in the first gen mac pro. That's what I am using right now. I was hoping to skip the 3870 and jump to a 4850 or 4870 and do it last Septemberish - obviously that didn't happen.

 

[JGowan]

Newbie Question

Newbie Question here, folks…

I want to order a Mac Pro Octo and Two 30-inch. Displays. I see that if you want to run two 30"s, you have to buy the $100 adapter so I thought it more sense to just get two video cards as it's not that much more for the 2nd card (then I would be set if I wanted to add my 23" Cinema Display in the mix later on. It seemed I was getting more for my money, right?

But you can only order multiples of the NVIDIA card…

I don't see an option to add two of the high-end ATI cards. Why is that? Could I buy one through Apple and one on my own and that suffice? Is there a reason why that option doesn't exist.

Please examine my scenario and advise if I'm on the right track. Thanks!

 

[tezro]

Or order one through the Apple Store?

 

[iPoodOverZune]

You guys are completely wrong and full of ****. It has nothing to do with drivers, Linux and FreeBSD and Solaris have driver support from Nvidia for EVERY SINGLE MODERN VIDEO CARD but you think Mac OSX doesn't? The drivers are the same across Nvidias line of GPU's.

The problem IS EFI and lack of effort on Apples part. Apples drivers probably have a very limited number of hardware id's so their drivers will not attach to non-apple video cards. This is not a technical limitation as much as it's Apple intentionally gimping their drivers.

Also, Because EFI did not pass the video card hw information to the OS (since the card isn't efi aware) the driver probably wouldn't be loaded in the first place. That is why these cards all work fine in windows (provided you insert an apple video card so that the system boots and then load windows).

One thing I've noticed about the Mac community above all else is a constant need for people who are not very tech savvy to BS and spew misinformation and speculation all over the place.

*edit*
one other thing. "It's not about BIOS or EFI. Those are only small technicalities." <-- Designing special firmware and shipping a piece of hardware with special firmware (EFI Aware) which is different than what the rest of the computer world uses is MUCH more of a "technicality" than writing a piece of software that can be disseminated via the Internet (a driver)

You sir are perfectly right! Many a PC cards have been made to work with OS X by simply putting ids in their info.plist or tweaking the EFI strings. Just ask any Hackintosh guy. He will till you the plethora of cards this community has worked out for iHacks.

(ps: now some cards may not have worked out well, but most cards keep working well on hackies)

 

[Loopy C]

Newbie Question here, folks…

I want to order a Mac Pro Octo and Two 30-inch. Displays. I see that if you want to run two 30"s, you have to buy the $100 adapter so I thought it more sense to just get two video cards as it's not that much more for the 2nd card (then I would be set if I wanted to add my 23" Cinema Display in the mix later on. It seemed I was getting more for my money, right?

But you can only order multiples of the NVIDIA card…

I don't see an option to add two of the high-end ATI cards. Why is that? Could I buy one through Apple and one on my own and that suffice? Is there a reason why that option doesn't exist.

Please examine my scenario and advise if I'm on the right track. Thanks!

I asked a similar question elsewhere I am still looking for an answer (in my case what to configure for the graphic card upgrade and two 24"'s...the configure 'radio' buttons don't seem to allow for what the specs indicate is needed (2 ATI's or what adapter?)