DirectX 10 video cards on Mac Pro?

[Spartacus]

After they are released, what are the chances of seeing Apple supported DirectX 10 video cards for the Mac Pro? If I were to purchase a Mac Pro now, do you think I would be able to buy a DX10 card later as a kit? What are you guys thinking they would cost?

I'm really hoping to play UT2007 and Crysis in Bootcamp with a DX10 Mac Pro (!) but if DX10 cards will not eventually be supported (like DirectX 9 cards are available now) it may prevent me from pulling the trigger on a Mac Pro.

Also, does the Mac version of the x1900XT support SLI/Crossfire? In a year or so could I throw another x1900XT in my Mac Pro to give it new gaming life because I'm sure it will be a long time before the quad 2.66 Xeons are going to be the bottleneck.

 

[djhspawn]

awsome question! I eagerly await an answer.....

 

[phantasm10]

I don't understand why speculative questions are the norm on MacRumors. Do you think ANYONE here knows that answer? You're just going to have to take your chances wait and see what happens.

 

[floam]

.

 

[lavem]

I'm guessing you want to know this for running your games under Windows in bootcamp?

No you cant run the cards in crossfire, the chipset in the Mac Pro doesn't support it.

The chances are that the Mac Pro WILL ship with graphics cards that support later versions of Direct X. The graphics chips are not specifically designed for the Mac platform and their capabilities will always be in parallel with their PC counterparts.

Windows drivers will handle the Direct X stuff, while OS X will continue to use OpenGL.

 

[THX1139]

I emailed Steve and even he didn't know for sure. Maybe what you should do is wait a year and then you will know the answer. In the meantime, what you get for the Mac is what is out there now. If you want awesome gaming performance, buy a PC. If you want a great computer that does stuff... get a Mac.

 

[dusanv]

First DX10 cards to be released will be the NVidia 8800 GTX/GTS and that's only in two weeks from now (mid November along with Kentsfield and Clovertown cores from Intel). ATI's DX10 card will be here in January and will blow the socks of the NVidia. Whether Apple will put them in the MacPro and when is anyone's guess. These cards will be champs in power consumption (way worse than the x1900's 125 W) and price which might delay their adoption. Plus there's question of availability and stability of the silicone and the drivers (first generation card). I'm in the same boat as you. I'm almost thinking of getting the 7300 with the MacPro and then upgrading to a DX10 card next year (probably ATI's).

x1900 XT is an awesome card but cannot be used in Crossfire configuration as far as I know.

 

[Spartacus]

You all act like Bootcamp is a 3rd party app!

I emailed Steve and even he didn't know for sure. Maybe what you should do is wait a year and then you will know the answer. In the meantime, what you get for the Mac is what is out there now. If you want awesome gaming performance, buy a PC. If you want a great computer that does stuff... get a Mac.

Welcome to the era of (Apple promoted, even) Windows on a Mac, people. I'm a Mac user because of the same reasons as the rest of you: they are amazing. But now they can run Windows, and so people like me who want to ditch their windows computers would like to finally be able to have the best of both worlds...on a Mac.

If my question does not pertain to your uses of a Mac, then please don't insult my uses because they are different from yours. This is a valid question with many curious people wanting answers.

I understand no one knows for sure, so let me clarify my question: How long after the new cards are introduced does Apple USUALLY implement them? Can the history with the G5s be used as reference? Thanks for your answers, and I'm sorry to the rest of you for your poor cyber manners.

 

[Chone]

Hmm, gaming on Mac OS X is pointless, get a regular PC Card, it will work in Windows XP and you can use the 7300GT/X1900XT you have now for OSX.

 

[apfhex]

I don't understand why speculative questions are the norm on MacRumors.

Hmm. That said, I think the question "How long after the new cards are introduced does Apple USUALLY implement them?" is the only one that can be reasonably answered.

Apple has no reason to give us any DX10 cards since that's just a Windows thang. It's possible you'll be able to get a card that just works in Windows and not OS X, but I think it's going to have to go into the same PCIe slot that the X1900 XT goes in? Because it's an extra-wide slot and these cards are big, yeah? There's a whole set of problems surrounding unsupported video cards in the MP. I reckon once the Rev B machines come out, if there's a better card available at the time, Apple might put it in (but it might be longer, Rev C or D... I don't know what Apple's historically done regarding upgrading the cards either).

 

[trapperjohn117]

yeah but just because macs dont support directx dosent mean that the cards wouldnt be insanley fast! as long as its supported one of the upcoming R600's are going to blow a 1900xt out of the water! so apple dose have a reason to offer directx 10 cards not because its directx 10, but because there going to have faster clock speeds, more pixel pipelines, hopefully be built on a smaller fabrication process, and be an all together better card! if none of that mattered then apple could give us a rage 128 pro from 1999 which only supported directx 6 but since the version dosent matter neither does that fact it was built around a 250 nm process, had a core clock rate of only 125 mhz had like 3 pipelines and had 32 mb of memory! now while directx doesn't really matter the day a new version is relesed apple has to up the cards eventually because as the versions grow so do the specs of the cards that support them.

 

[apfhex]

now while directx doesn't really matter the day a new version is relesed apple has to up the cards eventually because as the versions grow so do the specs of the cards that support them.

I'm just saying that minus DirectX, there's less incentive to to include a new card immediately when the current choices are still very fast. Of course they'll eventually want to give us some new cards.

 

[trapperjohn117]

yeah but take a look at these benches of a 8800gtx! they blow the x1900xtx away! and with duel woodcrests instead of C2D's it'll probably be even faster!
!!!
!!
!
oh forgot the url
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/8800gtx-gts-INFO-3dmark06-comparison-7900gtx-x1900xtx-ftopict206725.html

 

[IlluminatedSage]

Hmm, gaming on Mac OS X is pointless, get a regular PC Card, it will work in Windows XP and you can use the 7300GT/X1900XT you have now for OSX.

that is ridiculous. there are more and more games on macs. it is growing again.

but to be honest, i wonder why he is so wanting to be compliant with MS gaming new system

IF ANYTHING We should want a video card which is HDCP compliant, so HDMI or DVI output can be secure for HDTV content requiring it.

to me that is a more important issue.

 

[dusanv]

and with duel woodcrests instead of C2D's it'll probably be even faster!

Probably not. Check out the slower Core2Duo clean out the clock of the quad 3.0 GHz Woodcrest in MacPro:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=14

That's because FB-DIMMs just suck:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=1

And Intel might be getting rid of them (NVidia is!):

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35428

I wish Apple would release a Core2Duo base MacPro instead of this Xeon with its FB memory.

 

[Chone]

Probably not. Check out the slower Core2Duo clean out the clock of the quad 3.0 GHz Woodcrest in MacPro:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=14

That's because FB-DIMMs just suck:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=1

And Intel might be getting rid of them (NVidia is!):

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35428

I wish Apple would release a Core2Duo base MacPro instead of this Xeon with its FB memory.

The thing is for marketing reasons that would be inadequate, first of all Core 2 Duo is multi processor incapable which means Mac Pro would go to 2 cores max (going from a quad g5/quad mp to a dual mp wouldn't look good) and then there would be the inevitable comparison to iMac's Merom.

Mac Pros are fine with Xeon, its the crazy expensive, overheating and slow performing FB-DIMMs that suck... oh well.

 

[trapperjohn117]

well i guess the mac pros are just going to have to wait to see what AMD brings to table. As of september FB-DIMMs arent on there present roadmap so we wont have to worry about that and with the 4x4 platform we could have 4 processors in a mac pro instead of 2 totaling 16 cores when AMD ships its quad cores. or would that be 8x8?

 

[Latisha]

well i guess the mac pros are just going to have to wait to see what AMD brings to table. As of september FB-DIMMs arent on there present roadmap so we wont have to worry about that and with the 4x4 platform we could have 4 processors in a mac pro instead of 2 totaling 16 cores when AMD ships its quad cores. or would that be 8x8?

And AMD influences the Mac Pro... how?

 

[trapperjohn117]

i think apple chose intel because of 2 things

1. there a huge company and they have the power to supply apple with the processors that they need

2. Steve Jobs reveled that apple would be useing intel processors in june and the C2D's and there brethren (including the woodcrests because there build on the same core microarchitecture) where relesed in july.

apple knew they where going to blow anything AMD throws at them out of the water so they went with intel. now if amd can put together something that would surpass the core 2 duos by a large margin then apple would have to go with them to stay competitive. the fact they where 6 months late in releasing merom macbook pros not with standing.