Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mac Pro or Console
- Thread starter cryingrobot
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Don't understand your post fella? But the next gen PS4 or Xbox 720 are both going to be heavily competing to be your main meda server in your front room. Weather they are better then a Mac Pro or not kinda depends on you I guess? But you are comparing totally different animals unless al you do is watch media, listen to music and play games. No console is going to be a works machine, do email very well, browse the net very well.
Apple will only really face competition from games consoles if it releases a TV with apps.
That is a pretty specific subset of the overall game market. I suspect integrated graphics chips will need to improve drastically to see much in the way of support under OSX. So many macs sold today run igpus. The imacs don't have a really "fast" gpu capable of lasting several cycles until you approach the $2000 mark. I'd say that the market potential is going to be driven from the lower end configurations. The mac pro was never really designed for this market. By the time you opt for one of the better gpus and add tax, you're approaching $3000 on the base cpu offering.
The Mac Pro was never a gaming computer it never will be. Apple will never be threat in the "PC" gaming world because the will not allow things like my tri-SLI 690 example yes 6 GPU's are extreme but in the same respect we can't get the most basic thing's like SLI, and eyefinity. It's not the companies aren't willing you can have both in Linux with it's even smaller market. Apple just won't play in that world it contradicts everything Apple believe i.e. computer as appliance.
While Apple certainly isn't trying to be the "tinker & erector set " vendor of choice, the above is largely missing very salient issues. There is a much deeper reason here. Apple has and will continue to have a minor fraction of the PC market. It makes good sense for Apple to either do something Apple/Mac specific that has very high value or follow industry standards.
SLI , CUDA, and Crossfire are not industry standards. They are proprietary standards to promote vendor lock-in. OpenCL and PCI-e are better long term paths. OpenGL and OpenCL allows Apple to use either AMD , Nvidia, or anyone else who comes along down the road (e.g., Intel, Imagination Tech. , etc. ).
PCI-e v3 is twice as fast as previous version and with multiple lanes almost 10 times as fast as the limited AGP bus that was in place when SLI was invented to work around (Crossfire worked about PCI limitations, but similar perspective to present context). At this point, one primirary use is to work around the limited PCI-e lanes in the Intel mainstream design ( 16 lanes ). On a 40 or 80 PCI lane box, it just doesn't have the same traction as the more primary vendor lock-in in most user workloads.
AMD Eyefinity .... support multiple display outputs. You mean like what DisplayPort v1.2 does right? Thunderbolt kludges around DisplayPort v1.1's limitations and adds this too in a very limited way (pragmatically capped at two displays now). So any vendor that adopts the DisplayPort standards has the essential capability.
'Oh but Apple would have had it sooner'. That sooner has legacy lock-in risks (essentially get looped into long term support) and Apple has long term strategies.
The other primary thing is that it isn't really "computer as appliance" but just plain opposed to "spec chasing". In the undifferentiated, homogenized general PC market 'check list feature wars' is the primary tactic of creating temporary differentiation. It is an ephemeral gimmick. For better or worse both vendors, niche tech press, and users get locked into the 'chase'. Long term it is not likely to be effective. That is even more likely in a maturing market.
What exactly does PCI-e Have to do with anything..
When has apple cared about vendor lock in?
An the rest of it is arguing against yourself
======================
The chase has been going on since the 70's it's not about to stop now
If the bus connecting the CPU and GPU is fast enough you don't need a "back door" bus to also weave two or more GPUs into communicating with each other also.
When it comes to their suppliers? They always have. This isn't about lock-in for Mac end-user customers.
you will still need the SLI/Cross Fire no matter the PCI bandwidth.
Apple is completely reliant on intel for processors, LG and Samsung for displays, and I believe broadcom for WiFi NIC's.
The don't build their boards so it's a spec to tick support SLI/Cross fire.
except you can't have 3 690's
Your right..
so lets go with quad 680's..
None of these are normal nor cheap but even the most basic isn't supported in OSX..
It's not even SLI/Cross Fire the Mac Pro has how many supported cards? 10
7300
x1900xt
FX 4500
2600XT
8800GT
FX5600
GT120
4870
5770
5870
That's it best is a 2009 card.. Apple is not interested in gaming because they will have to write drivers and support combinations that don't please them. They want you to buy a box use it sell it buy another box..computer as appliance.
The Mac Pro isn't a gaming machine.
This is like me complaining that my toaster does an awful job of making pancakes.
The Mac Pro is marketed towards pros. It can play games, but Apple has never built it as a machine to compete with Xboxs. They aren't even in the same price league.
This is really a waste of time. The Mac Pro plays games about as well as the XBox runs Final Cut Pro.
Well, for starters Apple should provide better OpenGL drivers on their platform. OS X will never be a platform for high-performance gaming (as its driver performance will always be at least 10-15% less of Windows), but it has the potential to be a very capable gaming platform for everything else (e.g. games like Skyrim and the like).
I never said it was..
My comment was directed at the person that said the gaming market was to niche.
But they do need to provide better graphics card support
They do, but the better graphics card support has little to do with games from Apple's perspective.
It's also Not Their Problem (mostly). They are not restricting GPUs on OS X, they don't even write the drivers. NVidia and ATi are free to ship their own cards for Mac any time they want. They haven't in recent history.
There is no walled garden when it comes to OS X GPUs. Anyone is free to come in and make one work.
your right and your free to leave the mac platform and you're free to do many things...
Please...
Love it or leave it is not valid and you know it..Apple could go a long way by using industry standard EFI but no it's gotta use some hybrid cluster..
Come back to me when you have some kind of valid argument.
Huh? I don't think any PC manufacturer is support uEFI right now. NVidia has a tech note telling people to switch to BIOS.
Apple not using uEFI would only be an issue if GPU makers were even supporting uEFI.
Apple's EFI isn't exactly unknown either. And they're following most of the EFI standard, you can load in standard EFI modules.
If Apple systems are so unsupportable by third parties, where exactly do the Quadros, Radeon 3870s, and Geforce 285s come from? These cards all got released somehow.
The truth is that Apple is the only company that has any interest in manufacturing Mac cards. You don't think ATi has had new Mac cards this entire time? They aren't being released to the public because ATi doesn't want to manufacture them. And Apple's fault, for their part, is that they only want to rev the cards they ship when they rev the machine.
New cards not existing has nothing to do with technical or development issues. It has everything to do with all the parties punting on who should actually manufacture the cards for Mac.
Just about every board int last 18 months has been uEFI, apple doesn't use standardized uEFI they use a uEFI cluster..
you're right apple supports 12 cards since 2007 I apologize.
Right everyone should manufacture for Apple, Apple shouldn't use industry standards.
This stand alone stuff was OK when Apple was unique they are anything but unique now. They jumped shark now it's time to play with others.
EFI has nothing to do with the lack of cards at this point.
Right everyone should manufacture for Apple, Apple shouldn't use industry standards.
Huh? Like I said, no one is making EFI cards. Not Apple EFI, not uEFI. Even if Apple supported uEFI we'd be in the exact same spot. It changes nothing.
If companies were making uEFI cards, the work of making them work with Macs wouldn't be that significant. But no one is making uEFI cards anyway.
Huh? Again, EFI is not the issue. There are unreleased Apple EFI cards out there. The problem is not the EFI. It's that no one wants to dedicate factory time to building the cards. At this point no one wants to dedicate the factory time to making standalone uEFI cards either.
Take a look at this, uEFI PCs aren't being supported either.
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...t-graphics-card-into-a-certified-windows-8-pc
Apple EFI is the issue..it was when they were making bios cards and is in the translation to EFI..
Industry standard EFI will boot BIOS cards, the Apple cluster will not just like it won't boot OF cards.
No it won't. Did you not just see the link I posted?
Industry standard EFI does NOT boot BIOS cards. If a card does not implement EFI UGA, it does not work with an EFI boot.
Ok I've never done it then, I'm very sorry I'll default to your google fu..
You are 100% correct I'll shall never doubt you again..Good?
What you want and wish for Apple could care less... Look at all of us right now, suffering Apple's wrath.. While I am hoping for a 2013 Mac Pro.. personally, I don't even use my 6-core to its full potential.
Does OS X have the capabilities for a high-end gaming platform.. You betcha! But Apple does NOT care nor will they EVER bring out any kexts or devices to implement SLI or crossfire. Ain't gonna happen. You wanna game? Buy a console or build an Alienware PC..
While you can cross fire under bootcamp, its no where the extreme gaming experience compared to a fully blown gaming PC. PC's thrive for gaming, while on the Mac its been piss poor..
Job didn't care about it, what makes you think Tim Cook will?
----------
In other words, buying a video card off the shelf at Best Buy does NOT mean it will work in a Mac since it is not supported via EFI BOOT. Makes perfect sense to me.
Does OS X have the capabilities for a high-end gaming platform.. You betcha! But Apple does NOT care nor will they EVER bring out any kexts or devices to implement SLI or crossfire. Ain't gonna happen. You wanna game? Buy a console or build an Alienware PC..
While you can cross fire under bootcamp, its no where the extreme gaming experience compared to a fully blown gaming PC. PC's thrive for gaming, while on the Mac its been piss poor..
Job didn't care about it, what makes you think Tim Cook will?
----------
In other words, buying a video card off the shelf at Best Buy does NOT mean it will work in a Mac since it is not supported via EFI BOOT. Makes perfect sense to me.