No, it is a very poor comparison and the worst part is that many people don't really understand what they are looking at and take the scores as gospel and use it to make purchasing decisions.
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nMP/new Mac Pro/Mac Pro 6,1 Reviews [MERGED]
- Thread starter VirtualRain
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No, it is a very poor comparison and the worst part is that many people don't really understand what they are looking at and take the scores as gospel and use it to make purchasing decisions.
Just because they identify as FirePro in OS X and windows doesn't make them firepros. I'm sure if I were a good enough programmer I could get my NVidia to identify as a "firepro"
What makes it a firepro--from any standpoint that could possibly matter--is advantage in performance in professional Windows applications over consumer. If I were to buy a W9000 for my PC, I would have amazing support for several years (D700 does not have this), ECC RAM (D700 doesn't have this), a high clock (D700 does not have this), official support in Professional Windows apps (D700 doesn't have this [yet?]), and most importantly: Added performance over consumer alternatives due to optimizations and driver enhancements in Professional Windows Apps (D700 hasn't been tested this way yet).
We have yet to see any of this. Anantech went as far as to dismiss the FirePro moniker entirely and call them downclocked 280X. I believe future benchmarks will prove this to be accurate.
My belief from the beginning was that calling these FirePro was more marketing than technology. However I think Anand compared them to 7970s more than 280s though. I'm not sure of the difference though.
I think we are forgetting a big "issue".
The applications are not written (yet) to use this video cards D300/500/700.
This cards are very new to compare to "old" ones that have already better and tested drivers and applications.
When I said "Old" they are not really old, but you get my point.
I just hope that developers work hard to get the most of this cards, D300/D500/D700. It can be to video, audio, OS or even web browsing. (I don't really care about games, for games go get a PS4 or a Xbox ehehe)
We just need to wait and hope, that not only the apple applications will get most of this cards in the future.
The applications are not written (yet) to use this video cards D300/500/700.
This cards are very new to compare to "old" ones that have already better and tested drivers and applications.
When I said "Old" they are not really old, but you get my point.
I just hope that developers work hard to get the most of this cards, D300/D500/D700. It can be to video, audio, OS or even web browsing. (I don't really care about games, for games go get a PS4 or a Xbox ehehe)
We just need to wait and hope, that not only the apple applications will get most of this cards in the future.
If you mean more apps need to be fixed to use GPU acceleration, I agree.
However, the Dx00 are almost identical (at least in the ways that matter) to cards that have been on the market for up to 2 years now. That's why the performance in Windows is almost identical to the 7970 ( 2 years old ) in gaming, for instance.
The only things that a FirePro has by AMD's definition are the drivers and the professional Windows app support. ECC is found on some Fire Pro cards, but it's not a requirement.
High clocks and "amazing support" are not part of what defines FirePro cards. There are lots of PC FirePros with low clocks, and I don't know of any FirePros with higher clocks than consumer cards.
The reason the FirePro designation exists is to signify that the card is part of a testing matrix on behalf of creative software developers. It's nothing more. All it is is a subset of AMD's product portfolio that is guaranteed to work with pro apps.
It's basically like buying a PC with a Windows sticker on it signifying that it's certified to work with Windows. That's all.
OWC has started testing a few other CPUs with the nMP... and it looks like they will be publishing the results on their blog here. I wish Apple had offered the 1660v2 as a BTO option over the 1650 but I expect the yields on binning those at the moment are too low to ship in any kind of volume.
digitalartsonline review
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/...re/apple-mac-pro-2013-review-with-benchmarks/
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/...re/apple-mac-pro-2013-review-with-benchmarks/
Not particularly acccurate. There has been hardware features on the dies that are "turned on" for FirePro and not for mainstream. The question isn't that whether ECC has to be on all FirePro cards. The issue is when ECC is actually present is it offered in the enabled feature set. Where there are hardware "Pro" features they are on for FirePro cards.
Find an example where the hardware'transistors implementing the FirePro is present and it is turned off on an AMD FirePro card.
I is the wrong adjective. "Relatively high compared to substantially underclocked" has largely been a FirePro feature.
There are certainly old and slow clocked FirePro but in brand new paradigm where there are new and slow clocked FirePro. Where the performance is actually lower on a broad spectrum than the more affordable mainstream cards.
The "amazing support" is also a bit of hyperbole too. It is really support, period. If talking about longer term support that is really the only part of "amazing" (and only if baseline against the consumer offerings ).
Again lower than "max clocked" mainstream ones. Yes. Low and old. Yes. New and low, not really.
The snarky higher wasn't particularly about consumer cards. It is really about other "FirePro" of the same generation and frankly the same die.
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Tested for giggles? Not. It tested in conjunction with support services. Populating certification matrices is a core support services activity.
The other major flaw here is that there are lots of "creative software develoepers" who did certification matrix with non FirePro/Quaddro cards for Mac OS X configurations.
But does Apple even have a long list of certifications? Or a longer list when they have "consumer" cards and were still in the matrix ? Where is the state change from before and/or the new value add ?
I can see why Apple wants to blow off warranty ( which they won't match) and perhaps blow off features ( used consumer cards previously), but there are FirePro customers pay more in part for those.
Not really. It is substantially more coupled that the Windows sticker. That sticker more so to get joint marketing dollars as much as passing some rigid and optimized certification.
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Given Apple's Mac Pro price bloat it is far more likely they knew they'd have problems with $/peformance after they tacked on their 30% mark-up on top. The 1660v2 is incrementally faster but the Apple's price would have been $700-750 more.
That would have reduced 1680 v2 volume. I suspect Apple was one of the customers pushing for that variant and probably have a minimum to buy to make Intel happy ( i.e., they take next request seriously ). The 1680 v2 also happens to pull more money out of custom pockets too.
There are not (to my knowledge) any AMD cards with ECC RAM. The ECC function is handled by the memory controller.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6137/the-amd-firepro-w9000-w8000-review-part-1/6
Windows support goes as far as using the drivers for FirePro cards. These cards don't exist outside of the Mac Pro aside from sharing the same chips so they would have to go through testing on a per application basis because it really comes down to the application, not the OS when it comes to certification. More important than the hardware certification is driver certification which can take many months depending on the vendor.
And there isn't really any significant performance or anything over consumer cards. In some cases they are slower in favor of reliability.
I agree with all this (apart from the "slower" remark--all the performance hinderances are clearly explained by a lower clock). Also, there are incredible performance differences in certain professional Windows Applications with the FirePros. In most tasks, I'll grant you that they are the same, but people buy these cards partly because the performance difference are massive in Pro Apps.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firepro-w8000-w9000-benchmark,3265-9.html
However, if you're comparing the D700 with the W9000 (as was the go-to scenario before this was released), there are serious and glaring issues with that.
I understand why they are not certified to work with Professional applications in Windows -- that doesn't mean it is an irrelevant fact. People buy FirePro cards to be, well, FirePro cards.
Also, While ECC may be a kludge on the W9000, error correction is still there, which is a function the D700 doesn't have out of the box.
Finally, we have to see if the D700 has the same driver performance as the W9000. We can clearly see that it calls itself a FirePro, but it doesn't use CrossFire Pro and we don't know if it'll have the same performance advantages.
I agree there are little differences between Consumer and Pro cards. Nonetheless, as a practical matter, these pieces of information make the difference between it being a card for a workstation and part of the "FirePro" line and just being another consumer card. More importantly, they were specifically touted to justify the price difference. That's quite the deception in both branding and marketing on Apple's part if it's a FirePro in name only.
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We get you feel cheated but take the facts: Apple and AMD call them FirePro so they are FirePro - It was never more then a name plastered on the same silicon.
I'm sure people who paid >$3,000 for a GPU would tend to disagree. AMD bills its FirePro series as being optimized for these tasks and offering certain features, support, and guaranties that don't come with Radeons.
Like others pointed out, even if this is just a Radeon (looks like it is), it probably wont have a big impact on their reputation. The only thing that will happen is that nobody is going to buy a new Mac Pro to run those Professional Windows apps. Life in the PC workstation world will continue as if nothing has happened. If anything, tech writers will talk about "the amazing Fire Pro series performance.... with the exception of the Mac Mini Pro Dx00 wannabe FirePRo"
Anandtech and others are already realizing this the FirePro Moniker on the Dx00 was probably a special deal with Apple to dupe its users into thinking they were getting a good deal. This is just a hiccup in an otherwise solid brand.
By contrast, if the D700 were just underclocked W9000 FirePros, this would be a game changer for the market--people would be buying nMP for the GPU alone and it really would be an amazing deal.
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We're also stuck on people saying the issue doesn't matter, and some of us trying to point out that it does. You seem to know the relevance of the question already, clearly others don't.
It's important to get this straight at some point. That way when the benchmarks come out one way or another, the full impact will be known.
There's plenty of information from this user about real pro application usage:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18571059/
Yep, saw that, and for users of those apps, we already had a decent idea of what to expect. The real unknowns are the Adobe apps (both CC and earlier versions).
And of course, we know FCX will run well...
Another way to rank the cards...
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Of interest here is that the 7970 and the 280x are listed as the same card, the approx 1:1 ranking of the 7970/280x shows up here, and the 7970M (if indeed the D300 matches to that) is a good chunk behind the 7970 (27%) and is also beat by the 780M of the iMac.
(and what the hell is a D500...)
Assuming those D770/7970 comparisons are accurate at all...
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Of interest here is that the 7970 and the 280x are listed as the same card, the approx 1:1 ranking of the 7970/280x shows up here, and the 7970M (if indeed the D300 matches to that) is a good chunk behind the 7970 (27%) and is also beat by the 780M of the iMac.
(and what the hell is a D500...)
Assuming those D770/7970 comparisons are accurate at all...