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Radeon HD 3870 for Mac coming end of May
- Thread starter barefeats
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what are the chances of ATi putting together mac drivers/firmware for the FireGL cards on the back of this increased consumer card support? The FireGL cards are just as good (better?) as the Quadro cards which cost over twice as much.
I would buy a FireGL as soon as it came out for the mac
I would buy a FireGL as soon as it came out for the mac
That's what I'm hoping for, too, but I don't think we'll see that until the Nehalem based Mac Pros come out next year. It's a shame there's only one pro video card available for the Mac Pro, when there are dozens available from Nvidia and ATI starting at around $300 and Apple decides that it's the $2,500 one we can get.
Geez Apple, let's get rolling, ok ? I do think Apple should go for FireGL instead of Quadro in the next Mac Pros. They should try something different. Who knows but it might boost the sales of Mac Pros.
As for the ATI Radeon HD 4870, we might see that in the next Mac Pros. Seriously, I think that Apple should go all ATI with the Mac Pros. ATI cards are better for the pro stuff any-ways.
4870s are definitely down the line... they have more processing FLOPs than the GT200's (1.2 TFlop in fact), consume less power, and AMD/ATI is supporting OpenCL and other standards, rather than forcing Nvidia CUDA to play...
Radeon HD 4870 has 1.2 TFLOPS of compute potential (800 execution units * 2 flops/unit (for a multiply-add) * 750MHz), but in the vast majority of cases we'll look at, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 with 933.12 GFLOPS ((240 SPs * 2 flops/unit (for multiply-add) + 60 SFUs * 4 flops/unit (when doing 4 scalar muls paired with MADs run on SPs)) * 1296MHz) is the top performer.
The Radeon HD 4870 is not only based on an efficient architecture (both in terms of performance per area and per watt), it is an excellent buy as well. Of course we have to put out the usual disclaimer of "it depends on the benchmark you care about," but in our testing we definitely saw this $300 part perform at the level of NVIDIA's $400 GT200 variant, the GTX 260.
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3341
What they were directing that at was gaming performance, I believe. Theoretical FLOPS do not dictate how well a card will perform in games (driver optimizations, game coding, etc. do most of that) - but for GPGPU programs where the programs are specifically written to take advantage of the architecture, the 4870's will come out on top
One big problem is there are no GPGPU programs for Macs.
AppleInsider thinks that Nvidia working on first GPGPUs for Apple Macs.
From AppleInsider:
"The technology -- in Nvidia's case -- leverages a proprietary architecture called CUDA, which is short for Compute Unified Device Architecture. It's currently compatible with the company's new GeForce 8 Series of graphics cards, allowing developers to use the C programming language to write algorithms for execution on the GPU.
GPGPUs have proven most beneficial in applications requiring intense number crunching, examples of which include high-performance computer clusters, raytracing, scientific computing applications, database operations, cryptography, physics-based simulation engines, and video, audio and digital image processing.
It's likely that the first Mac-comptaible GPGPUs would turn up as build-to-order options for Apple's Mac Pro workstations due to their ability to aid digital video and audio professionals in sound effects processing, video decoding and post processing.
Precisely when those cards will crop up is unclear, though Nividia through its Santa Clara, Calif.-based offices this week put out an urgent call for a full time staffer to help design and implement kernel level Mac OS X drivers for the cards.
Programs based on the CUDA architecture can not only tap its 3D performance but also repurpose the shader processors for advanced math. The massively parallel nature leads to tremendous gains in performance compared to regular CPUs, NVIDIA claims.
In science applications, calculations have seen speed boosts from a 45 times to as much as 415 times in processing MRI scans for hospitals. Increases such as this can mean the difference between using a single system and a whole computer cluster to do the same work, the company says."
with a bit of luck yuo will be able to flash a now purchased 4870 to a mac compatible card once it will be available (Nehalem Mac Pros?...).
I think Apple will put some more effort into the graphics of Macs because of the support of OpenCL and similar features in Snow Leopard
I think Apple will put some more effort into the graphics of Macs because of the support of OpenCL and similar features in Snow Leopard
That's where Snow Leopard comes in
Yes, I am really looking forward to Snow Leopard.
Should help out tremendously with the Mac Pro speed.
What's the rumor, why didn't ATI bring out the 4870 for Macs instead of the 3870?
I assume the 4870 is rumored bto high-end card for the Nehalem Mac Pro?
We can but hope. That would seem like an ideal combination as it looks like the HD4870 is a nice step up from the 8800GT/HD3870. I'm hoping to switch from my Power Mac G5 to something like that early next year so it should be a nice upgrade
We can but hope. That would seem like an ideal combination as it looks like the HD4870 is a nice step up from the 8800GT/HD3870. I'm hoping to switch from my Power Mac G5 to something like that early next year so it should be a nice upgrade
They should still offer upgrades to PowerMac G5 users... One of my friends has a PowerMac G5 that he probably wished he could upgrade.
Anyways, does anybody have any idea about exactly when AMD ships these cards? It's already June 26, so it's considered late June.
Yes, I'm getting antsy... just bought a Mac Pro a few weeks back and was planning on putting two of these into it (for Crossfire under Bootcamp for game playing when not in OS X). Now I'm thinking of springing for a 4870 for Bootcamp only and getting the 3870 for the Mac side.
4870s aren't available yet for Macs probably because ATi just doesn't have enough of them. They aren't wide available yet (ETA july 8th supposedly) and the ones that have tricked to etailers have been snatched up within minutes so demand is very high.
The 4870 you speak of, thats a PC version, correct?
Wouldnt that not allow you to boot into OS X? As far as I know, all PC based graphics cards stall the system when trying to boot into OS X. If the 4870 does not, I may as well keep my Geforce 7300 but slap a 4870 into Slot 1 and set it to x16 lanes.
While I'm as disappointed as everybody else that the 8800 GT is not faster like I'd hoped it would be with Core Image tasks (and the fact that I paid more for it!), I will say there's one thing I like about it more than the 3870 - it's a single slot design. Potentially an issue if you'd prefer your card to run cooler, but I was eventually going to put three more PCIe cards in the mac pro (Have one additional, for eSATA already). If I get the desk space to move up to 3 monitors, I was thinking of getting the 3870 and using that as the primary card, but that doesn't seem like a possibility at this point if I'm going to have four cards in there. Maybe the 48xx series will have a mac edition in a single-slot design at some point, but until then it looks like I may just get a 2900 on the cheap if I go above two monitors. Anybody else with similar thoughts?
itsn't that why Apple has a double wide PCI-e slot. put in the 3870(a two slotter) and u still have 3 usable slots, just like u do with the 8800.
not sure if u plan on putting a total 5 cards in the MP, bc i am pretty sure it can only have 4 total. i did just check my MP twice to make sure i wasnt talkin out of my.....
So when exactly is the 3870 coming for the Mac???
The most important question is of course: will there be support for the 3870x2 also (by some means)? Its like the same thing with 2 chips on board, so it should work with some editing/flashing, right?
I really need a powerful graphics card expansion for BOTH osx and win kind of urgently, and i am planning on buying a PC 3870 version and later, when the mac edition comes out, flash it.
If the 3870x2 works too after this, buy one and crossfire them in windows. If not, buy another 3870 as two of those still perform a lot better than ONE 8800gt (in windows, of course).
Fans blowing on max when working in os x is of course unacceptable for me (i can manage with the PC card for some weeks, until the mac edition comes out, i hope), so i am thinking about some native drivers here.
Do we have any info about these things? Is this a good strategy? If so, what kind of PC 3870 card should i get, what should i pay attention to? ROM size,etc?!
The most important question is of course: will there be support for the 3870x2 also (by some means)? Its like the same thing with 2 chips on board, so it should work with some editing/flashing, right?
I really need a powerful graphics card expansion for BOTH osx and win kind of urgently, and i am planning on buying a PC 3870 version and later, when the mac edition comes out, flash it.
If the 3870x2 works too after this, buy one and crossfire them in windows. If not, buy another 3870 as two of those still perform a lot better than ONE 8800gt (in windows, of course).
Fans blowing on max when working in os x is of course unacceptable for me (i can manage with the PC card for some weeks, until the mac edition comes out, i hope), so i am thinking about some native drivers here.
Do we have any info about these things? Is this a good strategy? If so, what kind of PC 3870 card should i get, what should i pay attention to? ROM size,etc?!
That's right...I'd forgotten it had a double wide slot (Been a while since I cracked it open). Even though they only shipped single slot cards as BTO options...handy, though. Still makes me wonder if future Nvidia driver updates are forthcoming (apparently none in 10.5.4...), though. The 3870 may be a better bet in that case.
The 3870 X2 works in Windows because it uses Crossfire technology on one board, something OS X lacks. Unless ATI and Apple team up to make a Crossfire driver, the X2 wouldn't bring any benefit. That's not an easy task, and I doubt it'll come any time soon.
Retailers taking preorders fo the 3870 Mac and PC edition are saying shipments are coming sometime next week. We still don't know the exact info on the ROM size and such, so I'd take the safe route and wait just a little bit longer.
And I'm with you on the dual 3870s. Even though Crossfire isn't an option in OS X, it'll certainly work if you game in Windows on your Mac Pro, which is a pretty good gaming option.
The 4870 requires two 6-pin power adapters and the Mac pro has 2, but I think one is being used by the 1900 if I'm not mistaken? If you really think it's worth it, make sure you have 6-pin power cables. If you don't, try eBay.
Also realize that if you have two graphics cards for two different OSes, you'd have to switch which one the monitor is plugged in to frequently.
Also realize that if you have two graphics cards for two different OSes, you'd have to switch which one the monitor is plugged in to frequently.