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Radeon HD 3870 for Mac coming end of May

Stonebyte said:
Sorry if this has been covered already... I tried looking through this thread to find it, but it's so long my eyes started crossing.

Is there a difference between the "HD3870 PC and Mac Edition" and the HD3870 I can find at my local Microcenter, which sells for about $100 less?

I mean, if the hardware's the same...
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Yup, there is a difference. the Mac Edition has a special ROM that lets it work with Mac Pros. Apart from that, the hardware is pretty much identical. Unfortunately you'll have to pay that $100 premium if you want it to work in OS X.
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
Yup, there is a difference. the Mac Edition has a special ROM that lets it work with Mac Pros. Apart from that, the hardware is pretty much identical. Unfortunately you'll have to pay that $100 premium if you want it to work in OS X.
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Does it come with a tube of Vaseline ? :rolleyes:
 
To be honest, you can only find out if you get one. Its not the kind of thing that's documented online. Maybe have a look on some PC forums and try to find someone that owns one. They can then use ATIWinFlash to see how big the ROM is (or by physically looking at the memory chip on the card). Chances are though that its not big enough.
 
Does anyone else's 3870 spin up while watching YouTube videos? Mine kind of spins up then down then up then down while playing YouTube videos. I don't mind it spinning up when I'm playing WoW but its kind of annoying when watching videos - especially as it doesn't even stay on, just spins up and down and up and down. :(
 
Forgive my ignorance but why is the XT1900 more expensive than the 3870?

http://eshop.macsales.com/search/video+cards+PCI+Express

I'm looking at the pictures and the XT1900 definitely looks more beefy; is this any indication of its performance?

At any rate, I'm thinking about upgrading my 2600XT to play some games in XP without doing the 1+1 configuration (1 for OSX 1 for bootcamp).
 
supercooled said:
Forgive my ignorance but why is the XT1900 more expensive than the 3870?

http://eshop.macsales.com/search/video+cards+PCI+Express

I'm looking at the pictures and the XT1900 definitely looks more beefy; is this any indication of its performance?

At any rate, I'm thinking about upgrading my 2600XT to play some games in XP without doing the 1+1 configuration (1 for OSX 1 for bootcamp).
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Probably because it's not manufactured anymore and any stock left is going to be kept at that price for people who want to replace existing one with same card

The 3870 is what I would think for the overall best choice for one card that does well in OS X and Windows - 8800gt would still be a stepup for you gaming wise but has quirks in OS X
 
Eugh, this card is kind of annoying. It spins up if its even remotely moved. As soon as I start dragging a window around, I can hear the fan spin up and when I stop dragging, it stops. Found the same thing when I was zoomed in using Alt+Apple+=. When zoomed, as soon as I move my mouse and the screen changes, the fan spins up. As soon as I stop, the fan stops.

Come on, these fan settings are *far* too low. When playing a game, fine, but when moving a window???
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Better than the flashed 6800GT in my G4 - the fan always runs full tilt. ;)
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Ouch!! I thought the days of noisy computers would be gone when you stop building your own PCs but alas no. I'm hoping the fan won't be as bad soon - its very hot here at the moment in my flat but hopefully I should be moving soon. (Prays)
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
Ouch!! I thought the days of noisy computers would be gone when you stop building your own PCs but alas no.
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Well, the G4 towers have a reputation for noisiness, and it isn't helped by the fact that I'm running a hot GPU with a hacked ROM, three HDDs, an OC'd processor and a PCI slot fan. Surprisingly, this setup has been stable for over two years, though the system will start to overheat if the ambient room temperature rises much above 80F and you run 3D computer games.

But yeah, it's pretty loud. Some day I will buy a Mac Pro with the best GPU available, but in the meantime my old warhorse will soldier on noisily. I have a quieter Radeon X850 PRO that I could flash, but I'd lose my DVI connectivity and the picture quality with a VGA output @ 1680x1050 is noticeably inferior.
 
Just a quick question, I watch a number of fansubs n VLC/MPlayer. Will I see a significant performance increase with card over the 7300?
 
It doesn't look like 2 years to me...

"Mac4ever (french) received word from ATI that while the Radeon HD 4870 X2 will not be coming for the Mac, ATI has confirmed that both the Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850 will be coming for the Mac "soon"."
 
afyonhayat said:
#117
I hope ATI will their include "ATI Displays" with their 3870. This program made ATI shine on mac os x. I am not interested it.
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For a brief moment I felt like I time travelled to the good old days of 2008 when the tower Mac Pro still existed and Apple still cared a lot about the Mac.

Sadly, it was just a temporary feeling.
 
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LOL, almost 10 years old..!

Loved my Mac Pro 2008... (Stil have it for occasional nostalgia)
I also miss those days... real fun WWDC with huge new Mac OS X features, Mac hardware intros (G5, Intel, etc.) true Server OS and, of course, the brilliant Steve-notes...

And, yeah, I loved my ATi grfx too. Even way back on Mac OS 9 you had the ATi Display utility.
 
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zorinlynx said:
For a brief moment I felt like I time travelled to the good old days of 2008 when the tower Mac Pro still existed and Apple still cared a lot about the Mac.
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I went there this morning too, but on a different site. Check this out:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xkq8k/mac-pro-upgrade-community

It made me feel like I should have kept my old cheese grater Mac around. I don't normally get nostalgic about my gear, but I truly felt sad the day I packed that giant hunk of aluminum in a box and shipped it off as part of a trade-in to get a 2012 MBP.

A couple of years ago, I saw a boutique that had a cheese grater Mac as their store computer. I couldn't stop looking at it.
 
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