I am a big fan of what you have done to improve the Mac GFX card situation but I have one more favor to ask:
You have managed to make fully PCI-E 2.0 compatible cards with 5.0 GT/s link speed while the rest of us have ROMs that only give 2.5 GT/s. Please explain to us how this is possible so we can all benefit from your wisdom. I don't want to sell cards just use them to their full potential.
If you are unwilling to share this secret then can I send you a 5870 so you can make the changes yourself?
Yes, I figured this out. The drag is when I spend weeks or months to figure something out, decide to make that my exclusive thing or card and then the bozos at CrappleMePantix (or others) just take the result and sell it for a lower price. They spend $0 on R&D and then drive up prices on the cards needed to make, and undercut me on the other end. I get squeezed on both ends by clueless hacks who have done NOTHING for the community but help themselves to other's work.
I have worked with Netkas to help provide many new flashing options to the mac community. The bulk of it is handed out for free, no strings attached. If people want to do it at home and save money..GREAT...I even answer questions to help them. (You don't see Crapple doing that)
If people want to take the ATI rome and sell them on Ebay or Amazon GREAT, I think it would be more ethical if they occasionally mentioned who did the work behind their cards, but they never do. But the ROMs are handed out for whoever to do whatever they want. In return, I ask that my pioneering work with Nvidia cards be left alone. My friends (if I had any) could tell you about the weeks spent deciphering WHY a GTX285 2 Gig would not run right with original ROM and then the weeks spent making it work.
When some bozo in Ohio decides he has some right to this work and starts undercutting me by $10 to steal sales that I earned, I wonder why I spent so much time helping people.
In short, the 5.0 "secret" for 4870,5770,5870 and 6870 will remain precisely that. I took one 4 week class on computers when I was 14. If I can figure this stuff out on my own, anybody can. Netkas can confirm that I figured this out, he did nothing to even point me in right direction. I am able to do this with both Nvidia and ATI cards, and I put the hours in to figure it out. Someday I will post a How-To. Not today.
Enjoy the free info.
I will even add a useful bit of info for 8800GT fans. Buy EVGA 8800GTs. They ALWAYS have 128K chips. Another freebie from MacVidCards.
I just ask that the various sellers of flashed cards respect my work and stick to things they have figured out on their own.
If you read the posts by "Beige" on his 4870 1 Gig, you will see that the 2.5 vs 5.0 thing only matters in very specific circumstances. And Starcraft II isn't likely to be one of them.
My "behind the scenes" part of getting these cards available to you all is known by a few. I can honestly say that without me, your options would be much narrower.
And if an Nvidia card is what you need, get it from MacVidCards. We put the time and $$$ into figuring out cards to enable Mercury in 1st Gen and Fermi in 2008 & later. We alone bring new cards out that expand options. The day Steve Jobs passed I decided to release the Quadro 5000 for Mac. I expect to announce the Quadro 6000 for Mac this coming week. Please support our efforts to kep new cards coming. We helped create 5770 and 5870 market and have stayed out of it in hopes that others will avoid stealing our Nvidia work. Time will tell.
Enjoy the free stuff. Unless you need CUDA, a 6870 is a no-brainer right now. Just beware that many manufacturers are switching to a cheaper design that only has 1 @ DP instead of 2 @ MDP. Those cards can only run 1 Apple Display instead of 2 and only 3 displays instead of 4. If you don't care, great, get the cheaper ones. But if you have dreams of Dual 27" Apple LEDs, go for the Dual MDP ones.
The XFX cards use a cheaper 2 wire fan that is noticeably noisier and will certainly die sooner. Sadly, they are also the only ones with a reasonable priced 2 Gig card.
It is quite likely that an EFI32 flash will be available for 6870 eventually. Netkas will most likely be the one to write it. Be nice to him.
