macgeek2005 said:
100%? Please stop getting your hopes up like that! You will almost certainly be disappointed...
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Theory on X1900 XT shipping delays...
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100%? Please stop getting your hopes up like that! You will almost certainly be disappointed...
jordansampson said:
Did they tell the MacBook Pro buyers?? I'm not familiar with that case, anyone?
Someone Could Just Call Apple And Ask If They Had Plans To Upgrade The X1900? Then If They Do Ask If Thats Why The Delay Is So Long. If They Say No, Tell Them You Would Like To Cancle Your Order And Wait. They Will Let You In On Their Little "secret" If Its Realy The Case.
Like I Said, It Makes No Sence. People Have Planed Shipping Dates Of Sep 8th And 9th. And 4 Days Dosent Realy Give Them Much Time To Config All The Upgraded Computers Before They Start Mass Shipping Them. I Realy Wouldnt Be 100% At This Point.. More Like 2%
Like I Said, It Makes No Sence. People Have Planed Shipping Dates Of Sep 8th And 9th. And 4 Days Dosent Realy Give Them Much Time To Config All The Upgraded Computers Before They Start Mass Shipping Them. I Realy Wouldnt Be 100% At This Point.. More Like 2%
jordansampson said:
There was a time, not too long ago when you called Apple and got someone who KNEW what he was talking about... these days quite honestly, I get more "good" true info off this forum and the other Mac forums, than any Apple tech/sales guy!
I miss especially the Apple care guys that REALLY understood the mac, rather than just read off a trouble shooting manual.
When they were announced, they were 1.6 and 1.8Ghz, when they shipped, Apple bumped the 1.6 to 1.8 and the 1.8 to 2Ghz and added the 2.1 Ghz option.UnixMac said:Did they tell the MacBook Pro buyers?? I'm not familiar with that case, anyone?
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/02/14/macbookpro/index.php
So a surpise is possible, either a surprise upgrade or there were some unexpected bugs that creeped in.
UnixMac said:it wouldn't be the first time they've dont that, so this isnt' a reason to hope.. it's more to do with that date.. Like others said, the 1900 has been out for a while; why would there be a shortage of a GPU that's been produced for the last 6-8 months??
This could make waiting REALLY worth it!
Not a shortage of the GPU, per se... but rather timing issues on firmware changes, and manufacturing of the board with the larger ROM chip.
And mine is supposed to ship by the 12th... a little too soon for Apple to have X1950s tested and in-hand for shipping methinks.
Krevnik said:
Well it is an "estimated ship date" after all.
Think about it. The X1900 is a year old. There is no way in hell i'm wrong!
macgeek2005 said:
The X1900 is a year old, but this is the first version what will use UGA firmware and the larger ROM chip to support it. You can't just wave away software dev time by saying "Oh, the hardware is a year old". I would give good odds to UGA support being the factor, especially since ATi wouldn't have gotten a good Mac Pro prototype. If something came up broken on the production hardware, delays would happen.
You seem to know about the card K..
What is UGA, and why the bigger ROM.. is this a Mac specific card then? I've heard only the drivers are different from the PC version.. no?
What is UGA, and why the bigger ROM.. is this a Mac specific card then? I've heard only the drivers are different from the PC version.. no?
UnixMac said:
I know firmware, considering that is what I spent 3 years working with and studying for college.
For video to work correctly before the OS is loaded (so you can get that nice scrolling startup text on PCs, or the OS selector on Apple's hardware), your BIOS/EFI/OpenFirmware has to be able to talk to the card. Well, it would be poor design if you wired the 'drivers' into the computer's firmware, so the card comes with firmware of its own which is loaded by the PC's firmware and used to talk to the card before the OS' drivers take over.
BIOS, EFI, and OpenFirmware are all different enough that they can't just load one ROM. UGA (Universal Graphics Adapter) is a specification for designing video card firmware that EFI can load, but contains code that BIOS can load too. If you read up a bit on InsideMacGames around MWSF 06, you would have found a news article written from a chat with ATi where they still said the firmware was different from standard PC cards. The reason for the larger ROM is because of the fact that EFI uses bytecode, like Java and OpenFirmware, and contains quite a few libraries. It isn't nearly as simple as the BIOS of yore.
So the reason why Mac cards work in Windows is either the Intel Macs' CSM is emulating the BIOS interface to the video card for Windows (quite possible), or that the video card is running a UGA firmware.
It has already been confirmed that PC cards only work under Windows, so that pretty much tells me that UGA or something related is being used for the Mac cards, and is incompatible with the EFI implementation Apple has. That means dev work for ATi before they can launch (and the x1600 that Apple used was in development for /6/ months before the MWSF launch).
Mr. Mister said:
Alright fine, maybe i'll get a X1900XT in my computer, but who cares? Am I gonna feel a difference in gameplay? No.
didnt apple cut relations with ATI??
Like, they where going to use only NVIDIA with they're stuff... or that was with Intel??
cant remember...
Like, they where going to use only NVIDIA with they're stuff... or that was with Intel??
cant remember...
mr.barkan said:
That was a rumor that went around at one point. However Intel did just get friendly with ATI, so if Apple continues to use Intel CPUs then their future with ATI remains to be seen...
Oh, and just a quick note, it looks like the X1950s will be fairly cheap! The X1950 Pro will sell for only $199! Granted that is only the Pro version and not the XT version, but still... I would imagine the XT version would be around the $249-$299 price mark.
Hopefully this rumor I started turns out to be true.... ammon said:That was a rumor that went around at one point. However Intel did just get friendly with ATI, so if Apple continues to use Intel CPUs then their future with ATI remains to be seen...
Oh, and just a quick note, it looks like the X1950s will be fairly cheap! The X1950 Pro will sell for only $199! Granted that is only the Pro version and not the XT version, but still... I would imagine the XT version would be around the $249-$299 price mark.
There is no "Hopefully" in this case. It's a fact.
1. The X1900XT is a year old.
2. It would not take apple this long to get them ready for the Mac Pro's.
3. It wouldn't be the first time since the Intel Transition began that apple does a surprise bump of some sort to the product, right before it begins shipping.
4. Apple likes to please their customers.
5. The X1950XT supports HDCP and apple is all for High Definition, it's their thing.
macgeek2005 said:
Proof? So far you have only offered conjecture.
Your point? The G5 got the X800 quite late in the X800s lifespan when everyone was talking about the new X850s. Age of a product rarely means something is new in the pipe when it comes to Apple and video cards. The PowerBook G4 12" used a 5200Go to it's death /this January/, even though it was going on 2-3 years old.
It wouldn't... it could easily take ATi this long though. Apple doesn't prepare ATi cards, ATi does for Apple. IIRC, Apple only manufactures their own nVidia boards from the reference designs nVidia provides. Saying Apple is taking longer than normal is irrelevant, since ATi is manufacturing the boards for both CTO and after-market configurations.
Also notice that there was only one time... and with one product, and /one/ specific component. There is no precedent set IMO when they do it with one product over the course of multiple years. Even if you remove previous years, only one product got bumped at a time the consumer in general (not just Apple's) were complaining about the Core Duo pricing, and AMD was providing market pressure of their own.
This may be true, but it is hardly evidence of anything, when they shove a 7300GT as the default card in a Mac Pro without a true mid-line card for those who don't want an X1900, is it?
Apple is pushing beyond DVI+HDCP into the new display connector spec which is kinda like HDMI for computers. Apple might not even be interested in BluRay/HD-DVD just yet until things settle down a bit, which is really what everyone but the major stakeholders in the formats have been doing.
Sorry folks, but those hoping for the X1950XTX will be disappointed.
There is always time lag for cards becoming available to the Mac, and when they do arrive they are in chronically short supply - resulting in the long shipping dates. It isn't due to Apple cooking up a nice surprise for us.
Flashing a PC card remains the quickest way to get a hot new card in your Mac.
There is always time lag for cards becoming available to the Mac, and when they do arrive they are in chronically short supply - resulting in the long shipping dates. It isn't due to Apple cooking up a nice surprise for us.
Flashing a PC card remains the quickest way to get a hot new card in your Mac.
These two strike me as the most foolish. On the first, how the heck do you know? It took Apple months to get the 6800 Ultra shipping, it was a total fiasco.macgeek2005 said:
On the second, "high definition" is something Macs, and all relatively fast computers, are capable of. This point I'm finding hard to argue against simply because it's clear you have little understanding of high def. Current Macs can play 1080p HD video. HDCP and graphics cards have little to nothing to do with this: HDCP is a friggin' Vista gig to control movie piracy, while HDMI has to do more with output to HDTVs than ANYTHING computer-related.
I have to admit though, the timing is quite impeccable and I would very much like to see the X1950 XT come through, but I am quite prepared for when it doesn't.
I just cancelled my order and re-ordered because my dad wanted to get an ipod for $190 with it.
Now my ship date is the 20th of september, delivered by the 27th.
Now my ship date is the 20th of september, delivered by the 27th.
Haha, you didn't have to reorder. They don't have to be on the same invoice for the student iPod promotion.
EDIT: They do.
EDIT: They do.