Theory on X1900 XT shipping delays...

[UnixMac]

Well, I guess I won't be too disappointed if we only get the X1900 XT like we ordered.

I was just looking at some benchmarks on The Inquirer and I'm not all that impressed. I thought the difference would be much bigger!

In Quake 4, there is less than 1 frame difference for any resolution under
2048x1536. Even at that resolution it the X1950 XT only gets an extra 1.6 fps.

In Doom 3 there is less than 3 fps difference across the board w/o FSAA. Even with it there is still only 4.5 fps difference.


Granted the X1950XT is a little faster than the X1900XT, but that is it. Only a "little" faster. Even the reviewers state that they were not that impressed. After all, it is only going from the 1900 - 1950. How much difference can there really be in only 50?

Is Quake IV native for Intel? Universal Binary? Any other games that way.. Halo, Doom III, etc.. ?

 

[kered22]

Is Quake IV native for Intel? Universal Binary? Any other games that way.. Halo, Doom III, etc.. ?

Quake IV shipped as a UB, following update added the SMP support. Doom III has been UB since February I believe. Call of Duty 2 and Civilization IV shipped as UBs too and the Halo UB was just announced about a week ago I believe ($10 upgrade since they had re-write a lot of the code).

EDIT: Just rememberd macrumors has a UB guide Wiki:
http://guides.macrumors.com/Universal_Binary_Games

 

[UnixMac]

EDIT: Just rememberd macrumors has a UB guide Wiki:
http://guides.macrumors.com/Universal_Binary_Games

that's golden! Thanks.. so like in the example of DoomIII, you just download the UB update, and bag! you're UB?? OR do you have to repurchase a post Feb2006 version?

thanks

 

[macgeek2005]

that's golden! Thanks.. so like in the example of DoomIII, you just download the UB update, and bag! you're UB?? OR do you have to repurchase a post Feb2006 version?

thanks

All you need to do is download the update... it's free.

 

[UnixMac]

All you need to do is download the update... it's free.

cool, I'm doing that now.. btw, and you'll have to do this too.. When we get the new Pro's and connect the old and new Mac's together to move over our stuff.. will apps also transfer? or do we need to re-install Doom III, Photoshop, etc? Do you have a G5 you're replacing btw?

 

[macgeek2005]

cool, I'm doing that now.. btw, and you'll have to do this too.. When we get the new Pro's and connect the old and new Mac's together to move over our stuff.. will apps also transfer? or do we need to re-install Doom III, Photoshop, etc? Do you have a G5 you're replacing btw?

I have already sold the G4 tower that I was replacing. I took all 400GB of stuff and put it on external hard drives.

All my games, I plan on reinstalling on the new Mac Pro from the original disks.

Any software that I want on my Mac Pro I will install on it directly from the original disks. I don't think it's a good idea to drag over already installed applications.

Other than that, i'll drag my itunes library folder into it's respective place, i'll drop some saved games and such into documents, my iphoto library into pictures, and that's about it.

 

[kered22]

In the case of Call of Duty 2, you can just transfer the Game folder (with saved games) from a PPC Mac to an Intel Mac. I was curious about how COD 2 ran on my G5 versus my Dads Macbook Pro (it kicked my G5s ass BTW LOL) and wanted to try the Point Du Hoc mission since it had so much stuff going on. I just had to manually change the permissions but it loaded those fine.

So you should be okay with the others as long as the Apps are the same version. I the case of Quake IV, when the SMP update came out, I think it broke the previous game saves, so you had to re-play those through. Same with Halo, the old game saves won't work with the new UB.

 

[Mr. Mister]

The thing is that even if the diff between X1900 XTX and X1950 XTX isn't that great, if Apple changes the 1900 to 1950 they'll be forced to change the XT to XTX.

 

[ammon]

The thing is that even if the diff between X1900 XTX and X1950 XTX isn't that great, if Apple changes the 1900 to 1950 they'll be forced to change the XT to XTX.

Actually I doubt this would be the case. The only difference between the XTX and the XT is 25 MHz GPU clock speed and 50 MHz memory speed. Because Apple likes their cards to run cooler/quieter, I doubt they would increase these speeds.

It was noted somewhere else that Apple actually had the speed of both the GPU and memory lowered. But good thought!

 

[Mr. Mister]

It was noted somewhere else that Apple actually had the speed of both the GPU and memory lowered. But good thought!

If somebody said that about the Mac X1900 XT, they're full of it. I can't find anywhere on Apple's site where they note the core/mem clockspeed, so it's pure conjecture as to whether they changed it at all.

 

[relimw]

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.

Per the ATI press release:

On September 14th, both the Radeon X1950 XTX and Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition will ship from retailers, system integrators, with an estimated street price of US$449 or EUR399 (VAT included) for each card. The Radeon X1950 family will also be available shortly from leading OEM vendors, including Dell.

On a side note, does this mean 'leading OEM vendors' will be shipping before retailers?

 

[Dreadnought]

They always have done it in the past. And I have read here somewhere on MR that someone had found it, but don't know in which thread that was.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

If somebody said that about the Mac X1900 XT, they're full of it. I can't find anywhere on Apple's site where they note the core/mem clockspeed, so it's pure conjecture as to whether they changed it at all.

Many of Apple's video cards have been conservatively clocked to boost reliability and lower heat output/fan speeds. They did it with most of the Radeon 9xxx series, for example.

I wouldn't be surprised...

 

[Daspeed]

If somebody said that about the Mac X1900 XT, they're full of it. I can't find anywhere on Apple's site where they note the core/mem clockspeed, so it's pure conjecture as to whether they changed it at all.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2811&p=7

The Radeon X1900 XT used in the Mac Pro appears to have a 1.3GHz memory clock, which is slower than the 1.45GHz clock of the PC version. The core clock is also slower than the PC version at 600MHz, instead of 625MHz. Historically, ATI Mac Edition cards have always been clocked lower than their PC counterparts; ATI explained the reasoning behind this disparity as having to do with basic supply and demand. The demand for Mac video cards is lower than their PC counterparts, so ATI runs them at lower clock speeds to maintain their desired profit per card regardless of whether they are selling to Mac or PC markets.

 

[Mr. Mister]

Yes but where'd they find those figures?

 

[Daspeed]

Yes but where'd they find those figures?

Good question, I don't know (although I've been hearing these lower clocked card stories on Macs for a longer time). Anandtech is a reasonable reliable resource so, I wouldn't bet they're wrong.

 

[Mr. Mister]

I'm just going to email the guy methinks.

 

[ammon]

I'm just going to email the guy methinks.

Please let us know what you find out!

 

[Mr. Mister]

Please let us know what you find out!

I will, emailed him last night and haven't gotten a response yet but it's only 10:00 in the morning right now.

 

[ammon]

Interesting note - Tomorrow marks the first day that Apple *might* have started shipping the x1900xt.

When I placed my order (Aug 7th) they had a shipping time of 3 - 5 weeks. Well, tomorrow marks the end of the third week!

Anyone got a shipping notice yet?

 

[Chone]

Whats the big deal anyways? You can overclock the difference without voiding your warranty.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Whats the big deal anyways? You can overclock the difference without voiding your warranty.

Maybe...or maybe not. It's up to Apple.

The downclock won't be noticable for most people, and it's true that returning the core/mem speeds to their "factory" PC settings probably won't hurt the card at all. On the other hand turning the speed up will also probably not be noticable for most people - a 10 or 20% core/mem increase will not result in a corresponding increase in frames per second.

 

[macgeek2005]

Any updates on the status of the X1900XT delay?

 

[ammon]

Any updates on the status of the X1900XT delay?

Yeah - They are still delayed.

Sorry, I had to!

 

[Lord Blackadder]

My guess is that the shipping dates may slip due to higher than expected demand for the ATI card...don't hold your breath. The GeForce 7800GT was never a fast shipper at any point in the G5 Quad's life, so I don't expect any different here.