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What 5K iMacs mean for cMP

M

MacVidCards

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Original poster
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
We already knew R9 290x had driver support.

Now we know why.

So Yosemite should continue offering better AMD support (despite being 2nd rate GPUs)

If you put an 290x in your cMP it will not have boot screens, but will fire up once Yosemite boots.

It will be constrained to PCIE 1.0. In both OSX and Windows. (We already know how to make it 2.0 ;-)

As to the crucial question of boot screens, it will all be about whether they wrote a UGA or a GOP EFI for new AMD cards. Industry has gone GOP, if it is, we may never have boot screens. If it is Uga then pray to the great and powerful Netkas that he figures out a way to mod it into a desktop rom.

Still remains to be seen how they did 5k on a card that is warmed over Tahiti. May explain why they spent time doing MST back in 10.9.3, they knew they were going to need it.

Netkas says the 290x mobile is a warmed over 7870. Meh
 
When the AMD GPU's break with all that heat running opencl on top of pushing all them pixels after a few years our cheese-graters will keep on going.

Another Radeongate is coming in 2016/7 unless they have improved that cooling system from the previous model or change the way they paste their dies.

You'll still have plenty of work MVC I have no doubt!
 
So does it seem as though AMD cards are the better choice if you want
to have 4K at 60Hz?
 
Well, at least we will get full driver support for Tonga (Radeon HD 285), which the M295X 4GB is based on.
 
Pending said:
So does it seem as though AMD cards are the better choice if you want
to have 4K at 60Hz?
Click to expand...

Apple has sold out for low cost ahead of performance.

These iMacs would have been 100% better with Nvidia cards.

But AMD being desperate (laying off more workforce right now) Apple had a chance to twist arms and get custom work done.

Once we have EFI for 970/980 there will be some AWESOME cards that run circles around anything from AMD.

And I already published the "how to" on 4K 60 Hz for Nvidia cards. Going to get easier.
 
MacVidCards said:
Apple has sold out for low cost ahead of performance.

These iMacs would have been 100% better with Nvidia cards...
Click to expand...

100% better than *what* nVidia card? If you mean the 980m, how could Apple have possibly used that? They were only released a couple of weeks ago. nVidia would have to have been producing thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) of 980m chips per month back in August, else the entire retina iMac launch would be jeopardized.

Re 100% better, actual tests so far indicate the retina iMac with m295x is considerably faster than the previous top-end iMac with nVidia 780m. However limited, this is an actual test not somebody looking at a spec sheet and making assumptions.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20117830/
 
MacVidCards said:
These iMacs would have been 100% better with Nvidia cards.
Click to expand...

OK, how is that? The present top of the heap appears to be the AMD 295x2, of which I have one. AMD has suffered from bad drivers (mainly frame pacing, now fixed along with many other improvements), not as good support from games (irrelevant for Macs), but have the virtue of running cooler. This is probably why Apple favors them, as their MO seems to be low power and low heat, which is what you want for 99% of users. Apple is mercenary with supply chain pricing, I've no doubt they can get as much squeeze on Nvidia as AMD. Thermals matter more here in their never ending quest for thin.

Nvidia just solved the performance issue by throwing silicon at it, but I get the impression they've hit some price/heat limits there. Whereas AMD still has headroom in that department, as evidence by recent chips which is more transistor increase than technology.
 
AMD is laying off 7% of it's workforce and they are not the engineers according to Dr. Lu. AMD has been saying for quite a while now one of their focus areas is custom Apple "needs" custom therefore AMD would be their natural go-to company for that.
 
MacVidCards said:
Once we have EFI for 970/980 there will be some AWESOME cards that run circles around anything from AMD.

And I already published the "how to" on 4K 60 Hz for Nvidia cards. Going to get easier.
Click to expand...

so, thinking selfishly - worth taking advantage of the EVGA step up program to move from a 780 6g to a 980? Or not enough additional awesome to bother?
 
If Apple indeed bring a TB 5k display, I look forward to a solution to use with cMP.
If that's impossible, I guess that will only accelerate myself switching sooner than later to a nMP. My plan is to keep my cMP for another two years but, we'll see.
One thing is sure, I am not interested in getting an iMac, even though that display is awesome.
 
gugy said:
If Apple indeed bring a TB 5k display, I look forward to a solution to use with cMP.
If that's impossible, I guess that will only accelerate myself switching sooner than later to a nMP. My plan is to keep my cMP for another two years but, we'll see.
One thing is sure, I am not interested in getting an iMac, even though that display is awesome.
Click to expand...

The problem is that both cMP and nMP owners are likely to be left in the cold for a 5K display anytime soon. Apple has gone ahead and released a retina 5K Mac the only way it can--through its own brew of alchemy and whatever has been done to Displayport inside that computer. Displayport 1.2 in Thunderbolt 2 isn't going to support 5K, at least not without the same MST two panels-act-as-one shenanigans we've been seeing with 4K. That means less reliable hardware and software setups (we don't know, unless I'm out of date, if the new Dell 5K will work with its two-DP setup under OS X.)
=
 
fuchsdh said:
The problem is that both cMP and nMP owners are likely to be left in the cold for a 5K display anytime soon. Apple has gone ahead and released a retina 5K Mac the only way it can--through its own brew of alchemy and whatever has been done to Displayport inside that computer. Displayport 1.2 in Thunderbolt 2 isn't going to support 5K, at least not without the same MST two panels-act-as-one shenanigans we've been seeing with 4K. That means less reliable hardware and software setups (we don't know, unless I'm out of date, if the new Dell 5K will work with its two-DP setup under OS X.)
=
Click to expand...

I understand some of the current limitations in hardware. I hope Apple can at least figure out a solution for nMP a little bit down the road.
Makes not much sense on a marketing standpoint to have this amazing display that is geared mostly at professionals (like the sales video they did at the keynote) and not have it available for the most professional of their machines. The MacPro.
 
gugy said:
I understand some of the current limitations in hardware. I hope Apple can at least figure out a solution for nMP a little bit down the road.
Makes not much sense on a marketing standpoint to have this amazing display that is geared mostly at professionals (like the sales video they did at the keynote) and not have it available for the most professional of their machines. The MacPro.
Click to expand...

Isn't Apple at the mercy of TB3 and DP 1.3? Now that I've had a day to digest the event, and read comments, they may have a new Cinema display and nMP ready to go but they are waiting for ability to drive 5K externally.
 
AppleDroid said:
Isn't Apple at the mercy of TB3 and DP 1.3? Now that I've had a day to digest the event, and read comments, they may have a new Cinema display and nMP ready to go but they are waiting for ability to drive 5K externally.
Click to expand...

And if I'm not mistaken, 1.3 isn't expected until Skylake, aka that revision *after* the perenially delayed Broadwell, aka 2016. Then factor in the delay for Xeons...
 
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