When will we get better graphics cards??

[tony3d]

I just ordered the 3.06 12 core Mac Pro a few days ago. I am really pissed thinking all I can put into it is a 3 year old GPU. When will Apple deliver a new GPU option? They surely don't have to wait till the new Mac Pros come out. I mean aren't they embarrassed to be showing off a 3 year old card in there top workstation? HP has to be splitting a gut. All I can say is when they do it better run in my machine! I think this says it all!

 

[deconstruct60]

When will Apple deliver a new GPU option?

When there is a new Mac Pro.

They surely don't have to wait till the new Mac Pros come out.

Given there really isn't a retail environment that sells aftermarket GPU for Macs now ..... yes they do ( at least if the objective is to make money.... which it probably is).

EVGA and PNY both tried to sell "newer and/or faster" GPUs for the Mac Pro. Neither one of those efforts was a big success.

I mean aren't they embarrassed to be showing off a 3 year old card in there top workstation?

No. I don't think they are happy. But embarrassed is the wrong word. Most likely they screwed up in getting a new Mac Pro out to market and they are working through that screw-up. They are going to play out the crappy hand they have.

HP has to be splitting a gut.

Not really. HP's PC business nets about 4% margins. Apple's PC business nets about 30% ; about 5-7 times that amount. HP's PC business is far more jacked up than Apple's. This is like HP doing a 3 minute long "touchdown dance" here while trailing in score 6 to 35 . Childish BS.

Apple really wasn't their primary competitor. Dell has probably 2-3x the workstation marketshare that Apple has. Dell is only going to be a little late out of gate. HP would be dumb if their focus was on Apple. It really isn't who they are primarily competing against.

All I can say is when they do it better run in my machine! I think this says it all!

Depending upon when Apple told the graphics card markets that they had screwed up the Mac Pro upgrade and there was a window, there is modest chance that some player will try to step in. Probably require a Mountain Lion upgrade, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if some vendor gave it another shoot.

Depends on how long it is till the "next" Mac Pro. If this is a 6-7 month window and Apple just told the vendor in late May. Then no. If they put a vendor under NDA in Feburary , it will be 9+ months, and there is a Mountain Lion incremental patch for newer drivers, then it is a maybe. That some of last years cards are running with less hackery required in the developer versions of Mountain Lion makes it somewhat plausible.

 

[tony3d]

Depends on how long it is till the "next" Mac Pro. If this is a 6-7 month window and Apple just told the vendor in late May. Then no. If they put a vendor under NDA in Feburary , it will be 9+ months, and there is a Mountain Lion incremental patch for newer drivers, then it is a maybe. That some of last years cards are running with less hackery required in the developer versions of Mountain Lion makes it somewhat plausible.[/QUOTE]

Yes but the 5770 and 5870 run in my 2008. So your saying there is a good chance the new cards won't run in a one year old Mac Pro. That would make no sense for Apple to do that.

 

[dbit]

If you're mildly adventurous check out the posts on here from MacVidCards. He works with nvidia cards customized to work on the mac. Some of them are modified to provide boot screens while some are not, but he has some great options if you're not afraid of a 'little tweaking'.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1360927/

 

[deconstruct60]

So your saying there is a good chance the new cards won't run in a one year old Mac Pro. That would make no sense for Apple to do that.

Err... Mountain Lion doesn't run on 2008 Mac Pro let alone a one year old Mac Pro ??? It is an operating system.... not a Mac Pro model number. Mostly likely Apple won't support the 2008 but the card may run.

 

[dbit]

Also:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1330964/

 

[tony3d]

Err... Mountain Lion doesn't run on 2008 Mac Pro let alone a one year old Mac Pro ??? It is an operating system.... not a Mac Pro model number. Mostly likely Apple won't support the 2008 but the card may run.

I thought Mountain did run on a 2008?

 

[AlexMaximus]

Remember EVGA... a small chance remains..

I just ordered the 3.06 12 core Mac Pro a few days ago. I am really pissed thinking all I can put into it is a 3 year old GPU. When will Apple deliver a new GPU option? They surely don't have to wait till the new Mac Pros come out. I mean aren't they embarrassed to be showing off a 3 year old card in there top workstation? HP has to be splitting a gut. All I can say is when they do it better run in my machine! I think this says it all!

There is one very small and looming chance left on the GPU topic, and that is Nvidia. Don't forget, back in the day, EVGA introduced the EVGA Nvidia 285 GTX Card on the 2008 MP. This was a nice and refreshing upgrade that was kind of unusual for Apple. Since they really pissed us off with the no-go MP update, this is the one chance for Apple, to relive our pain.

An official EVGA 580 card for the MP 2012 upgrade, once Mountain Lion has been introduced. This is what I am hoping for. I think we have 30% chance for this scenario.

Lets hope guys, Apple will think about this option.

 

[Cindori]

Some of the cards you can get working in Mac Pro:

GTX 470
GTX 480
GTX 570
GTX 580
GTX 680 - low performance, not perfect drivers yet
ATI 6950
ATI 6970

all with bootscreens except for 680 and 69*0.

Takes 30 seconds to flash in Windows. Unfortunately Zeus won't be able to flash these cards. Trick is finding compatible cards if you don't feel like pasting together your own firmware. If you're feeling like skipping boot screen isn't that big of deal (you can select boot disk in System Preferences anyway), then it's even easier. Install a recent version of ATY_Init.kext and you're done. Many of the cards will even run straight from the box if you have latest drivers from Nvidia, but I'd say go with ATY_init anyway because Nvidia has suddenly removed their initialization support before.

http://forum.netkas.org/ is the best resource.

 

[netkas]

6970 has bootscreen on lower dvi too

 

[goMac]

Err... Mountain Lion doesn't run on 2008 Mac Pro let alone a one year old Mac Pro ??? It is an operating system.... not a Mac Pro model number. Mostly likely Apple won't support the 2008 but the card may run.

My 2008 Mac Pro would disagree with that.

 

[scottsjack]

I just ordered the 3.06 12 core Mac Pro a few days ago. I am really pissed thinking all I can put into it is a 3 year old GPU. When will Apple deliver a new GPU option? They surely don't have to wait till the new Mac Pros come out. I mean aren't they embarrassed to be showing off a 3 year old card in there top workstation? HP has to be splitting a gut. All I can say is when they do it better run in my machine! I think this says it all!

Yet another angry Mac Pro user protests by sending thousands of dollars to Cupertino.

 

[deconstruct60]

I thought Mountain did run on a 2008?

My 2008 Mac Pro would disagree with that.

I was talking about the card being enable on Mac Pros with Mountain Lion, but that the 2008MP and ML combol not being supported by Apple. That's why it ended with "but the card may run".

What Apple will probably not support is a newer video card in a 2008; even with the new OS. Cards that were not part of the 2008 , 2009 set of standard configs will not likely be supported on the 2008. Pretty sure Apple did similar for the 2010 card offerings. Those only go back a model version or two. No reason to expect them to change now.

 

[MacVidCards]

"Many of the cards will even run straight from the box if you have latest drivers from Nvidia, but I'd say go with ATY_init anyway because Nvidia has suddenly removed their initialization support before."

In reality, Nvidia Giveth, Apple taketh away, Nvidia Giveth again.

I think Netkas is best thing since sliced bread but the Nvidia drivers are a better choice when available. Among other things they are better at aute detecting RAM.

All indications are that ATI and Nvidia would like to offer more cards, they include the drivers but there is no 3rd party willing to take up the effort. There is one notable exception but the thanks really goes to Nvidia for including solid drivers in first place.

 

[thekev]

Regarding when the next one might show up, it depends what hardware generation is targeted. A board design aimed at Sandy Bridge E should also run the Ivy Bridge equivalent as they'll use the same chipset. If they're looking at the former, they could always eat this cycle and go for early next year. If they felt it would be possible this year, no update would have occurred. If they're targeting Ivy Bridge due to unwillingness to make updates on shorter cycles with a lower volume line, you could be looking at more than a year from now. Overall this is pretty bad.

Yet another angry Mac Pro user protests by sending thousands of dollars to Cupertino.

I'm hesitant to do the same thing. I may build a Windows box given that there are certain advantages and not as many drawbacks as reading this site might suggest.