Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

sunmade

macrumors newbie
Jun 9, 2004
7
0
this is hot...oh wait I have just ordered my G5 2 months ago, still not here and it has the 9800xt...please arrive soon please
I don't want to fall asleep while using Motion...ah well, you always want the top notch hardware..but can't do

I guess the 9800xt will do just fine.
Can't wait to hear how bad the noise is in comparision to other cards.
Also a major issue for me.

future's looking good
 

SWC

macrumors 6502
Jan 6, 2004
332
179
ATI vs. nvidia is kind of the opposite on the Mac vs the PC.

ATI can't develop a driver to save their a$$ on the PC side of things and performance isn't that great overall compared to the nvidia offerings.

The situation seems to be that nvidia can't develop a mac driver to save themselves where ATI has fairly decent drivers. I am not sure if it's nvidia or apple making these drivers, I almost want to beleive its apple developers making the drivers as you can't download any OSX drivers from nvidia.com but you can download drivers from ati.com for the mac. So is it apple crippling the card because they can't write a video driver or nvidia?
 

Tiauguinho

macrumors 6502a
Mar 5, 2002
647
0
The Netherlands
I was really waiting for this card! Mainly because I have an old 20'' Cinema (ADC owns for just one cable!). Was really tempted to go for a 6800 GT, but with this, I can for for ATI, not taking any adjacent slots, less heat, tiny and kick ass for the benches that barefeats shows! Waiting for it to get to europe now :)
 

Lord Blackadder

macrumors P6
May 7, 2004
15,670
5,503
Sod off
This is sweet. :)

ATI has got everything right in its relationship with the Apple community, i.e. THEY write the drivers and update them often. Not to mention the ATI Displays Control Panel, which is very useful. Plus you can buy a card direct from them.

Still, we won't know what nVidia's 6800 is capable of for some time because of the crap drivers.

Well, I hope somebody hurries up and figures out how to put this in a G4, so I can have bragging rights. :p
 

Eric5h5

macrumors 68020
Dec 9, 2004
2,489
591
Photorun said:
NICE! Now if I only had $500! :rolleyes:

Fortunately, I do at the moment...I'm actually pretty happy with my 9600, but there are those upcoming games to think about (Doom III and whatnot). In the meantime I suppose I could bump up the resolution in Halo.

I don't see that the 6800 can compete at all...$100 more exensive, bigger, generally less performance. Based on some comments I've read in the past from Mac developers, ATI seems at least a little bit interested in the Mac, which shows in the driver performance. I doubt the nVidia drivers will ever be ideal, because they don't care at all, so the Apple guys have to do all the work with no help. Also, I personally couldn't do without the ATI Override thingy...there are few modern games that don't benefit from it in some way, and it's essential for older games.

--Eric
 

WannaWiki

macrumors newbie
Dec 20, 2004
11
0
woohoo

woohoo an awesome new video card... now if only there were some good games to make use of it. Yes yes I know, I've beat doom 3 already and there's no way I'm getting addicted to WoW.
 

whooleytoo

macrumors 604
Aug 2, 2002
6,607
716
Cork, Ireland.
Ack.. nothing like gaming hardware benchmarks to make your old Mac feel inadequate! I can remember when I thought my old iMac was the bee's knees, and now it can rarely/barely get 20fps in UT2004 at min settings, while this monster gets 69 fps at 1900x1200 maxed out.
 

limi

macrumors newbie
Sep 9, 2003
15
0
Oslo, Norway
Does this make it possible to use the 30" with a PC?

Just bought the 23" display myself, but a friend of mine is considering buying a 30" for his setup, but would need it to work with both Mac and PC.

His only option until now has been the ludicrously priced (and slow) FireGL/Quadro cards.

Does anybody know if this card will make it possible to drive the 30" from a PC too?
 

Mord

macrumors G4
Aug 24, 2003
10,091
23
UK
it's not a pc card so no it wont, the pc would need a dual link card like an ati fire gl.
 

panphage

macrumors 6502
Jul 1, 2003
496
0
how long do we think until card makers can drop the ADC connector on new cards and stop using that as an excuse not to give the Mac world the very best and very newest?
 

hvfsl

macrumors 68000
Jul 9, 2001
1,867
185
London, UK
SWC said:
ATI vs. nvidia is kind of the opposite on the Mac vs the PC.

ATI can't develop a driver to save their a$$ on the PC side of things and performance isn't that great overall compared to the nvidia offerings.

The situation seems to be that nvidia can't develop a mac driver to save themselves where ATI has fairly decent drivers. I am not sure if it's nvidia or apple making these drivers, I almost want to beleive its apple developers making the drivers as you can't download any OSX drivers from nvidia.com but you can download drivers from ati.com for the mac. So is it apple crippling the card because they can't write a video driver or nvidia?

At the moment, ATI are making better Mac and PC drivers than Nvidia. The only advantage Nvidia really has at the moment is slightly better OpenGL performance on the PC side.
 

dfig

macrumors newbie
Jan 5, 2005
2
0
Why Mac only Video Cards?

It has bothered me for a long time that Apple does not use standard PC video cards. They use the same core chips, the same slots, what's the difference? If there is not a good technical reason then Apple is really shooting themselves in the foot (or leg).

Apple has done a good job of adopting other standard formats, why not here?
 

Windowlicker

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2003
713
1
Finland
I'm not too familiar with all this video card talk.. Does this mean that the lower end models will get cheaper not that they have an X800 out?

Also, how much/fast do the prices of these cards drop? I'm possibly looking for a replacement card for my 5200fx next summer. And I think I should get the 9800 or something.
 

rog

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2003
422
107
Kalapana, HI
Now if only they would bring the price down on the Retail 9800 to like the $150 or so that it's worth given how old it is and how cheap the PC version is. They'd still make money and there are a lot of us with G4s and G5s that could benefit from a video card upgrade.
 

ipodmann

macrumors member
Nov 11, 2004
47
0
Awesome!! :)

With this card and Tiger and a 3ghz machine in 6 months, I will have the ultimate machine for a whole 6 months. :D
 

McKs

macrumors member
Apr 8, 2003
55
0
dfig said:
It has bothered me for a long time that Apple does not use standard PC video cards. They use the same core chips, the same slots, what's the difference? If there is not a good technical reason then Apple is really shooting themselves in the foot (or leg).

Apple has done a good job of adopting other standard formats, why not here?

because windows uses a different pixel format than the Mac (I think Mac is 5 Red, 5 Green, 5 Blue + 1 Alpha value, while on the PeeCee it's 6 Red, 5 Green and 5 Blue) Anyway, this needs to be supported in ROM, and you can only have one or the other in the ROM.
 

wymer100

macrumors member
Apr 16, 2002
53
0
McKs said:
because windows uses a different pixel format than the Mac (I think Mac is 5 Red, 5 Green, 5 Blue + 1 Alpha value, while on the PeeCee it's 6 Red, 5 Green and 5 Blue) Anyway, this needs to be supported in ROM, and you can only have one or the other in the ROM.

That's for 16-bit. I believe that the 32bit is the same. I could also be an endian issue. One uses big endian while the other uses little endian (can't remember which uses which?).
 

heisetax

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2004
944
0
Omaha, NE
X800 was already demoed

MacsRgr8 said:
BTW, I find it astonishing that ATi has released it now..... rather than at the expo next week.

Or is it better to hit the news now, instead of getting dimmed in the limelight of Apple's gr8 releases at the Expo.


Since they had already demoed this board this is just the next step. Actually shipping them would be the real news. They also got the short end of one of Steve Jobs baby fit tyrants. ATI cards have usually seemed better in Macs than Nvidia cards. No one says that you must purchase the ATI card or the Nvidia card. It seems that Mac people complain that they do not have enough choices, then when a choice comes they (some of them any way) seem to complain just as loud.

I wanted to have 2 30" monitors, but because of their large size I would be unable to see my clients if I had 2 of them on my desk & still be able to see them on the other side of my desk. I have my new 23" display now, no bad pixels or colors like some have said. This will allow the purchase of a new G5 tower when the new models come out, an ATI X800 video card & a 30" display. If they don't offer the ATI card then I'll just take the stock ATI card & give it to my son with his Nvidia 5200 in his dual 1.8 GHz G%. I for one do not want to give up 1 of only 3 PCI slots in a G5.

Bill the TaxMan
 

JackAxe

macrumors 68000
Jul 6, 2004
1,535
0
In a cup of orange juice.
ipodmann said:
Awesome!! :)

With this card and Tiger and a 3ghz machine in 6 months, I will have the ultimate machine for a whole 6 months. :D

You mean 2 months, because by the time your new system finally ships, 4 months will arlready have passed. :D

<]=)
 

nguyenhm16

macrumors newbie
Aug 13, 2004
26
30
dfig said:
It has bothered me for a long time that Apple does not use standard PC video cards. They use the same core chips, the same slots, what's the difference? If there is not a good technical reason then Apple is really shooting themselves in the foot (or leg).

Apple has done a good job of adopting other standard formats, why not here?

The technical reason is that a video card contains firmware that has to operate on the host system. For PCs it is the video BIOS, written in x86 machine code, for the Mac version, the firmware, whatever it is called, is written in PowerPC machine code, or even Forth (possible if it hooks into the Mac's OpenFirmware).

Unless Apple builds a tiny x86 emulator just to run a PC video BIOS, like the old DEC Alpha workstations (which is why they could use PC video cards out of the box), video card makers have to write PowerPC/Mac specific firmware. You also can't expect to plug a PC video card into a Sparc or IBM workstations for the same reason, even if they had AGP slots.
 

DWKlink

macrumors regular
Nov 18, 2003
225
0
New York, NY
nguyenhm16 said:
The technical reason is that a video card contains firmware that has to operate on the host system. For PCs it is the video BIOS, written in x86 machine code, for the Mac version, the firmware, whatever it is called, is written in PowerPC machine code, or even Forth (possible if it hooks into the Mac's OpenFirmware).


Isn't it also a Direct X / Open GL issue as well?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.