X800 Video Card Wednesday?

[shamino]

Where does it state that it won't work with CoreImage in Tiger? (I don't care about Motion.)

According to the WWDC presentations, CoreImage will work with all video cards. The better your card, the more hardware acceleration you'll have behind the APIs. When Apple talks about cards that "support" CoreImage, they are talking about cards whose hardware can support most or all of its advanced features.

This is very different from Motion, which will not run at all if you don't have a video card capable of running its entire rendering pipeline in hardware.

BTW, a G5 is not required for Motion. A G4 with a top-end video card and sufficient memory will work just as well. As many people have reported, when rendering through Motion, the CPU load on the Mac is very low (around 10-15%), while the load on the graphics card is 100%.

Of course, the fastest Mac video cards are 8x AGP, and therefore require a G5....

 

[getTheMark]

UPDATE:

I've talked to ATI twice today. Both times were bad news. The first call at 09:30 EST they were unaware about the press release on their own site. I had to show the guy on the phone where it was. He then told me 'It will be available sometime" Sometime? Riiiight.

Second call 16:30 EST, press release and product info on ATI's site, they are somewhat aware about the Mac X800 card, but tells me that they had to take the online store page for the Mac X800 down, because they are selling too many of them to keep up. When I remind him that it was just announced today he tells me it has been on back order for ever and not to expect it for months.

I honestly think they are completely clueless about the Mac version of the card still. By the way, there is no X800 store page there for the PC card either and a search of their site using 'x800' doesn't find a video card. I can believe that the PC card is still that popular, but I'm convinced those Canadians are hiding the Mac ones for themselves.

Remember, I'm atFault

 

[Converted2Truth]

Here's some PC scores, it's only slighlty slower then the 6800U.

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-1304-x-x-x&body_pagenum=4

Unfortunately WoW defaults to the DirectX render path. This bench really doesn't say how they'd compete on a mac running WoW.

 

[shamino]

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?

It's my understanding that the ROM code is the only real difference between PC and Mac editions of video cards.

As you say, the chips are the same. But when a Mac boots up and OpenFirmware calls the "initialize" code, it better not find x86 software there!

I seem to remember some people hacking Mac firmware into PC cards to make them work. Obviously, your ability to do this will depend greatly on the card in question. Since the X800 is a brand-new card, there's no way to know if this trick will work with it. Any brave volunteers care to find out?

 

[shamino]

Re: PC card installed in a Mac

Isn't it also a Direct X / Open GL issue as well?

No. Those features are squarely in the realm of system software (APIs, subsystems and device drivers.) While manufacturers may design chips around these APIs (in order to streamline the drivers as much as possible), those same chips are used on both Mac and PC versions of the cards.

 

[Converted2Truth]

No. Those features are squarely in the realm of system software (APIs, subsystems and device drivers.) While manufacturers may design chips around these APIs (in order to streamline the drivers as much as possible), those same chips are used on both Mac and PC versions of the cards.

With the newer API's, in order for them to function properly, the video cards must allow for a certain level of programmability and features (commands). Older cards will not work with newer API's. I think the ATI 9200 is only DX8 compatible, but i could be wrong on that cause i spend more and more time on my mac as time passes.

 

[MrCommunistGen]

1 little,2 little, 3 little endian

I could also be an endian issue. One uses big endian while the other uses little endian (can't remember which uses which?).

As I recall it is an issue of endian-ness, but I can't remember which is which. Either way, the correct endian parameters must be supported at a firmware level on the card... that's why you flash the firmware on a PC card to make it a Mac card.

-mcg

 

[tazznb]

What Apple reeeeeeeealy needs

.......... is to adopt / support a real pro graphics card instead of the consumor manure that trickles down.

Oh well

What would make me happy for Powermacs is to be able to run something like the latest 3D Labs Wildcat cards; something like the "Wildcat Realizm 800" with its 640Mb vram instead of the paltry 256Mb vram the powermacs support.

It's nice to dream, though....

 

[ktlx]

I could also be an endian issue. One uses big endian while the other uses little endian (can't remember which uses which?).

PowerPC processors are big endian or Good Endian.

x86 processors are little endian or Bad Endian.

 

[Converted2Truth]

I used PC's exclusively until 2001. One thing i can't figure out... is why nobody flashes PC video cards with Mac roms? I've seen two on ebay this year and that's it. There's money to be made here, and the only reason i can conjure is this: There's got to be something different other than a ROM version. I don't know what it is... it's got to be something simple... but nobody has graced the mac forums with this ability for recent video cards. No good overclocking apps for nvidia cards either. I'd like to OC my 6800GT, but have no idea how... and there's no software around... that's for sure.

 

[Mord]

I used PC's exclusively until 2001. One thing i can't figure out... is why nobody flashes PC video cards with Mac roms? I've seen two on ebay this year and that's it. There's money to be made here, and the only reason i can conjure is this: There's got to be something different other than a ROM version. I don't know what it is... it's got to be something simple... but nobody has graced the mac forums with this ability for recent video cards. No good overclocking apps for nvidia cards either. I'd like to OC my 6800GT, but have no idea how... and there's no software around... that's for sure.

it is technically illegal and a fair few people do it especially cube owners who have to find pc cards that will fit in the cube and flash them (like 9200's 7000's and 8500 pcb based 9700's and the very elusive black pcb sapphire 9800 pro) but it can be hit and miss, if you find a brand that works all cards of the same design will work but the make revisions so suddenly it stops working with that brand, 9800 pro's flash very well as long as you use a reduced 64kb rom.

http://www.cubeowner.com for more flashing info (please dont post in the forum they get picky if you dont have a cube just read it and pm me if you have questions.)

as for overclocking no one has done it on a nvidea card, you could get the 6800 ultra rom and flash it to your 6800gt but you would have to go at either ultra or GT speeds no inbetween (to get the rom you have to find someone with and ultra and get them to extract the rom)

 

[JackAxe]

Here's something that I found very interesting the other day and maybe it will shed light onto one one of you hardware peeps for moding your Mac cards. This peep converted his 6800GT into a Quadro FX 4000; (He also shows the difference between the Ultra and GT.)

http://newbietech.net/eng/qtoq/nvidia/6800/6800mod.php


The 6800 GT, 6800, Ultra and Quadro FX 4000 are all exactly the same chip. The only physical difference is how a few hardware resistors were soldered. Don't know about the memory though, but that might adjust wtih the ID changed???

With my old PC, my GF2 Ultra used the same BIOS as a GT, so if this is still the case, then modding GT to an Ultra would just require some skilled soldering. I have a 6800U, I just don't know how to extract the ROM, but it could be the same as the GT.

<]=)

 

[Converted2Truth]

it is technically illegal and a fair few people do it especially cube owners who have to find pc cards that will fit in the cube and flash them (like 9200's 7000's and 8500 pcb based 9700's and the very elusive black pcb sapphire 9800 pro) but it can be hit and miss, if you find a brand that works all cards of the same design will work but the make revisions so suddenly it stops working with that brand, 9800 pro's flash very well as long as you use a reduced 64kb rom.

http://www.cubeowner.com for more flashing info (please dont post in the forum they get picky if you dont have a cube just read it and pm me if you have questions.)

as for overclocking no one has done it on a nvidea card, you could get the 6800 ultra rom and flash it to your 6800gt but you would have to go at either ultra or GT speeds no inbetween (to get the rom you have to find someone with and ultra and get them to extract the rom)

I have no idea how to 'extract' the rom from an existing, installed 6800Ultra. Do they make a program for that?

 

[cgc]

Now THAT's an interesting question. I don't have hard facts for you, but from the spattering of stats that I've seen, the 6800 Ultra appears to be slightly faster than the X800 XT at some tasks, but a lot of people prefer the X800 anyways mainly because it is a better engineered card. ATI gets better performance by making their technology better, whereas nVidia appears to just keep on cranking up the clock, and therefore the heat (thus the fact that their cards have taken up 2 slots since the high-end FX line).

I believe nVidia does better with OpenGL games, whereas ATI's cards were better tuned to DirectX games on the PC side. However, I don't know if they do any tuning to the drivers when they port these things to the Mac in order to make it all a more even playing field (since there is no such thing as DirectX on the mac).

Check out http://www.barefeats.com/radx800.html Looks snappy...

 

[LeonPro]

Personally, I'm not biting on any card. Not contented with my 9600 XT card, but I'll wait instead until Apple releases Tiger and see what latest card crops up or emerges as better and faster.

So no graphics card will run with the current PowerMac G5 under the PCI-X slot. I'm not familiar with the specs these days, but what's the reason for this? I thought the PCI-X was poised to replace both the AGP and PCI slots. Now I'm hearing it should have been PCIe. How much different is this with the current PCI-X?

EDIT: Okay, read on it and found this link which pretty much explains the difference.

PCI-E

 

[Nermal]

It's my understanding that the ROM code is the only real difference between PC and Mac editions of video cards.

As you say, the chips are the same. But when a Mac boots up and OpenFirmware calls the "initialize" code, it better not find x86 software there!

It's definitely possible to use 'PC' video cards with a PowerPC CPU, because the Pegasos PPC board can use them without any problems. So I don't know why you can't use PC cards in a Mac.

On an unrelated note, I noticed that this new card, unlike the 9800, uses the 28 V motherboard connector and doesn't need to be connected to the system power supply.

Edit: It looks like the 9800 Special Edition does this too (but the standard edition doesn't).

 

[invaLPsion]

The ATi X800XT looks great, but I'm still waiting for a true Nvidia 6800 Driver to make any judgements. The 6800 GT and Ultra are certainly not being used to their full potentials at the moment. We'll have to wait for Tiger to truly compare the cards. But, for now, ATi has won.

More info what I've gathered from Apple's support forums...

1. Apple is not suing true 6800 drivers at the moment.

2. We will have to wait for Mac OSX 10.4 "Tiger" for real ones tender made specifically for the cards.

 

[ASP272]

It's nice to have this new, more affordable option, but I still can't afford the darn thing!

 

[JackAxe]

Only one test really matters to me and that's Maya. Fortunately the 6800s and even a 5950U perform better then even the X800 PE in this area on the PC and with a good margin.

One thing, I'm not sure if this was already mentioned, but the X800 XT is running at a 100Mhz faster then the 6800U and 150Mhz then the GT.

<]=)

 

[shompa]

Here's something that I found very interesting the other day and maybe it will shed light onto one one of you hardware peeps for moding your Mac cards. This peep converted his 6800GT into a Quadro FX 4000; (He also shows the difference between the Ultra and GT.)

http://newbietech.net/eng/qtoq/nvidia/6800/6800mod.php


The 6800 GT, 6800, Ultra and Quadro FX 4000 are all exactly the same chip. The only physical difference is how a few hardware resistors were soldered. Don't know about the memory though, but that might adjust wtih the ID changed???

With my old PC, my GF2 Ultra used the same BIOS as a GT, so if this is still the case, then modding GT to an Ultra would just require some skilled soldering. I have a 6800U, I just don't know how to extract the ROM, but it could be the same as the GT.

<]=)

accually:
On a PC you can use Riva tuner on a plain 6800 card and enable the extra pipelines to make it an Ultra.
No soldering

 

[Platform]

I want one too. Too bad I already have a 6800

Why do you want the X800 instead of 6800

 

[shamino]

So no graphics card will run with the current PowerMac G5 under the PCI-X slot. I'm not familiar with the specs these days, but what's the reason for this? I thought the PCI-X was poised to replace both the AGP and PCI slots. Now I'm hearing it should have been PCIe. How much different is this with the current PCI-X?

PCI-X is (merely?) a PCI slot that runs at a faster speed. It is still far too slow for any decent kind of video card.

PCI Express is completely different. The only similarity to PCI is the name. It is supposed to eventually replace PCI and AGP. The PowerMac G5 does not have a PCI Express slot.

 

[Little Endian]

Anandtech posts a review of the X800 XT mac edition.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2313&p=1

Looks like they really are trying to be mac friendly. They did a lousy benchmark job though. Who cares about xbench? or should I say who trusts it.

 

[k2k koos]

X800

I don't know much about video cards, I'm an audio guy, but I think a new top notch video card for Macs is always a good thing. Choice is a good thing, and I am sure this thing is going to find it's uses in the Mac community. ATI seems to produce quality product on the whole...

 

[eclipse525]

Nvidia or ATI...????????

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

who ever has the most recent card out at the time. <LOL!> The keep flip-flop(no pun intended) for the top spot.


~e