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

Whats the point of Quad 7300GTs?

G

Gav

macrumors regular
Original poster
Hey all,

Just wondering, you know you can get Quad 7300GTs inside the Mac Pro... I was wondering, what would be the point? Is there a similar technology to SLI on PCs, do they work together?

Thanks,

Gav
 
Gav said:
Thought it might be actually. Strange how their is no mention of octo-monitors on the Apple site...
Click to expand...

The assumption from Apple is that if you are going to order a machine with 4 graphics cards you know what you're doing it for! Even if they operated in SLI, 4 7300s would only be a little faster than the ATI 1900 they offer and probably slower than an 8800 GTX...

I've never seen a functional 4 card SLI system even under Windows (unless you count the special 2-card cards)

Edit to add: on the store configuration page it does say "select a higher-performance card for more advanced graphics work, or add more than one card to power an array of displays simultaneously for visualization projects and large display walls."
 
😛 I highly doubt anyone has ever gone for the quad cards and hooked them up to 8x APPLE displays. That would cost a frightening £29,355 for 4x 23" and 4x 30"
 
Gav said:
Thought it might be actually. Strange how their is no mention of octo-monitors on the Apple site...
Click to expand...

SLI Works under Windows on the mac pro!

Some guys over at Appleinsider got it working.

In OS X however, that's a big no-go.
 
slughead said:
SLI Works under Windows on the mac pro!

Some guys over at Appleinsider got it working.

In OS X however, that's a big no-go.
Click to expand...

Thats possible over the pci express bus on the lower cards, you only need the crossover patch with the faster cards, it was enabled in software a while back
 
One reason might be to have four colour-calibrated monitors. When you calibrate a monitor, you actually calibrate the profile per card. So running two monitors off one card means only one of the monitors can ever be calibrated at any one time.

I have two monitors running each off a separate 7300 so I can have both calibrated. The second DVI port on each card goes to waste, but that's the only way to do it as far as I know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back