ATI's 4870 HD and 4850 HD Graphics Cards Coming for Mac

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Mac4ever (french) received word (http://www.mac4ever.com/news/38849/ati_pas_de_radeon_4870x2_pour_mac_mais_des_4870_et_4850_hd/) from ATI that while the Radeon HD 4870 X2 (http://game.amd.com/us-en/unlock_radeonhd4870x2.aspx?p=1) will not be coming for the Mac, ATI has confirmed that both the Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850 will be coming for the Mac "soon".

For those interested in benchmarks, AnandTech provides (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341) an extensive testing roundup of the two cards with benchmark comparisons to the ATI Radeon HD 3870 which was released (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/06/12/amd-announces-ati-radeon-hd-3870-card-for-mac-and-pc/) for the Mac Pro in June.

BareFeats also (http://www.barefeats.com/harper19.html) provides more limited testing under Boot Camp between the Radeon 4870, Radeon 3870, GeForce 8800 GT, and (not available for Mac) nVIDIA GeForce GTX 280. While the GTX 280 beats the 4870 in most benchmarks, Barefeats still believes that the Radeon 4870 is the better choice for Apple: Why? Because ATI has optimized their Mac Edition drivers and firmware for the Radeon 2600 XT and 3870 so that they run Core Image effects much faster than comparable nVidia cards including the GeForce 8800 GT and Quadro FX 5600.

In other words, if Apple is truly serious about optimizing their suite of Pro Apps (FCP, Motion, Aperture, etc.) for Core Image performance, then the Radeon HD 4870 should be the next CTO "shoe" they drop.


Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/25/atis-4870-hd-and-4850-hd-graphics-cards-coming-for-mac/)

[dextertangocci]

What is the current best card?

Wasn't it the ATI X1900 XT or something?

[arn]

What is the current best card?

Wasn't it the ATI X1900 XT or something?

I think you're thinking of the Nvidia 8800GT. It's also benched in the Barefeats article.

[sprice25]

Can't wait!!! I just got the 3870 a few months ago... been great so far except for the occasional fan rev ups. I have always favored ATI chipsets. Looks like a good future ahead for gamers and professionals with the ATI!

[Trip.Tucker]

I think you're thinking of the Nvidia 8800GT. It's also benched in the Barefeats article.

The x1900 XT is still considered the better quality card despite nVidia's newer offering. That poster is also speaking in context of the ATI range i.e. what is the current best ATI card.

[hob]

I was always an nVidia man back when I had a choice. But my last few Macs have all had ATI - and this news about CoreImage makes me think that my next few will as well!

[Trip.Tucker]

Rob, just tried to view your site on my non-Flash enabled device. Doesn't come up, how does the site degrade?

[Aranince]

Woot. The 4850/4870 will be a big improvement over the nVidia 8*00 in the current computers. I'm hoping for a 4850 in the Macbook Pro. ATI's cards are excellent this round compared to nVidia's offerings.

[Eidorian]

ATi (AMD) loves Intel.

Seriously!

[BornAgainMac]

No ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2?

[ventro]

Excellent. I haven't seen a slowdown in OSX with the 3870 yet, but this will be good in the future.

[Trip.Tucker]

ATi (AMD) loves Intel.

Seriously!

Not sure what that is supposed to mean, but ok, whatever.

[fountaineer]

Are these cards considered for the decktops or and as well as the macbook pros?

[riversky]

Are these cards considered for the decktops or and as well as the macbook pros?

Well I wouldn't put them out on a deck, I am sure they wouldn't weather well....But yes they are for the Mac Pro towers.

[mudenza]

Apple leaning more towards ATI cards then--good news for MBP owners suffering from their NVidia problems.

[fountaineer]

Well I wouldn't put them out on a deck, I am sure they wouldn't weather well....But yes they are for the Mac Pro towers.

Deck? meaning tower or laptop. But i guess your answer is that they are for the towers not the macbook pro? Just clarifying.

[TMay]

I'm speaking of Quadro's and FireGL's, and they are near to a requirement for stable workstation apps (MCAD and such). The Quadro 5600, exceeds the requirements, and at $2800, a bit rich for most of us. Nvidia Quadro's 1700 and 3700 would be nice.

[Eidorian]

Not sure what that is supposed to mean, but ok, whatever.Intel and ATI have a better relationship then Intel and nVidia.

[Trip.Tucker]

Deck? meaning tower or laptop. But i guess your answer is that they are for the towers not the macbook pro? Just clarifying.

Yes, he meant for the tower units only, not the laptop series.

In case you missed it, (which you must have) he was playing on your misspelling of the word desktop, which was humorous at the time. Explaining what beating a dead horse means, however, takes all the fun out of it. :p

[teh_pwnerer]

And there is an ironic twist to that relationship now since AMD owns ATI.

[alphaod]

Mmm... Looking good.

[Solid Raven]

Since apple might be moving towards ati, would there be any chance of a mobile 46x0 in the MBP? Or isn't that one out yet?

[Pressure]

No ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2?

It would appear so but then you have the option to install two Radeon HD 4870s instead ;)

[teh_pwnerer]

There is no mobile version of the RV700 series out yet.

And to anyone that might be confused, the 4850 (RV770) is not a laptop part. It ships on boards that use > 100 Watts.

[Dejavu]

I have the stock ATI Radeon HD 2600.

It would be nice if there was a comparison of this card with the 4870 or 4850.

[kntgsp]

Ha, called it.

I knew they wouldn't touch that Nvidia garbage this generation. To anyone who hasn't played around with the 4000-series yet, you're gonna love em.

I hope they get the 4870 1GB model and not the 512MB model though. Either way, it's a crazy fast card.

[Xirurg]

any new on iMac video card?

[kntgsp]

There is no mobile version of the RV700 series out yet.

And to anyone that might be confused, the 4850 (RV770) is not a laptop part. It ships on boards that use > 100 Watts.

Yes there is. It's the 4850 Mobility. It was demoed over a month ago and is set for a fall release.

The only question regarding MBP placement is whether or not Apple gets first dibs on them, which have done with other parts in the past.

[Mac 13]

Regardless of the bad press on Nvidia lately, as Mac users are we better off with Nvidia due to Cuda which Apple has something cooking with this technology ? Also Adobe has a plug-in for photoshop supposably it would run faster with just a software update .... :eek:

[The Tall One]

Other macs also allow the use of 3rd party graphics cards... don't they? I have a Radeon in my G5.

[kntgsp]

Woot. The 4850/4870 will be a big improvement over the nVidia 8*00 in the current computers.

Uh what? No the 4000-series is meant to compete against the GTX 200-series.

It blows them out of the water in price/performance. And the 4870 has half the memory that the GTX280 does, yet it's still equal to the 280 or faster than it in some games.

Even the 4850 beats out the 8800GT and GTX.

The big wollop will come when they drop the 4870 1GB card. AMD has been gobbling up all the GDDR5 so fast they haven't been able to put out the 1GB model yet. When that drops, the GTX200-series will be all but pointless unless they severely undercut ATI's prices.

And for the super high end there's the 4870X2, which is just drool worthy. Fastest single graphics card.

I use an NVIDIA 790i system and an X48 system, so don't take this as fanboyism. The discrepancy between the two cards this generation really is that big. I mean with GTX280's at >$400 and the 4870 512GB at $290, it's a no brainer. And as long as the 1GB version of the 4870 stays under $400, then it's even more of a no brainer.

NVidia needs to get their ****** together.


I'm hoping for a 4850 in the Macbook Pro. ATI's cards are excellent this round compared to nVidia's offerings.

Oh absolutely. I just don't get it. Nvidia should have continued to kick ATI while they were down. They had such a substantial lead. All the "our GTX200 series is the pinnacle of graphics performance" must have been a bluff.

[Solid Raven]

There is no mobile version of the RV700 series out yet.

And to anyone that might be confused, the 4850 (RV770) is not a laptop part. It ships on boards that use > 100 Watts.

How many watts does a mobile gpu in the MBP use?

Perhaps a 38x0, think that would be quite nice for a MBP, especially considering the price of the machine.

[kntgsp]

Regardless of the bad press on Nvidia lately, as Mac users are we better off with Nvidia due to Cuda which Apple has something cooking with this technology ? Also Adobe has a plug-in for photoshop supposably it would run faster with just a software update .... :eek:

Well the next Photoshop will allow graphics card acceleration across the board I believe, not just Nvidia's CUDA.

You can find the demo of it by Googling. The improvement is amazing. Instant application of effects, just jaw dropping increases in performance.

And for that, I'd rather have the current ATI cards than the current NVidia. Last generation (8800's and 3000-series) I would have rather had the NVidia.

[Mattww]

Hopefully the ATI 4850 or 4870 will be available for the release of the next (Nehalem based) Mac Pro models. It would be nice to see a retail boxed version for existing owners as happened with the 3870 and other ATI cards in the past. A CTO only release would narrow the market unnecessarily. Personally I'm not too concerned about us not getting the 4870x2 as it would likely only benefit boot camp gamers rather than Mac OS X use. The single card should be fine for games in Mac OS X and would be cooler running. Personally I'd rather then spend the money upgrading later to another single faster GPU.

It does seem that the ATI cards get better driver support in Mac OS X as the NVIDIA cards don't usually show the advantage you would expect based on tests done under Windows. The architecture also seems to be more suited to the pro applications so you can have the best of both.

[commander.data]

Uh what? No the 4000-series is meant to compete against the GTX 200-series.

And it blow them out of the water as well in price/performance. And the 4870 has half the memory that the GTX280 does, yet it's still equal to the 280 or faster than it in some games.

Even the 4850 beats out the 8800GT and GTX.
Well, the 4850 actually competes against the 9800GTX+ and the 4870 competes against the GTX 260. The 4870 is occasionally competitive with the GTX 280, but the GTX 280 is still faster on average.

Not that I'm complaining, but I find it interesting that ATI is releasing both the 4850 and the 4870 for Mac. I thought they would just release one of them, like how they only released the 3870 in the previous generation for Mac. I guess they are going to hit nVidia while they're down, which they might as well. I do hope that nVidia responds with something for Mac, although hopefully they'll wait and release the 55nm shrink of the GT200 for Mac instead of the current 65nm versions.

I wonder if this will be compatible with all Mac Pros, not only the most recent ones.

Regardless of the bad press on Nvidia lately, as Mac users are we better off with Nvidia due to Cuda which Apple has something cooking with this technology ?
Apple is supporting OpenCL in Snow Leopard, which is supposed to be open so that you can write one program to run on both nVidia and ATI hardware. Instead of CUDA which is nVidia only.

[teh_pwnerer]

Yes there is. It's the 4850 Mobility. It was demoed over a month ago and is set for a fall release.

The only question regarding MBP placement is whether or not Apple gets first dibs on them, which have done with other parts in the past.

"out" means you can purchase it right now.

[powermonger]

Awesome! When is it going to happen?
I was thinking about getting a gt8800 but now I will wait... :D

[kntgsp]

Hopefully the ATI 4850 or 4870 will be available for the release of the next (Nehalem based) Mac Pro models. It would be nice to see a retail boxed version for existing owners as happened with the 3870 and other ATI cards in the past. A CTO only release would narrow the market unnecessarily. Personally I'm not too concerned about us not getting the 4870x2 as it would likely only benefit boot camp gamers rather than Mac OS X use. The single card should be fine for games in Mac OS X and would be cooler running. Personally I'd rather then spend the money upgrading later to another single faster GPU.

It does seem that the ATI cards get better driver support in Mac OS X as the NVIDIA cards don't usually show the advantage you would expect based on tests done under Windows. The architecture also seems to be more suited to the pro applications so you can have the best of both.

The 4870X2 is a single card. With Apple trying to push "Mac gaming" as a feature now, they would do well to include the 4870X2. At least offer it as an option. As stupid as Apple is about forcing users to go through Apple to purchase graphics cards for Mac Pros, you'd think they would at least offer up a decent video card selection. I mean, their current offering is pathetic.

And graphics cards will play a more important role with the added GPU acceleration in the next Photoshop. Also, you have lower idle power consumption with the 4870X2 vs. a dual 4870 Crossfire setup, which might not mean a lot to most people, but for those of us where utilities are expensive, it matters.

[kntgsp]

"out" means you can purchase it right now.

Out to me means that manufacturers have their hands on it. Since this thread is largely about future offerings, it's relevant.

[teh_pwnerer]

How many watts does a mobile gpu in the MBP use?

Perhaps a 38x0, think that would be quite nice for a MBP, especially considering the price of the machine.

The latest mobile GPUs will probably use like 15 W "in use". Less with the unit unplugged and the voltage and clock stepped down.

[barijazz]

But will it Blend?

[iMacmatician]

Since apple might be moving towards ati, would there be any chance of a mobile 46x0 in the MBP? Or isn't that one out yet?The 4800 series is coming in Q4 2008, so the 4600 and lower series would likely come out in H1 2009.

It blows them out of the water in price/performance. And the 4870 has half the memory that the GTX280 does, yet it's still equal to the 280 or faster than it in some games.HD 4870 is similar to the GTX 260.

NVidia needs to get their ****** together.Apparently they are making a 55 nm shrink of the GT200 for Q4 2008, but given their past die shrinks (G80 -> G92 -> G92b), I'm not expecting much (still a big die).

[kntgsp]

Well, the 4850 actually competes against the 9800GTX+ and the 4870 competes against the GTX 260. The 4870 is occasionally competitive with the GTX 280, but the GTX 280 is still faster on average.

No. Maybe in their minds they think that it competes against the 9800GTX. The fact is that the 4850 consistently keeps up with and often beats the GTX260.

And the 4870 does essentially compete against the GTX280. And again, it consistently keeps up with and even occasionally beats the GTX280.

What you don't get is that these are the two best offerings either one has in single GPU solutions. However the prices are $175/$280 for the ATI offerings and $260/$420 for the Nvidia offerings. And if you're a real performance whore you can get the 4870X2 for $130 more than the top NVidia offering and have twice the speed.

And people don't realize that the 4870 only has 512Mb of GDDR, whereas the GTX280 has 1GB. Once the 4870 1GB version drops in Sept., it won't even be a competition. I mean, you're already paying $140 more for single digit frame rate increases if you go with NVidia. And sometimes you actually get less performance than with the cheap ATI counterpart.

Even the most anal retentive gamer can't justify that.

The 9800GTX was a flop from the beginning. It's nothing but a holdover card until they can drop prices on the GTX200's.

[nixfu]

Any chance any of these parts could be used to update the iMac?

[kntgsp]

The 4800 series is coming in Q4 2008, so the 4600 and lower series would likely come out in H1 2009.

HD 4870 is similar to the GTX 260.


In price only. Unfortunately for NVidia, the 4870 exceeds the 260 and catches up to, and in some cases exceeds the 280. All while consuming less power under load.

And all at a substantially lower price point. You can't say two cards don't compete with each other because they are priced differently. Or because one has less memory. They absolutely compete against each other when performance is on par and one is priced considerably higher than the other.

The only thing holding the 4870 back from exceeding the 280 in every meaningful test is the lower memory available to it.

Either way, ATI is the best buy across the board, for low end and high end cards at the moment. Add in the card and chipset failures on Nvidia's part, the ridiculous price gouging and wonky drivers and it's a no brainer.

The most amusing thing is, in order to even beat the 4870X2 by single digit FPS, you have to spend $900 for an SLI setup. And if Nvidia releases another one of these hackneyed "glue to PCB's together" garbage again, ATI will just drop the 4870X2 price.

I'm not arguing for the sake of fanboyism, I'm arguing from a business perspective. It's a win-win for ATI this time around.

Unless NVidia drops the prices of the GTX cards AGAIN, since they were stupid enough to think they could price them as ridiculously as they did initially, or releases the shrunken die versions earlier, I think NVidia is a flop this round.

It's the cycle of graphics cards, it sways back and forth, as it's done for years. The next generation cards may swing back into NVidia's favor, but ignoring the painfully obvious this time around isn't going to help them accomplish anything.

[teh_pwnerer]

Out to me means that manufacturers have their hands on it. Since this thread is largely about future offerings, it's relevant.

It's relevant but what said is still correct. They are coming, yes. They aren't out. Even the article title has "coming" in the title. The reason I said what I said is because someone else said they are "hoping for a 4850 in the Macbook Pro". Just wanted to clarify.

[powermonger]

Any chance any of these parts could be used to update the iMac?

Good one.

[Mac 13]

Apple is supporting OpenCL in Snow Leopard, which is supposed to be open so that you can write one program to run on both nVidia and ATI hardware. Instead of CUDA which is nVidia only.

Oh I see but Apple made CUDA 2.0 kit download available recently. I can't wait what Nvidia and Apple have going on. :D

[Michael73]

I for one, have not been happy with my 8800GT. For whatever reason my framerate stinks and I constantly see flickering. Moreover, when I scroll down or up, large blocks of the page seem to get displaced. I've been meaning to take my box into my local store but it's always so busy and they're always back logged 7-10 days.

I'd welcome some nice GPU options just so I can change out my card. The kicker for me will be which card performs better with OpenCL in the forthcoming Snow Leopard.

[commander.data]

No. Maybe in their minds they think that it competes against the 9800GTX. The fact is that the 4850 consistently keeps up with and beats the GTX260.

And the 4870 competes against the GTX280. And again, it consistently keeps up with and occasionally beats the GTX280.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13

Well, the benchmarks I've seen show that the 4870 generally slots in between the GTX 260 and GTX 280 while the 4850 and 9800GTX+ trade blows. I believe the only time the 4870 really exceeds the GTX 280 is in Bioshock.

The 4870X2 is a single card. With Apple trying to push "Mac gaming" as a feature now, they would do well to include the 4870X2. At least offer it as an option.
The 4870X2 may be a single physical card it still requires Crossfire to function as the two RV770 are internally linked via a PCIe switch. Without Crossfire on Mac, which requires ATI support, the 4870X2 will just perform as a 4870.

[MyDesktopBroke]

I don't know much about ATI cards. How much better (than the mutant 8800GTSXyz, or whatever) would those cards be in an iMac? Are those cards realistically possible for iMac, or would they keep them Mac pro only?

[OS X Dude]

Great - even more cards giving sub-par performance. You'd think Apple would have the best cards as a BTO in the Mac Pro at least. ATi 4870 X2 would make a sweet video editing and gaming rig in that.

However, nVidia > ATi IMO - nVidia are always producing faster PC cards than ATi and the 4870 X2 is a one-off win for them.

[commander.data]

I don't know much about ATI cards. How much better (than the mutant 8800GTSXyz, or whatever) would those cards be in an iMac? Are those cards realistically possible for iMac, or would they keep them Mac pro only?
The current 8800GS in the iMac is actually a mobile chip, the 8800M GTS. This is probably due to power and heat. The iMac chip is of course not upgradable. Any refresh for future iMac models will have to wait for the mobility radeon 4850 which can probably fit thermally, but ATI hasn't released it yet. Since the mobility versions aren't out there's no way to tell the performance increase, but it'll probably be significant.

Oh I see but Apple made CUDA 2.0 kit download available recently. I can't wait what Nvidia and Apple have going on.
I don't think Apple released CUDA 2.0 for nVidia, rather nVidia released CUDA 2.0 for Apple. But yeah, even if OpenCL is open and cross-compatible, they may need to hurry up with it otherwise CUDA will get too entrenched.

In terms of Photoshop, CUDA 2.0 does not accelerate Photoshop itself. However, it is possible to write third-party plug-ins for Photoshop that take advantage of CUDA 2.0 and nVidia GPUs.

Great - even more cards giving sub-par performance. You'd think Apple would have the best cards as a BTO in the Mac Pro at least. ATi 4870 X2 would make a sweet video editing and gaming rig in that.

However, nVidia > ATi IMO - nVidia are always producing faster PC cards than ATi and the 4870 X2 is a one-off win for them.
The issue is not whether the 4870X2 is available, but it is whether Crossfire is available for Mac since all X2 cards require it. It may be lack of ATI support or Apple support or maybe both for Crossfire for Mac, but if they ever allow it they'll probably wait to add it to Snow Leopard's feature list.

[Antares]

Any chance any of these parts could be used to update the iMac?

A bit of humor, today, I see. :D

Anywhoo....I'll be in the market for a MacPro eraly next year. It will be nice to have these as an option.

[alexlr]

The current 8800GS in the iMac is actually a mobile chip, the 8800M GTS. This is probably due to power and heat. The iMac chip is of course not upgradable. Any refresh for future iMac models will have to wait for the mobility radeon 4850 which can probably fit thermally, but ATI hasn't released it yet. Since the mobility versions aren't out there's no way to tell the performance increase, but it'll probably be significant.


I don't think Apple released CUDA 2.0 for nVidia, rather nVidia released CUDA 2.0 for Apple. But yeah, even if OpenCL is open and cross-compatible, they may need to hurry up with it otherwise CUDA will get too entrenched.

In terms of Photoshop, CUDA 2.0 does not accelerate Photoshop itself. However, it is possible to write third-party plug-ins for Photoshop that take advantage of CUDA 2.0 and nVidia GPUs.


The issue is not whether the 4870X2 is available, but it is whether Crossfire is available for Mac since all X2 cards require it. It may be lack of ATI support or Apple support or maybe both for Crossfire for Mac, but if they ever allow it they'll probably wait to add it to Snow Leopard's feature list.

In regards to your Photohop/CUDA remark: yes, it will accelerate Photoshop. Stonehenge (the next version of Photoshop) offloads much of its rendering to the GPU via CUDA. We're not just talking plug-ins, we're talking the core application itself.

[patseguin]

The issue is not whether the 4870X2 is available, but it is whether Crossfire is available for Mac since all X2 cards require it. It may be lack of ATI support or Apple support or maybe both for Crossfire for Mac, but if they ever allow it they'll probably wait to add it to Snow Leopard's feature list.

That's not true at all. The 4870X2 does not require crossfire. You only need crossfire if you want to install TWO 4870X2's.

[alexlr]

That's not true at all. The 4870X2 does not require crossfire. You only need crossfire if you want to install TWO 4870X2's.

Wrong. The x2 is basically 2 GPUs stuck on piece of PCB. It needs Crossfire to allow the two GPUs to talk to each other. The Crossfire he's referencing is the firmware capabilities, not an actual physical link. The two chips communicate via Crossfire and the PCIe 2.0 switch. Ironically, the PCIe 2.0 switch has more latency than the 1.0 switch.

[iMacmatician]

However, nVidia > ATi IMO - nVidia are always producing faster PC cards than ATi and the 4870 X2 is a one-off win for them.A one-off win that may go for a long time, as I doubt 55 nm GT200 is going to help NVIDIA that much.

RV870 (Lil Dragon, 40 nm (:eek:), H1 2009) supposedly uses 15% less power than RV770, giving twice the performance per watt of RV770.

[commander.data]

In regards to your Photohop/CUDA remark: yes, it will accelerate Photoshop. Stonehenge (the next version of Photoshop) offloads much of its rendering to the GPU via CUDA. We're not just talking plug-ins, we're talking the core application itself.
Are you sure CUDA 2.0 will accelerate Photoshop itself?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_develop.html

Because, the documentation that nVidia provides only describe how to develop plug-ins for Photoshop.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nvidia-cuda-photoshop,news-2436.html

And news reports only mention Photoshop plug-ins in association with CUDA 2.0 while Photoshop itself won't have GPU acceleration until Stonehenge as you mention.

A one-off win that may go for a long time, as I doubt 55 nm GT200 is going to help NVIDIA that much.

RV870 (Lil Dragon, 40 nm (), H1 2009) supposedly uses 15% less power than RV770, giving twice the performance per watt of RV770.
Yes, RV870 should be very interesting. Although I'm concerned about the 40nm process seeing that I haven't heard that TSMC's 45nm process is in production yet.

[twoodcc]

glad to see more cards becoming available for mac

[alexlr]

Are you sure CUDA 2.0 will accelerate Photoshop itself?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_develop.html

Because, the documentation that nVidia provides only describe how to develop plug-ins for Photoshop.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nvidia-cuda-photoshop,news-2436.html

And news reports only mention Photoshop plug-ins in association with CUDA 2.0 while Photoshop itself won't have GPU acceleration until Stonehenge as you mention.



My fault. I was talking about Stonehenge (CS4, whatever you want to call it). As for CS3, you're right, I doubt it will get any sort of GPU off-loading capabilities with the next version on the horizon.

[kntgsp]

It's relevant but what said is still correct. They are coming, yes. They aren't out. Even the article title has "coming" in the title. The reason I said what I said is because someone else said they are "hoping for a 4850 in the Macbook Pro". Just wanted to clarify.

Ahhhh, I mis read. Gotcha.

[kntgsp]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13

Well, the benchmarks I've seen show that the 4870 generally slots in between the GTX 260 and GTX 280 while the 4850 and 9800GTX+ trade blows. I believe the only time the 4870 really exceeds the GTX 280 is in Bioshock.


The 4870X2 may be a single physical card it still requires Crossfire to function as the two RV770 are internally linked via a PCIe switch. Without Crossfire on Mac, which requires ATI support, the 4870X2 will just perform as a 4870.

Yea, that test. Where the 4870 is 7 frames slower, 2 frames slower, 0.5 frames slower, 6 frames slower, 7 frames faster, etc.?

Yea clearly they don't compete, jeez, how stupid of me. You really believe that for cards to compete they have to match up exactly on every benchmark? I mean.....really?

You have to factor in cost, average performance, driver maturity (those are release driver tests by the way, we're on Cat 8.8 now), power consumption, etc.

Factoring all of that in, the 4850/4870 are better buys vs the GTX260/280. You get at best, single digit frame rate bumps in only some games with the GTX series, but you spend substantially more, and use more power.

That's why I consider them better buys. Not because of anecdotal single digit frame rate increases in 3 or 4 games. It's about considering all factors.

And regarding the 4870X2. Crossfire is not as hardware dependent as SLI. You don't need an ATI motherboard to enable Crossfire. And with a card like the 4870X2 where the Crossfire is done onboard, the rest of the hardware is largely irrelevant. You don't have to have some craptastic Nvidia MCP on your board that gets hot enough to boil water. Enabling NVidia's SLI on a Mac system would be more difficult due to NVidia being stupid about keeping their SLI proprietary and hardware dependent.

All ATI would have to do is release Crossfire drivers for OSX. This isn't exactly some earth shattering accomplishment. They just haven't seen a need for it as the Mac gaming community has been quite small.

Look at it from ATI's perspective. Why bother tossing a small team at developing OSX crossfire drivers when there's no market for it. There are few, arguably none (from ATI's perspective) programs that would be able to utilize it, outside of games. And for the heavy 3D modelers and other heavy users, they use the Quadro cards anyway.

The point being, if Apple continues to push this "Bringing games back to Mac" or whatever they titled it, they will have to offer more GPUs geared towards gamers, which may lead to ATI releasing Crossfire drivers for Mac. And with Photoshop and other programs taking advantage of GPUs in the future, I can imagine quite a few Mac Pro owners salivating at the idea of a 4870X2.

[iMacmatician]

Yes, RV870 should be very interesting. Although I'm concerned about the 40nm process seeing that I haven't heard that TSMC's 45nm process is in production yet.This (http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/608) may clear things up.

Both 45nm and 40nm have always been on TSMC's roadmap, but the 45nm general-purpose node was cancelled (it likely didn't make sense to have 45G and 40G one quarter apart!) and it's very plausible that 40LP has gained more traction than initially forecast, resulting in more customers skipping 45LP. We still expect 45GS/40G GPUs in very late 2008 or early 2009.

[Peace]

glad to see more cards becoming available for mac


Thats what happens when you start selling 30 million Macs a year.

[kiang]

omg, you can say what you want, but when I read the first page of comments I must conclude the mediocre mac-only user knows nothing about modern graphic cards...

atm the situation in GFX-land comes down to this: the best cards out there are the GeForce GTX280, directly followed by the ATI HD4870 (which at its turn tops the GeForce 9800GTX+).
The HD4870 is a lot cheaper though, and Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI, so the HD4870 is considered the best choice.

What does it do? it runs Crysis at Ultra-high (at least when you take enough in 1680*1080 resolution and 2x AA :p) that's what it does ;)

Furthermore the HD4850, the somewhat lower version of the 4870, is delivering benchmarks somewhere between the GeForce 8800GT and the GeForce 9800GTX.

About the HD3870 comments: the HD3870 is only delivering about 80% of the performance the 8800GT does.

If they put it in the iMacs (which they could do, considering the price: the HD4850 as the basic version, HD4870 as an option/standard in the 24") the Mac-gaming status goes up a whole few levels.
If they also deliver CrossfireX in the MacPro, so you can use four HD4870s at once, Apple is set in the 3D world for the next year :)

[alexlr]

omg, you can say what you want, but when I read the first page of comments I must conclude the mediocre mac-only user knows nothing about modern graphic cards...

atm the situation in GFX-land comes down to this: the best cards out there are the GeForce GTX280, directly followed by the ATI HD4870 (which at its turn tops the GeForce 9800GTX+).
The HD4870 is a lot cheaper though, and Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI, so the HD4870 is considered the best choice.

What does it do? it runs Crysis at Ultra-high (at least when you take enough in 1680*1080 resolution and 2x AA :p) that's what it does ;)

Furthermore the HD4850, the somewhat lower version of the 4870, is delivering benchmarks somewhere between the GeForce 8800GT and the GeForce 9800GTX.

About the HD3870 comments: the HD3870 is only delivering about 80% of the performance the 8800GT does.

If they put it in the iMacs (which they could do, considering the price: the HD4850 as the basic version, HD4870 as an option/standard in the 24") the Mac-gaming status goes up a whole few levels.
If they also deliver CrossfireX in the MacPro, so you can use four HD4870s at once, Apple is set in the 3D world for the next year :)

Did you ever stop to consider WHY a mediocre Mac user doesn't know squat about high end video cards? I bet it's the same reason a mediocre PC user doesn't know squat about them either. I.E. they don't use them or come in contact with them or have a need for them.

[kiang]

Did you ever stop to consider WHY a mediocre Mac user doesn't know squat about high end video cards? I bet it's the same reason a mediocre PC user doesn't know squat about them either. I.E. they don't use them or come in contact with them or have a need for them.

On a forum dedicated to computers, in a thread dedicated to a graphcs card update, you'd at east expect some knowledge about the matter, but at the first page I see people talking about the Radeon X19800 as if it' still up-to-date.

I am active in a lot of forums about both Mac and general computerstuff, and trust me: macusers seem to have less of an idea what's the current status of the graphic hardware.
My experience so far has also shown me macusers do generally know more aboutkernels, drivers, multithreading and so on.

[Umbongo]

I'm speaking of Quadro's and FireGL's, and they are near to a requirement for stable workstation apps (MCAD and such). The Quadro 5600, exceeds the requirements, and at $2800, a bit rich for most of us. Nvidia Quadro's 1700 and 3700 would be nice.

They would be nice, but don't expect them to be available. It's likely Apple only went with the FX 5600 because the drivers aren't optimized under OSX like they are on Windows meaning that the 8800GT would out perform every other Quadro card.

With windows dominating for 3D applications I doubt it will ever make sense to make the sort of investment needed to bring these cards to OSX and make them worthwhile. That and the consumer cards are often providing enough raw power for people on alot of the DCC apps these days. Other uses besides DCC for the pro cards aren't really the domain of the Mac.

[commander.data]

On a forum dedicated to computers, in a thread dedicated to a graphcs card update, you'd at east expect some knowledge about the matter, but at the first page I see people talking about the Radeon X19800 as if it' still up-to-date.

I am active in a lot of forums about both Mac and general computerstuff, and trust me: macusers seem to have less of an idea what's the current status of the graphic hardware.
My experience so far has also shown me macusers do generally know more aboutkernels, drivers, multithreading and so on.
Probably just priorities. There aren't that many bleeding edge games on OS X. I believe Quake Wars is the latest, and we are waiting for Call of Duty 4, UT3, and Gears of War, but all of those are no Crysis or Assassin's Creed.

In contrast, a X1900XT still gives the 8800GT a run for it's money in Core Image acceleration for things like Aperture. So for some things, older GPUs still have a leg up.

[Pressure]

There is so much wrong information in this thread that I don't know where to start... :p

[xix]

I have the stock ATI Radeon HD 2600.

It would be nice if there was a comparison of this card with the 4870 or 4850.

The 2600 sucks, hard. There's your comparison.



any new on iMac video card?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, iMac. No.

Enjoy your integrated display.



Also Adobe has a plug-in for photoshop supposably it would run faster with just a software update .... :eek:

:eek::confused::eek::confused::eek::confused::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:


But will it Blend?

Wow, so original! I haven't heard that HILARIOUS line ANYWHERE on the internet before in my entire life! YOU SHOULD BE A COMEDIAN.



Any chance any of these parts could be used to update the iMac?

No. The iMac will get whatever piecemealings are sitting around the ati factory from the last generation of video cards. Enjoy your low frames per second.


glad to see more cards becoming available for mac

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation

[TheThirdMan]

There is so much wrong information in this thread that I don't know where to start...

Lol, i was gonna say...

I'll get one, my MP has broken and had to be repaired twice now, both times due to the 8800gt.

[htdefiant]

Any word on 1st Gen Mac Pros and this card?

[DGaio]

Regarding CUDA and OpenCL, just to clarify that AMD(Ati) dropped their own GPGPU framework "CTM" in favor of OpenCL, meaning that they will support Apple's OpenCL from the start when :apple: introduces it with Snow Leopard.

Nvidia is pushing CUDA so strongly as of right now that you'll probably see OpenCL support later than sooner, giving AMD advantage with Apple's software.

[Bubba Satori]

Great news, if true. A FireGL 7700 would be a nice $1K alternative to the $2.8K Quadro 5600 in the Mac Pro, too. Can't wait for this to happen. Let's go Apple. :D

[Umbongo]

Great news, if true. A FireGL 7700 would be a nice $1K alternative to the $2.8K Quadro 5600 in the Mac Pro, too. Can't wait for this to happen. Let's go Apple. :D

I'm sure it would be a welcome addition by some, but without the driver optimization it would be just an expensive 3870 under OSX. Useful for someone who wanted to do 3D work in windows and didn't really need more than a 3870 in OSX and didn't want to switch monitors or have more than one GPU, but not the sort of customer Apple probably gives a crap about :(. I also doubt they would want to sell a card that would be out performed by the 4800 series but cost three times as much.

Maybe AMD will get on top of it, but I could easily see it to not even be worth considering from a financial aspect.

[Bubba Satori]

I'm sure it would be a welcome addition by some, but without the driver optimization it would be just an expensive 3870 under OSX. Useful for someone who wanted to do 3D work in windows and didn't really need more than a 3870 in OSX and didn't want to switch monitors or have more than one GPU, but not the sort of customer Apple probably gives a crap about :(. I also doubt they would want to sell a card that would be out performed by the 4800 series but cost three times as much.

Maybe AMD will get on top of it, but I could easily see it to not even be worth considering from a financial aspect.

People using 3D apps would certainly want the opportunity to purchase the FireGL 7770 and I'm sure they might be pleased at the prospect at saving $1.8K over the Quadro 5600. Users of professional video cards don't mind paying more for their video cards. What's galling is knowing that every PC workstation vendor gives you the choice of EVERY Professional video card from Nvidia and ATI and not just one :rolleyes: like Apple does. If Apple doesn't want to supply it's customer with the proper hardware equipment for the Mac Pro, they should have the integrity to stop calling it a Mac Pro I'm hopeful that Apple will step up to the plate and do the right thing for it professional computer users. :apple:

[ungraphic]

Oh god damn it, i just bought the 3870 a few days ago for the mac.

I could always sell it i suppose but god damn, that was so fast. The only way id buy it would be is if it sold for around $300 or less (the 4870) but i know it wont, so I dont feel too guilty.

[Umbongo]

People using 3D apps would certainly want the opportunity to purchase the FireGL 7770 and I'm sure they might be pleased at the prospect at saving $1.8K over the Quadro 5600. Users of professional video cards don't mind paying more for their video cards. What's galling is knowing that every PC workstation vendor gives you the choice of EVERY Professional video card from Nvidia and ATI and not just one :rolleyes: like Apple does. If Apple doesn't want to supply it's customer with the proper hardware equipment for the Mac Pro, they should have the integrity to stop calling it a Mac Pro I'm hopeful that Apple will step up to the plate and do the right thing for it professional computer users. :apple:

Well I believe the situation is as follows: ATI write their own OSX drivers for Apple. Apple pay for the ones that ship with Apple systems.

For the v7700 to offer the same performance benefits it has over the 3870 in windows (they use the same hardware) ATI would need to invest in developing the optimzied drivers/firmware specifically for OSX and the popular 3D applications on OSX.

Apple aren't going to pay for that because OSX isn't really the best platform for 3D applications on the high end and it likely isn't worth the investment for them (as shown by the drivers for the Quadro FX 4500 and FX 5600). So this leaves ATI to decide whether it is worth it to develop the proper drivers for OSX and offer the same level of support windows users have access too. I could easily imagine the sales numbers would be small and unlikely enough to cover the cost of development.

Without optimized drivers it would as effective as an HD3870 in OSX.

I don't think there is much wrong in calling it the Mac Pro, plenty of "professionals" don't need 3D power. I think there needs to be alot more market share and business adoption before we see the current idea of professional GPUs being properly utilized on OSX (i.e same hardware but better drivers).

[m1stake]

To people who think the 4870X2 would require OSX crossfire support: No it would not.

The beauty of the X2 cards from ATI and also the 9800GX2 from Nvidia is that everything is done on the board without overhead. Thus, the 9800GX2 will work with itself in SLI on an Intel board, and the 4870X2 will work in Crossfire on an Nvidia board. There is no hardware or software support required except for drivers.

Otherwise, great news. I do wonder a bit about the 4850 AND the 4870 being offered. The 4870 has a huge leg up of course, but they're both high end cards, so they don't appeal to massively different parts of the market. More choice is always good though, so that's hardly grounds for a complaint.

Who thinks Nvidia has always been better than ATI? Take a look at some history, this is not the case. The ATI 9 series DESTROYED Nvidia, and the X?00 series was about the same, as were the X1?00 series. The 8 series was the only real Nvidia victory of recent. It was amazing, and blew EVERYTHING away. The only reason Nvidia has kept a lead up to this point is the terrible R600, which allowed them to rehash old chips onto smaller silicon for a minimal performance improvement.

[kabunaru]

ATI Radeon HD 4850 - standard on the next Mac Pro
ATI Radeon HD 4870 - option on the next Mac Pro
ATI FireGL card- Maybe on the next Mac Pro?

No more Nvidia cards hopefully.

[CWallace]

ATI Radeon HD 4850 - standard on the next Mac Pro
ATI Radeon HD 4870 - option on the next Mac Pro
ATI FireGL card- Maybe on the next Mac Pro?

No more Nvidia cards hopefully.

It will be interesting to see what happens if Apple is indeed moving to the nVidia mobile chipset for the iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook and Mac Mini as more and more rumors state.

The Mac Pro might be the only Apple machine that comes with an ATI option, but then if it really does handle Core Image-based applications better, that is the machine you'd want those cards on since they have the most power.

[kabunaru]

It will be interesting to see what happens if Apple is indeed moving to the nVidia mobile chipset for the iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook and Mac Mini as more and more rumors state.


Where are exactly these rumours of Apple switching to nVidia chip-sets? :confused:

I thought they would make their own custom chip-sets if anything.

Any ways, how long before we see the 5xxx series cards from ATI?

[themiracle]

God, and I just finally caved and bought a 3750 to replace my fubar X1900 :(

[Chilz0r]

Just a question, what makes you guys think that ATi will offer these cards as BTO. Haven't they traditionally been a third-party option? i.e. you can't order an ATi card when you order your mac pro. Probably be something similar to the 3870 "Mac & PC Edition" maybe?

[kabunaru]

Probably be something similar to the 3870 "Mac & PC Edition" maybe?

Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? :confused:
I would like to see it as an BTO option though.

[Chilz0r]

Oh yeah I forgot to add that this is a big win for Mac users and AMD ATi could totally dominate the Mac market if they play it smart. It's nice to know that there are more options out there but I'm pretty content with my 8800GTS 512mb for the time being.

[macwall]

finally, new video cards

[ichiro]

Well I wouldn't put them out on a deck, I am sure they wouldn't weather well....But yes they are for the Mac Pro towers.
not if it's shellacked in and then gets a generous coating of my johnson's weather seal or tite seal!

[Mac 13]

Regarding CUDA and OpenCL, just to clarify that AMD(Ati) dropped their own GPGPU framework "CTM" in favor of OpenCL, meaning that they will support Apple's OpenCL from the start when :apple: introduces it with Snow Leopard.

Nvidia is pushing CUDA so strongly as of right now that you'll probably see OpenCL support later than sooner, giving AMD advantage with Apple's software.


Can't wait to see what apple has cooking since they are supporting Cuda 2.0 now and they did show interest in this technology awhile back. :confused:

[virduk]

Thats what happens when you start selling 30 million Macs a year.

Though does that even matter given the % of Macs that can accept a PCIe video card. Or is the dream of a consumer Mac with a PCIe slot for video going to happen?

[Eric5h5]

Haven't they traditionally been a third-party option? i.e. you can't order an ATi card when you order your mac pro. Probably be something similar to the 3870 "Mac & PC Edition" maybe?

Yes and no...for example, at one point you could order the X850 as BTO for the AGP Power Macs. Apple tends to switch back and forth between ATI and nVidia, always have.

--Eric

[m1stake]

I hope this isn't what ATI offers for the Nehalem Mac Pro while the 5870 is burning a hole through it's benchmarks. I was so glad that Nvidia and Apple were able to reach an agreement to use a brand new card. If ATI can deliver whatever is fresh off the press when the next Mac Pro comes out, I would absolutely buy it. Of course, I'd buy the ATI card regardless because of the obvious performance difference, but it would only sweeten the deal if I was getting a current generation card.

Currently, the last 5870 rumor I saw sounds incredibly wrong when presented side by side with the 4000 series. The main point was "dual core", which doesn't mean much since the 4870 has 800 "cores", although they are much more specialized than a CPU for obvious reasons. However, I remember that ATI is moving to a 6 month business model. The 3800 series came out in mid November, and the 4800 series replaced it in June. It wouldn't be very far out to speculate that something will come out this November from both parties.

If anyone is more familiar with the ATI rumor mill, please chime in and expand on the above paragraph.

[grue]

ATI Radeon HD 4850 - standard on the next Mac Pro
ATI Radeon HD 4870 - option on the next Mac Pro
ATI FireGL card- Maybe on the next Mac Pro?

No more Nvidia cards hopefully.

Yeah, so we can have complete complacency and no competition. Sounds like an awesome plan.

[winterspan]

Regardless of the bad press on Nvidia lately, as Mac users are we better off with Nvidia due to Cuda which Apple has something cooking with this technology ? Also Adobe has a plug-in for photoshop supposably it would run faster with just a software update .... :eek:

No. ATI has all but dropped their own proprietary parallel processing "GPGPU" SDK in favor of helping Apple develop OpenCL, so they are going to be much more aligned with Apple/OSX, and perhaps their hardware itself will be much more optimized for Snow Leopard/OpenCL than nVidia's Geforce cards.

The 4870X2 is a single card.
That's not true at all. The 4870X2 does not require crossfire. You only need crossfire if you want to install TWO 4870X2's.
To people who think the 4870X2 would require OSX crossfire support: No it would not.

Yes, it's a single card, but it has two GPU on one PCB and uses an internal crossfire bridge and crossfire software model to divide operations. This is why ATI has to constantly update their drivers for new games when they come out. If their drivers don't recognize the game, you'll see no performance gains versus a 4870. This is good in theory in that they can manufacturer smaller GPUs with higher yields and just use two of them on one board for the high-end models, but it makes the driver situation a lot more hairy.

It's yet to be seen if the 4870X2's internal-crossfire model is going to be something that is easily and efficiently ported over to the OSX version of their drivers.

Great - even more cards giving sub-par performance. You'd think Apple would have the best cards as a BTO in the Mac Pro at least. ATi 4870 X2 would make a sweet video editing and gaming rig in that.

"sub-par performance"? The 4850/70 are excellent cards, and rival the fastest nvidia cards on the market for a lot less price. As i said above, the 4870 X2 uses an internal crossfire driver model, which is probably going to complicate it's implementation on the Mac as I don't believe traditional 2-card crossfire support is available on their OSX drivers. Besides, OSX is hardly used for hard-core gaming. I know there are those who dual-boot into XP or Vista for gaming, but that's not really the intended use of the Mac Pro.

NVidia needs to get their ****** together.

Considering they were the undisputed market leader for 2+ years, and even now have very competitive cards, that's a bit of a strong statement. They do screw up by not moving GT200 to 55nm though, which made their enormous die expensive to manufacturer and hence ATI is whipping them on retail price. When they have the 55nm parts out and some clock tweaks, the GTX 280/260 will both be very competitive parts. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fanboy of either company and I am certainly glad that ATI was able to recover. The 4800 series are great cards.

The 9800GTX was a flop from the beginning. It's nothing but a holdover card until they can drop prices on the GTX200's

"was a flop from the beginning." What? It was one of the best cards on the market when it came out-- essentially a higher clocked 8800GTS 512MB. The only thing faster was the 9800GX2. However, the 4800 series has certainly been a big redeemer for ATI. And considering we are talking about them in reference to Macs, even before this latest generation ATI has had a huge advantage because of their much superior OSX drivers. nVidia cards running on OSX are a joke, especially in Core Image performance.

Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI
Crossfire generally delivers much better performance scaling WHEN it is optimized well for a given game, however, SLI support is more consistent across a broad range of titles, whereas Crossfire is more hit and miss.

On a forum dedicated to computers, in a thread dedicated to a graphcs card update, you'd at east expect some knowledge about the matter, but at the first page I see people talking about the Radeon X19800 as if it' still up-to-date.
You did notice the "mac" in "macrumors.com" didn't you? Apple historically has not exactly been associated with the 3D gaming scene. Most people around here are Mac enthusiasts, artists, musicians, photographers, software/web developers, etc.

[OS X Dude]

I heard something a fair while ago that says, historically, nVidia cards work better with OpenGL and ATi work better with DirectX (hence their use in the xbox systems, which were named partly after their basis on DirectX).

So, in that respect, a GTX 280 running an OpenGL game would outperform a 4870 X2 running the same OpenGL game?

[OS X Dude]

Originally Posted by kiang
Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI

Ironically, Crossfire used to be such a bitch to work and set up compared to SLi that ATi completely "re-did" Crossfire not long ago to make it more efficient and simpler to set-up.

I believe that is also when CrossFireX (Quad-SLi) came along, though I may be wrong on that.

[Pressure]

The only problem I can foresee is the price.

When the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition finally arrives, they will be priced at the official MSRP of $199 and $299 or perhaps even more, seeing as the Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition currently is listed at $219.

Admittedly still priced very, very competitive with the current offerings.

[Chilz0r]

I heard something a fair while ago that says, historically, nVidia cards work better with OpenGL and ATi work better with DirectX (hence their use in the xbox systems, which were named partly after their basis on DirectX).

So, in that respect, a GTX 280 running an OpenGL game would outperform a 4870 X2 running the same OpenGL game?

Yes in most cases NVIDIA cards have outperformed ATi cards in OpenGL on the Mac side of things. Check out barefeats.com.

[kabunaru]

Is the 4800x2 really the best video card for any task right now?

If so, awesome but it sucks that Apple would not get it. Oh well, the 4870 and 4850 should be good enough for most people.

[Firefly2002]

Definitely good news. The 4870 is a lot cheaper than the GeForce cards that are on its performance level, will run Mac OS X Core apps faster, and are about 2x faster than the 3870's gaming performance (and smoke 8800 GTs).

A 4850 will be a great deal, since they're so cheap :)

[belunos]

This is perfect. I ordered a refurb 06 mac pro about a week ago, and it should be here tomorrow. I was going to get a 3870 for it, but now I'll wait and see if the 4x will work with that model. Gaming was the only thing I was worried about giving up in my PC->Mac switch, and it's sounding like it won't be an issue at all!

[JayMan8081]

It's always good to see new video cards being released for the Mac platform. Hopefully they'll keep releasing newer cards at a more reasonable rate.

[winterspan]

Is the 4800x2 really the best video card for any task right now?
If so, awesome but it sucks that Apple would not get it. Oh well, the 4870 and 4850 should be good enough for most people.

That's too much of a generalization. First of all, the 4870X2 cards are single-PCB, dual GPU boards. They use an internal Crossfire bridge and crossfire driver model, just like if you had two separate 4000-series cards running in parallel. Because of this, the driver has to be optimized for each and every application in order to divide the processing among both on-board GPUs; if you use an application the driver doesn't recognize, you'll tend to see performance almost identical to a standard 1-GPU 4870 card.

Due to the complexities of the one-board Crossfire model, and the fact that the current drivers on OSX don't support two-card parallel crossfire mode,
I don't think it will be easy to get the 4870X2 running with good performance on the Mac, and hence the reason it probably isn't going to be available.

Secondly, speaking more generally, there is a big difference between platforms. On the Mac, the ATI cards have a much better driver for Core Image processing, Whereas nVidia cards have a slight advantage for OpenGL task. On Windows at least, It appears that Nvidia cripples the OpenGL performance of their Geforce (consumer) line versus their more expensive professional Quadro cards which are used for 3D modeling/animation/CAD applications (OpenGL). Also, on windows, Nvidia's Quadro line has dominated the pro 3D range, while new ATI pro cards based on the RV770 should help them catch up.


This is perfect. I ordered a refurb 06 mac pro about a week ago, and it should be here tomorrow. I was going to get a 3870 for it, but now I'll wait and see if the 4x will work with that model. Gaming was the only thing I was worried about giving up in my PC->Mac switch, and it's sounding like it won't be an issue at all!

Yea, definitely wait. The 4870 is much faster (2x or more) than the 3870! It's really an excellent card.


It's always good to see new video cards being released for the Mac platform. Hopefully they'll keep releasing newer cards at a more reasonable rate.

Agreed. I was hoping the Mac Pros were going to get at least the 4850, and I'm more than happy to see the 4870. I hope this trend continues now that the Mac is getting a significant marketshare!

[OS X Dude]

I don't think Apple side with either graphics vendor - they just flitter between the two (first MBP use ATi X1900, current one use nVidia 8600MGT and new Mac Pro will use ATi 4850/4870) depending on who is top at the time.

[Maxxamillian]

Already running a 4870 in my MP for Windows gaming and love it. Have it next to my 2600XT--which is still serving me very well for core image processing.
For those of you thinking multiple 4870s can exist in the same MP you would do well to see what the power requirements are vs. available power connections on the MP motherboard...you'll quickly notice a lack of connectors. Each 4870 requires two additional connections to satisfy power needs. (There are only two on the motherboard.) I guess if you're savvy / brave enough you probably could route some additional power down from the optical drive bays.
At any rate, pleased to see these video cards come aboard :D

[SuperGrobi]

So when will ATi actually ship the 4870 cards? I mean, it is great to get the cards for the Mac Pro but I am worried that it will be a candidate for a christmas gift ... if not 2009 :p

[Heraklitus]

Too bad--ATI's latest cards have been having serious driver and compatibility issues with Windows. I hope they do better with MacOS, but I won't hold my breath.

They should have gone with Nvidia.

[chrisS]

Last thing I read for the 4850/70 was Q4 2008. Has anyone heard of anything more specific ?

Also will these run on 1st gen MacPros ?

I currently use a X1900XT to play WoW, and from what I've put together (comparing X1900 to 3870, and then 3870 to 4870 in UT3), it looks like I can expect something around double the frame rate.

[kaiwai]

Yes there is. It's the 4850 Mobility. It was demoed over a month ago and is set for a fall release.

The only question regarding MBP placement is whether or not Apple gets first dibs on them, which have done with other parts in the past.

IMHO they should move to them and better still, for those with failing Nvidia graphics, to replace them with boards that have ATI chips on them.

[m1stake]

It's yet to be seen if the 4870X2's internal-crossfire model is going to be something that is easily and efficiently ported over to the OSX version of their drivers.

I wrote software but I meant hardware. The 4870X2 will run it's on card Crossfire without any board support for dual GPUs. :p

IMHO they should move to them and better still, for those with failing Nvidia graphics, to replace them with boards that have ATI chips on them.

It's nowhere near that simple.

[diamond.g]

I wrote software but I meant hardware. The 4870X2 will run it's on card Crossfire without any board support for dual GPUs. :p



It's nowhere near that simple.

The way the 4870X2 is designed, it should only show up as one card. That should further simplify getting the card to work in OS X as the cards firmware handles the splitting behind the scenes.

[hajime]

If so, do you expect the update will be out within two weeks?

[kabunaru]

If so, do you expect the update will be out within two weeks?

Maybe "silent behind-the-scenes" update at September 9th event.

[chewietobbacca]

The 4870 actually delivers more FLOPS than the GTX280 does (heck, the 4850 does as well) so whenever they get OpenCL up and running, the 4870 will be a beast of card.

Truts me, I'm using a 4870x2 (soon to be under water) and that thing is blazing fast, even on 2560x1600. Once the 4870 and 4850's are out on the Mac Pro, it'll be beastly!

[Nano-tube]

I have the stock ATI Radeon HD 2600.

It would be nice if there was a comparison of this card with the 4870 or 4850.

In a nutshell:
The 4870 is a tad faster then the 4850.
:D

[Tallest Skil]

If so, do you expect the update will be out within two weeks?

Apple won't touch the Mac Pro until next year. In January. At MacWorld. With Nehalem.

[Og Oggilby]

Maybe "silent behind-the-scenes" update at September 9th event.

Guess not :(

Still waiting for the 4870...

[kabunaru]

"Soon" basically means in 1-2 months it is going to come out.

[chrisS]

Any updates on availability of the 4850/4870 ?

[Og Oggilby]

They are probably waiting for the 5870 (or whatever) to come out on the PC side before they release 4870 Mac cards. For some reason the Mac graphic cards are always a generation or two behind :mad:

[grue]

Insofar as I'm able to tell, this is an unsubstantiated rumour from one site. Maybe it'll ship at the same time as Duke Nukem Forever :rolleyes:

[digitalfrog]

Still waiting .......

[Tallest Skil]

Still waiting .......

Thanks for the update. It was only ever a rumor. We'll get them when the 5870 and 5850 exist.

[voodocoder]

It will be interesting to see what happens if Apple is indeed moving to the nVidia mobile chipset for the iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook and Mac Mini as more and more rumors state.

The Mac Pro might be the only Apple machine that comes with an ATI option, but then if it really does handle Core Image-based applications better, that is the machine you'd want those cards on since they have the most power.

can u help me about having a display card for mac pro ?
what can i buy for my macpro
and how can i find a dirver
can i buy hd 4870 does it gonna work ?

[cured.not.dried]

this is apple we're talking about.

the company who hired car salesmen to push mobile me on people that don't need anything remotely similar.

in my eyes apple will do what they've always done - lie about being cutting edge while forcing obsolete technology down consumers' throats.

the only time we will ever see an EFI driver written for a card is when that card can no longer sell on the windoze side so they "publicly release" software to make it so some sorry sap somewhere will spend their freedom tickets on it.

inventory control, folks, that's what being a mac user is about these days.

by the way, i've got a 4870 512megs that i keep in my pro tower and i just take out the obsolete x1900xt to boot into windoze (which will always have more advanced direct x commands available than any ****ing Cider port) to play games.

mac gaming is dead - the only option is to rig your server hardware to boot windoze and bios.

[oddity]

Any word on these cards ?

[Tallest Skil]

Any word on these cards ?

No. They're not happening.

[Eidorian]

Nothing since it was announced last year. I don't see the HD5xxx Series to hit until Microsoft gets DirectX 11 out anyways. Why rush it?

[macz1]

The release of Snow Leoard (or at least the Nehalem Mac pros) could lead to better GFX card options:

http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2009-02-09/#17950

I hope so.

[Mackeyser]

Hope they do something soon.

At this point, I'm about ready to just get a 4870 and play WoW under XP.

I mean really. I'll still be in Mac for everything else, but it gets tiresome having Apple's drivers being the ONLY thing holding us back...

[toonshorty]

Meh, bring on the GTX 295 in Triple SLI.

or how about HD4870 X2 in Quad CrossfireX

[kabunaru]

Nehalem Mac Pro, if anything, might have 4870 or 4850.
Otherwise, no.

[Sambo110]

Don't worry about this post, didn't realise it was an old bump.

[Mackeyser]

Sorry for the necro post, but I have googled and searched and still can't find anything new.

If you could point me to an ATI solution actually in the pipeline with a delivery date, that'd be great.

I mean, there is NO reason why Apple doesn't have the Full Catalyst suite of drivers ported. None.

I would gladly PAY a fee for Apple drivers for after market cards. I mean if Apple doesn't want to offer an Apple branded 4870HD, fine. Just write the drivers and charge for it. Nothing wrong with that. Or bundle the Apple drivers with card maker already making the cards.

I don't care at this point.

Problem is that I don't want to go to the NVidia cards. I'd rather stick with ATI. Which leaves me with little choice atm, especially with 7 month old announcements which stretch the credulity of "soon".

So if you or anyone knows when "soon" actually is or have a link, I'd surely appreciate it. :D

[Tallest Skil]

Sorry for the necro post, but I have googled and searched and still can't find anything new.

That's because it wasn't going to happen. :(

People would pay for drivers; you're right.

[Mackeyser]

Dang, I was afraid of that.

Soooooo....hmmmm.

Do we have any upgrade path or are we left with more rumors and possibilities?

[Tallest Skil]

Do we have any upgrade path or are we left with more rumors and possibilities?

If the graphics cards from the Gainestown Mac Pro are accidentally compatible with the current Mac Pro, that's your upgrade path.

They won't work with the 2006 model at all.

[SACD02]

If the graphics cards from the Gainestown Mac Pro are accidentally compatible with the current Mac Pro, that's your upgrade path.

They won't work with the 2006 model at all.

That's sad
I've been interested in getting the ATI 3870 but I thought maybe I should wait till the new Mac Pros come out and maybe the new Graphics Card are compatible

I really hope one day the state of Graphics Card availability on Mac platform changes....

[mac.andy]

Excuse my newbness, but wasn't Apple going to NVidia for all their graphics needs? Or was that just for iMac?!

[darthraige]

So does the 4870 come out now. solo, since you can select as option for the new MacPro?

[Eidorian]

So does the 4870 come out now. solo, since you can select as option for the new MacPro?It's on Apple's site now but unavailable. It's only for the 2008/2009 Mac Pros as well.

[jazz1]

I've got a 3970 in a 2.66 MacPro. Will this new beast work in it? Would it be worth it, or is the machine too old? Oops well never mind. The desktop forum seems to think no.

[Tymbo]

There is no mobile version of the RV700 series out yet.

And to anyone that might be confused, the 4850 (RV770) is not a laptop part. It ships on boards that use > 100 Watts.

I hope you're right!

[ellmanl]

Just wanted to add that I'm using a 1GB version if the 4870 in my 2.8x8 Mac Pro. Works like a dream, both in OS x 10.5.6 and Boot Camp. Very impressed. This version I bought from bruinmacs on Ebay. Its a 2 dvi port model, so it doesn't have the mini display port. But I dont see needing one of those ports for quite a while. It beats the pants off of the HD 2600 XT. And it's also very quiet, nice surprise there.

I'm guessing this card was flashed from a PC version (yes, it has a warranty). So I would imagine bruinmacs sells versions that will work in older Mac Pros as well. I think even this one would work in older Mac Pros, but I'm not 100% on that.