30 Inch Displays Now Shipping

[MacRumors]

Various reader reports have announced that orders for the new 30" Apple Cinema Display and the corresponding required NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card are now shipping. The displays, announced along with the 20" & 23" counterparts in June, have been slow out of the gate due to production problems from NVidia in providing the required cards.

Also announced today is the new Mac-compliant x800 graphics card from ATI which is only the second card available on the market able to drive the new large-scale displays. One major difference in the two cards is the ATI card occupies only one slot, whereas the NVidia requires two due to its large cooling apparatus. Pricing for the new ATI card has not yet been announced.

[mms]

Awesome. It's been a while, but hopefully the product will be great enough to offset the delays. Also great to hear that there's some choice in terms of the graphics card.

[mkjellman]

does anyone know which is better the ati or nividia? its great that apple finally is going to get these out the door...

[AliensAreFuzzy]

Oh, what I would do to have dual 30"ers

[invaLPsion]

My money is ready for this ATi Video Card.

$599 is way too much to spend, let's see $499, ATi!

[BJNY]

The nVidia card can drive two 30" displays. Is this new ATI capable of that, too?

[invaLPsion]

Originally Posted by mkjellman

does anyone know which is better the ati or nividia? its great that apple finally is going to get these out the door...

Depends what the X800 card is and what games you are playing. If it's an X800 Pro, the 6800 will be better, if it's an X800XT, it should be about equal for most games, if it's the Platinum Edition, it may outperform the NVidia card only slighty.

The 6800 will perform better in games like: UT2K4, Call of Duty, Doom 3

The X800 (?) will perform better in games like: Halo, WoW, Warcraft 3...

[jackieonasses]

finally!! people are happy again!

[invaLPsion]

Originally Posted by BJNY

The nVidia card can drive two 30" displays. Is this new ATI capable of that, too?

From the forums I read on MacWorld, no.

[Freg3000]

Yes, it seems as though you can only ( ) drive one 30 inch display, as the card has one dual link DVI and one ADC. So it is a good buy for people (read: almost everyone) who doesn't need two 30 inchers or may need to hook up an old ADC Apple monitor. It also will be faster in some respects and possibly cheaper.

[Daveway]

I was going to post this news earlier. I saw Amazon.com was showing an October 15 ship date last night.

Can't wait for the pics to come in!

[JGowan]

I'm very glad that Apple has started shipping them. I had considered getting one, but the cost of the monitor, video card & G5 computer (I've got a Quicksilver G4 now, though I have a G5 at work) was too much money, even though I was going to be able to get $2000 towards the price from a TAP plan at CompUSA.

I finally opted to swap out my 14 month-old 23" display for the new one without paying a cent. It works with my current computer and works without an adapter with my 17" PBook. Also, I didn't have to buy a new expensive video card.

I'm sure, though, that the new 30s will just set a completely new standard. I'm just happy to have my new 23".

[Mr. Anderson]

I'm really looking forward to going to the Apple store and seeing these things in person. I think that dual 23" would be better than a single 30" but its still going to be a nice display.

D

[javabear90]

Originally Posted by Freg3000

Yes, it seems as though you can only ( ) drive one 30 inch display, as the card has one dual link DVI and one ADC. So it is a good buy for people (read: almost everyone) who doesn't need two 30 inchers or may need to hook up an old ADC Apple monitor. It also will be faster in some respects and possibly cheaper.

I don't think many peoople will have two 30" displys... I mean that only cost $6400 + tax + a new PM G5 + Nvidia 6800 ultra.... I think comes out to be ~$10,000...
mmm..... drool

[Phat_Pat]

Originally Posted by javabear90

I don't think many peoople will have two 30" displys... I mean that only cost $6400 + tax + a new PM G5 + Nvidia 6800 ultra.... I think comes out to be ~$10,000...
mmm..... drool

yeah but don't forget that ram and graphics card and oooooh sooo much.....

next thing you know you'll be selling your bmw for your new computer.

[nagromme]

Owners, please post screenshots

I'd like to see UT2004 at full native 2560x1600 res, with all details maxed and at least 4x anti-aliasing enabled. Who needs a zoom scope? 16-bot Onslaught at good framerates please

[bacon]

There is no DirectX on OSX. I believe the ATI cards are faster for DirectX games, and NVidia is better for OpenGL, and everything on the mac is OpenGL.

Originally Posted by invaLPsion

Depends what the X800 card is and what games you are playing. If it's an X800 Pro, the 6800 will be better, if it's an X800XT, it should be about equal for most games, if it's the Platinum Edition, it may outperform the NVidia card only slighty.

The 6800 will perform better in games like: UT2K4, Call of Duty, Doom 3

The X800 (?) will perform better in games like: Halo, WoW, Warcraft 3...

[t300]

I saw the combo today at the Digital Life expo in NYC...All I can say is...INCREDIBLE!

My pics:

http://webpages.charter.net/rusty01/g5.JPG

http://webpages.charter.net/rusty01/g51.JPG

[swissmann]

I wish I had enough money to buy one of these. I'm getting sick of my 17 inch piece of trash Dell monitor.

[Dr. Dastardly]

I can't wait to see one of these in perosn. Not that I would ever need or buy a monitor this big... but damn!

[Phat_Pat]

Originally Posted by jet3004

I saw the combo today at the Digital Life expo in NYC...All I can say is...INCREDIBLE!

My pics:

http://webpages.charter.net/rusty01/g51.JPG

the screen next to it. Is that a 20 or a 23?

[absolut_mac]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

Also announced today is the new Mac-compliant x800 graphics card from ATI which is only the second card available on the market able to drive the new large-scale displays. One major difference in the two cards is the ATI card occupies only one slot, whereas the NVidia requires two due to its large cooling apparatus. Pricing for the new ATI card has not yet been announced.

ATI rules!!!

I had one nVidia card and then I switched to ATI - I'm never again going to suffer from spending my money with companies that give their customers medicore products and poor support to boot.

ATI, superior cards with superior support

[BrianKonarsMac]

Originally Posted by BJNY

The nVidia card can drive two 30" displays. Is this new ATI capable of that, too?

NOPE. Boo Ati!!! It has ONE dual-link DVI connection and ONE ADC connection (a nice nod to apple users...after Apple kills the ADC connector...dumb bastards, WE NEED TWO DUAL LINK DVI'S FOR THOSE OVERLY RICH SNOBS AND THEIR DUAL 30 inchers! Cuz hey, I hope to be one of those rich snobs someday :P.

[BrianKonarsMac]

Originally Posted by Phat_Pat

the screen next to it. Is that a 20 or a 23?

23 incher. Looks pathetically tiny doesn't it? I can already feel the superiority complex kicking in inside every 23inch owning mac users head...

Is anyone positive this will be called the X800!? I'm pretty sure ATI wasn't going to use that naming scheme for non PCI-Express cards. It is based on the X800 architechture, but since it doesn't use PCI-Express, it will not go into the X GPU category. For an i.e. look at the 9800mobility. This card IS NOT based on the Radeon 9800 GPU, but rather the X800 core. It is called a 9800M because Laptops don't have PCI-Express yet. This card will either be branded some special 9800, or labeled using something to denote NO PCI-EXPRESS, or the ubiquitous X800 for Mac (aka minus features PC users get).

[frozenstar]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Owners, please post screenshots

I'd like to see UT2004 at full native 2560x1600 res, with all details maxed and at least 4x anti-aliasing enabled. Who needs a zoom scope? 16-bot Onslaught at good framerates please

I'd bet that both the X800 and the 6800 would choke with those settings. My 9800XT can run a 16-bot Onslaught match at 1680x1050 with good framerates, but that's with no FSAA or AF. The native res on the 30" has more than twice the number of pixels as the native res on my 20". That means the GPU is going to be taxed twice as hard just to maintain usable frame rates. And neither the 6800 nor the X800 is twice as fast as the 9800XT.

I would like to crank up FSAA and AF in my FPS games, and that'll require one of the new cards. But I think I'm gonna wait to see benchmark comparisons before I lay out that kind of cash.