Sapphire Launches Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition Graphics Card for Mac Pro

[thekev]

Gaming? I didn't know anyone used Mac Pros for serious gaming.

I was talking about the widespread adoption of CUDA by software developers across the board. So no, the AMD cards don't come close in a price/performance comparison in those applications.

But if your building something to play Battlefield 3, your wasting your money on a Mac from the get-go.

Some of those developers have been working on OpenCL support for Macs. Davinci Resolve has OpenCL support on Macs only.

I'm not sure I'll get one now after seeing the benchmarks.

This is a version 1 driver. Give it some time. Also gaming benchmarks are dumb unless you were planning to buy it for that specific purpose. That will be applicable for a few people as a secondary use, but it probably isn't that common. Maybe it could be a bit more common at the moment with the availability of used 2009-2010 models but still not that common.

 

[Drinahn]

Barefeats to the rescue:

http://www.barefeats.com/gpu7950.html

They're saying it is "compatible with all models 2008 - 2012" (although you need to run 10.8.3 or later), so there's your unofficial response. Tempted to get this for my own 2008 Mac Pro.

Hmm, I assume this means they've actually tested it in a 2008 and 2009. I might wait a little while before I take the plunge for my 2009 model!

 

[Kissaragi]

Anyone heard anything about UK availability yet?

 

[DesterWallaboo]

Nice card. Too bad Apple doesn't support OpenGL 4.2

Seriously..... Apple is so far behind the curve on OpenGL it's embarrassing.

----------

Gaming? I didn't know anyone used Mac Pros for serious gaming.

I was talking about the widespread adoption of CUDA by software developers across the board. So no, the AMD cards don't come close in a price/performance comparison in those applications.

But if your building something to play Battlefield 3, your wasting your money on a Mac from the get-go.

Actually... AMD OpenCL and NVidia CUDA are super close performance-wise. In fact, I wish NVidia was simply drop CUDA and go full-blown OpenCL. If you look at CUDA vs OpenCL online, you'll find they both have strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Michael73]

Think I'll wait. It's a nice card but my MP 3,1 is getting a little long in the tooth and I don't feel like throwing any money in it assuming a new MP is around the corner.

 

[audio_inside]

Any news if this will work in our ancient 1,1s with 32bit EFI?

Probably - if you can live without the boot screen on SL or if you can get ML running on your 1,1.

 

[wildmac]

Crap:


From here

So, no support or does it not work with the 2008 Mac Pro?

Let's put it this way... if your old MacPro doesn't support 10.8.x, then you are screwed.

If mine was new enough that it still supported 10.8, I'd buy this, another 8GB of ram, and say screw buying a new system.

 

[92jlee]

Probably - if you can live without the boot screen on SL or if you can get ML running on your 1,1.

If I didn't want the boot screen could just stick a PC one in there. Running a 6870 on 10.7 but I really would like the boot screen.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Some of those developers have been working on OpenCL support for Macs. Davinci Resolve has OpenCL support on Macs only.

Since you mention Resolve, here is an excerpt from their Mac config guide(bottom page 4):

"NVIDIA CUDA-based GPU cards should continue to be used with Mac Pro computers as CUDA provides much faster image processing than
OpenCL, and also supports noise reduction"

 

[flipnode]

Long screws on the back so it will fit only in slot 2.

Most likely not an issue.

I have a Sapphire 7950 PC card with the same type of screws mounting the cooler in my 2008 MP and it's fine in slot 1.

I think MacVidCards also confirmed something along the same lines in another thread.

 

[toke lahti]

Could this work in MP's from 2006-2007 (1,1 & 2,1)?

 

[rGiskard]

I remember reading this online:

”Most people don't realize that Mountain Lion opened up Mac Pros so they can use any NVidia PC card right out of the box. We upgraded most of our older Mac Pros to NVidia GeForce GTX 640's. Plugged them in..... whamo!.. the work flawlessly.”

I don't have the link to were I read this anymore, but that's what someone wrote.

They will work but without EFI bootscreen support. Not sure about DVD Player support.

I wonder if this 7950 foretells a new Mac Pro with a white color scheme?

Also, will the new Mac Pro supply enough power via PCIe power cables to run a 7970? Maybe not because it wouldn't be as thin.

 

[ppdix]

PCIe 2.0 on Mac Pro

I have a 12-Core 2.66Ghz 2010 Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM, a PCIe 2.0 X16 with a Radeon HD 5770 1GB Video Card attached to 2 LED Cinema Displays (One Vertical) Yes, the vertical makes a HUUUUUGGEEEE difference since the single card has to "rotate" the images in real time so the display performance suffers.
Does anyone know if this card will actually make a difference since there is a limitation on the 2.0?
Hopefully will release a new Mac Pro this year with PCIe 3.0 but who knows... They might axe the whole Mac Pro Line all together in favor of cheap and consumer oriented Macs...
Anyway. I am not a gamer. I am a photographer so I need video speed in Photoshop and Aperture which since Mountain Lion, struggles a little...
I can't use the Sapphire together with the 5770 cause they won't fit.
Please advice.

Cheers

Patrick

 

[holmesf]

Seriously..... Apple is so far behind the curve on OpenGL it's embarrassing.

----------



Actually... AMD OpenCL and NVidia CUDA are super close performance-wise. In fact, I wish NVidia was simply drop CUDA and go full-blown OpenCL. If you look at CUDA vs OpenCL online, you'll find they both have strengths and weaknesses.

CUDA is years ahead of OpenCL in terms of features (dynamic parallelism standing out the most). Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that OpenCL exists as a vendor neutral standard, but so long as the GPU market continues to evolve quickly, CUDA has its place.

 

[alphaod]

Sadly, we are getting ripped off as usual… and I'm buying it anyways.

 

[DrNeroCF]

This is only slightly faster than the GTX 570 that I have stuffed in my 1,1 Mac Pro that's half the price.

Is a boot screen really that important?

 

[DesterWallaboo]

This is only slightly faster than the GTX 570 that I have stuffed in my 1,1 Mac Pro that's half the price.

Is a boot screen really that important?

I hear ya... I'm running a GTX 660 Ti and I saw this announcement... kind of brought a bit of a yawn.

However... Radeon's are typically better at higher FPS with higher resolutions and antialiasing than NVidia.

 

[64Mario64]

Will this and other new GPUs work with a 2008 Mac Pro (3,1)? I want to get a new GPU but nothing this expensive.

 

[Squishy Tia]

The Sapphire website description mentions 10.7.5 being one of the supported OSes. If this is the case, then why would 10.8.3 be necessary to run it on any Mac Pro?

That's what's bugging me at the moment...

 

[alphaod]

The Sapphire website description mentions 10.7.5 being one of the supported OSes. If this is the case, then why would 10.8.3 be necessary to run it on any Mac Pro?

That's what's bugging me at the moment...

I'm thinking all the versions from 10.7.5 onward are supported, but you need to install the drivers from the included DVD first; only with 10.8.3 is the driver installed by default.

 

[Squishy Tia]

I'm thinking all the versions from 10.7.5 onward are supported, but you need to install the drivers from the included DVD first; only with 10.8.3 is the driver installed by default.

Makes sense. Not that I would have a problem with 10.8.3, since it shouldn't be hard to update my 10.8.2 partition to 10.8.3, despite being on a Mac Pro 1,1.

Thank goodness I made an image of my virgin 10.8.2 install should anything go wrong. Saves me from ever having to redo it again by hand.

 

[50voltphantom]

Holy crud, Mac Pro-related news. I use a mini but stuff like this makes me happy.

 

[mflender]

Just out of curiosity, is there any practical way to have this work with any Mac other than a Mac Pro? (Currently all my apps in development don't call for much graphics-wise, but it seems feasible that someday within the next 3 years I might want to make something more.)

Yes. if your mac has thunderbolt you could use one of these thunderbolt to pcie expansion boxes.
http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t
http://www.sonnettech.com/product//echoexpresschassis.html

 

[Codyak]

My custom "Mac" runs a 680 with no issue. Also what the hell is with the price premium on this??

 

[thekev]

Since you mention Resolve, here is an excerpt from their Mac config guide(bottom page 4):

"NVIDIA CUDA-based GPU cards should continue to be used with Mac Pro computers as CUDA provides much faster image processing than
OpenCL, and also supports noise reduction"

Thanks. Yeah I'm not totally surprised. CUDA is likely more mature at this point.