2008 mac pro owners, screwed by snow leopard

[grue]

I have 3 displays, 30inch ACD, 19inch gateway, 15 inch dell.

And to the people who say, i should expect this because "thats technology"

No, thats apple screwing there customers into buying new hardware. Im not going to give them $260 more to buy 2 new nvidia 130's that have crappy miniDVi, I want to use the 2 graphic cards I payed for, and use solely because they both have 2 dual link DVI.

I dont understand why my friends 2 year old mac book pro has full support under snow leopard, and my 1 year old mac pro, which cost me twice as much, does not have full support!

I kept hearing about how much faster snow leopard will be with a mac pro because it will take advantage of the 8 cores. Whats the point of that, if a mac book with a 9400, will kick my mac pros ass because its GPU is being used as a cpu?

Its like buying a car last year and being told that the gas is no longer compatible!

Your CPUs are faster than a 9400m, amigo.

and no, it's nothing like buying a car and being told that fuel is no longer compatible. It's more akin to being told that features on the new model are not available on your model, it's life.

Suck it up and buy video cards that don't suck, or buy a new computer, or stop whinging.

 

[maghemi]

I wish applecare would cover "blunders by apple that screw the user"

Not gonna happen. And no amount of bitching on the interweb is going to change that.

 

[grue]

Just buy a new GPU card. Preferably the 4870, might as well.

If he's worried about OpenCL speed, he should be buying nothing made by ATI.

 

[jjahshik32]

I can't stand minidvi, and I need to run 3 displays! Im not shelling out $740 bucks to get 2 4870! I wish applecare would cover "blunders by apple that screw the user"

Dont know what to tell ya. Its mini display port btw. I love my cinema display on my sig more than all of my toys combined!

 

[jjahshik32]

If he's worried about OpenCL speed, he should be buying nothing made by ATI.

Oh jeez, not another ati vs. nvidia thread.

Either way ATI has much better drivers under osx.

 

[Gugalpm]

I shelled out $4000 bucks because I have a job that requires a $4000 computer. I have to import, edit, export, and burn an hour and a half of hd video in 4 hours. I need all the power I can get. I spent $4000 thinking, I would never have to buy an upgrade part. My CPU's are still one of the fastest around. Why should I need to spend $300+ for new graphic cards? because apple was too lazy to write drivers for it? Come on!

Back to my car example, thats like saying you bought a ferrari one year ago but now the gas is not compatible so Ferrari tells you, "just buy a new engine"

Actually you'd only need to change the fuel injection part, not the engine.

 

[iVoid]

I have 3 displays, 30inch ACD, 19inch gateway, 15 inch dell.

Technically, to use OpenCL you could just get one new card. OpenCL will still use it regardless of which monitor is hooked up to which card. Any program making OpenCL calls will just use the OpenCL compatible card for computations. (at least this is my understanding that OpenCL isn't just offloading display tasks to the card which is then displayed directly on a monitor connected to that card, OpenCL can be used to offload encoding tasks and other things that aren't actually displaying anything)


And I agree that Apple is much too fast in abandoning relatively new models.

But it is possible that it is Nvidia and ATI's fault if older cards don't support OpenCL, which is a very new specification. Possibly, they could do a firmware update to provide OpenCL compatibility at some point.

I'm also disappointed that Quicktime X can't use my 2009 MacPro's GT120 for H.264 acceleration. Yeah, I know my beast can handle it with the CPU alone fine, but it'd still be nice to offload that mundane task while doing other tasks on the CPUs.

 

[grue]

Oh jeez, not another ati vs. nvidia thread.

Either way ATI has much better drivers under osx.

Driver issue is debatable.

OpenCL performance is not.

 

[grue]

Why should I need to spend $300+ for new graphic cards? because apple was too lazy to write drivers for it? Come on!

Oh give me a break. You obviously have no real grasp of the technical side of thing, so stop blaming Apple. It's not a matter of drivers, it's a matter of the hardware being compatible with the technology… and your crappy little budget cards aren't.

 

[Macpropro80]

Oh give me a break. You obviously have no real grasp of the technical side of thing, so stop blaming Apple. It's not a matter of drivers, it's a matter of the hardware being compatible with the technology… and your crappy little budget cards aren't.

Um.... hum..... A ati xt 2600HD is better then a 9400.....

And the ati xt2600HD can support open gl 2.0 in Windows, SO, that means it should theoretically support apple's open cl.

And you could loose the attitude.

 

[grue]

Um.... hum..... A ati xt 2600HD is better then a 9400.....

And the ati xt2600HD can support open gl 2.0 in Windows, SO, that means it should theoretically support apple's open cl.

And you could loose the attitude.

The 2600 can do things the 9400 can't, but guess which one predates the technology necessary to use OpenCL? If you guessed the 2600, you're right! This is also the reason the GeForce 7300 isn't compatible: The hardware is physically incapable of using OpenCL. It's not a matter of software (which is why the 4870 sucks at OpenCL… purely software, though whose software [Apple's OpenCL, or ATI's driver package] is sucking is open to debate), so there can be no drivers to enable the usage of OpenCL on the R600 based chipsets. For more fun, go check out ATI's "Stream" GPGPU technology… it sucks -hard- compared to CUDA, because NVIDIA is working to make their cards useful for this sort of thing.

OpenGL and OpenCL are -vastly- different technologies and the usability of one is irrelevant to the compatibility with the other.

Yes, I could lose (not loose), the attitude… but the attitude comes from people whining and throwing blame around when they fail to understand the source of what they see as a problem.


Examples:

"I'm pissed off, my 4870 sucks at OpenCL!" - Valid gripe!

"I'm pissed off at Apple, my 4870 sucks at OpenCL!" - Less valid, as it's not necessarily Apple's fault.

"I"m pissed off at Apple, my 2600 doesn't do OpenCL!" - Not valid. It's not Apple's fault.

 

[Macpropro80]

The 2600 can do things the 9400 can't, but guess which one predates the technology necessary to use OpenCL? If you guessed the 2600, you're right! This is also the reason the GeForce 7300 isn't compatible: The hardware is physically incapable of using OpenCL. It's not a matter of software (which is why the 4870 sucks at OpenCL… purely software, though whose software [Apple's OpenCL, or ATI's driver package] is sucking is open to debate), so there can be no drivers to enable the usage of OpenCL on the R600 based chipsets. For more fun, go check out ATI's "Stream" GPGPU technology… it sucks -hard- compared to CUDA, because NVIDIA is working to make their cards useful for this sort of thing.

OpenGL and OpenCL are -vastly- different technologies and the usability of one is irrelevant to the compatibility with the other.

Yes, I could lose (not loose), the attitude… but the attitude comes from people whining and throwing blame around when they fail to understand the source of what they see as a problem.


Examples:

"I'm pissed off, my 4870 sucks at OpenCL!" - Valid gripe!

"I'm pissed off at Apple, my 4870 sucks at OpenCL!" - Less valid, as it's not necessarily Apple's fault.

"I"m pissed off at Apple, my 2600 doesn't do OpenCL!" - Not valid. It's not Apple's fault.

Look, To me this is all a matter of principle. Sure I could go to the apple store and buy a Nvidia 120GT, if I wanted to. But I am happy with the graphic cards I own right now, sure, they are not the greatest, but they work fine for what I do. I don't like the fact that apple dropped support for a one year old graphic card. That is not right for the consumer. I have a problem with apples approach of, "well just buy a new one" Its not right.

 

[Mr.PS]

What about those with the Nvidia 8800GT?

 

[alphaod]

It's not supported because of a simple concept:

The video card was not built for that purpose in mind. Sure they can write drivers and firmware to possibly support OpenCL, but that would require both time and money. Personally I'd rather they forward and make better technology, rather than attempt to update legacy technology.

What about those with the Nvidia 8800GT?

It it works.

 

[jjahshik32]

Well now I am 100% convinced that with your principals/situation you have been royally screwed by Apple.

 

[grue]

Look, To me this is all a matter of principle. Sure I could go to the apple store and buy a Nvidia 120GT, if I wanted to. But I am happy with the graphic cards I own right now, sure, they are not the greatest, but they work fine for what I do. I don't like the fact that apple dropped support for a one year old graphic card. That is not right for the consumer. I have a problem with apples approach of, "well just buy a new one" Its not right.

It's unfortunately the nature of the game. The card in your machine might be physically one year old, but the chipset it's based on was in late stage development in 2006 and your video card shipped in early 2007. It's two and a half years old now.

It's not like anybody at Apple said "Welp, screw the 2600 users", it's just taht the video card's technology was too dated to support OpenCL.

If it makes you feel any better, I ordered (at great expense), two 8 core 3Ghz workstations in December of 2007, and Apple updated the machines to have 8 cores as standard before mine even arrived. So I could have gone to an Apple store and picked up the new model while my "old" model was en route from the factory.

 

[Macpropro80]

It's not supported because of a simple concept:

The video card was not built for that purpose in mind. Sure they can write drivers and firmware to possibly support OpenCL, but that would require both time and money. Personally I'd rather they forward and make better technology, rather than attempt to update legacy technology.



It it works.

Power PC's are legacy, one year old graphic cards are not.

 

[alphaod]

Power PC's are legacy, one year old graphic cards are not.

Unfortunately to the manufacturer who is out to make money, it is.

If you think about it, the X2000 series is 2 generations old. That's pretty old in computer ages.

 

[grue]

When I get upset that technology has left me behind, I stop being upset and be awesome instead.

 

[Macpropro80]

Unfortunately to the manufacturer who is out to make money, it is.

If you think about it, the X2000 series is 2 generations old. That's pretty old in computer ages.

I guess you have a point. I will pick up 2 nvidia 120GT's next month.

 

[nightfly13]

I guess you have a point. I will pick up 2 nvidia 120GT's next month.

Personally I do not think Apple is obligated to make sure that every new feature works with every legacy product, it's that kind of lowest common denominator thinking that has kept Windows so backward looking and mediocre. Am I excited that my 2007 Mac Pro can't boot the 64-bit kernel? No, but I guess I'm thankful that it's running the 64-bit applications.

I read about which cards worked for OpenGL and which didn't - and I upgraded from my X1900xt to an 8800 for this very reason.

There is a difference between 'Apple ending support' and Apple ensuring that every new feature works on every old (and extremely low end!) part.

Does your HD-crunching software even support OpenGL yet? And if it does, and it makes a huge difference, then you would be well served to get a better video card anyway. I don't think it's necessary to buy 2 new cards, just get one high-end card for the 30" and see how the OpenGL support improves things.

Slightly off topic, does anyone know if adding a second or third graphics card, even if they're not driving any monitors, would contribute to more computing power via OpenGL? I can see people filling up all 4 PCI slots if it amounts to adding a half-processor or something per GPU.

 

[grue]

Personally I do not think Apple is obligated to make sure that every new feature works with every legacy product, it's that kind of lowest common denominator thinking that has kept Windows so backward looking and mediocre. Am I excited that my 2007 Mac Pro can't boot the 64-bit kernel? No, but I guess I'm thankful that it's running the 64-bit applications.

I read about which cards worked for OpenGL and which didn't - and I upgraded from my X1900xt to an 8800 for this very reason.

There is a difference between 'Apple ending support' and Apple ensuring that every new feature works on every old (and extremely low end!) part.

Does your HD-crunching software even support OpenGL yet? And if it does, and it makes a huge difference, then you would be well served to get a better video card anyway. I don't think it's necessary to buy 2 new cards, just get one high-end card for the 30" and see how the OpenGL support improves things.

Slightly off topic, does anyone know if adding a second or third graphics card, even if they're not driving any monitors, would contribute to more computing power via OpenGL? I can see people filling up all 4 PCI slots if it amounts to adding a half-processor or something per GPU.

I assume you meant OpenCL throughout your post… and yes, it works fine. I have an 8800GT and a GTX260 installed in my 2007 Mac Pro (only the 260 has a display plugged into it), and OpenCL sees both… and it's a hell of a lot more than a half-processor:

Number of OpenCL devices found: 3
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce 8800 GT
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 1500 MHz and 112 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 0.683 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = GeForce GTX 260
Device 1 is an: GPU with max. 1400 MHz and 216 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 0.365 seconds

OpenCL Device # 2 = Intel® Xeon® CPU X5365 @ 3.00GHz
Device 2 is an: CPU with max. 3000 MHz and 8 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 3.094 seconds

 

[lemonade-maker]

Back to my car example, thats like saying you bought a ferrari one year ago but now the gas is not compatible so Ferrari tells you, "just buy a new engine"

I like car analogies but yours doesn't fit. A better analogy is you bought last years Ferrari but your radio sucks when compared to this year's model. Its easy to put a radio in, even a Ferrari. Just get a decent card.

 

[GoKyu]

I have an early '08 Mac Pro, and I hadn't even been thinking about the requirements for OpenCL - I just wanted a video card with more memory for the Photoshop/video stuff I'm doing, so I ended up getting a GT120.

It's been a great card, and I've noticed a big difference in speed of Snow Leopard over Leopard.

Well worth the upgrade

 

[patpro]

this is my #1 gripe with apple, BY FAR. ALL of their products are more or less -designed- to be expendable after a couple years.

Are you sure? I think 80-90% of Apple sells are iMac/ipod/iphone/laptop. None of these are expendable.
Apple just don't want you to expand your hardware after purchase. And the only expendable box available is way overpriced.

it seems obvious to me that apple does this crap merely so its users will be forced to pay top dollar every couple years

That's their business model, for sure.