compared to the GT120 yes, compared to the 8800 not so much - but its still a good 20%-30% better then it.
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2008 mac pro owners, screwed by snow leopard
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compared to the GT120 yes, compared to the 8800 not so much - but its still a good 20%-30% better then it.
The 8800 GT sounds like a good option, but it doesn't look like any stores carry brand new ones, so I would have to go used
The 8800 GT sounds like a good option, but it doesn't look like any stores carry brand new ones, so I would have to go used
really?? how odd! that sucks.
Well, to be honest, if you're freaking out about wanting a card that can do OpenCL, I'd suggest you wait a few months...
I've been pretty active up in the OpenCL Benchmark thread in the News section, and honestly, the only "benchmark" that we have to go on right now shows the 4870 being pretty aweful. HOWEVER, the benchmark is also complete crap and isn't doing anything that would stress the cards at all.
The fact is, that we really don't know which card will be best just yet. I'm SURE there's a lot of tweaking that needs to be done on the ATI cards, and there aren't really any serious OpenCL programs out yet that push the cards enough to really know the performance.
In fact, I'm betting by the time we get any good OpenCL programs (6 months?) ATI will have a new card out (hopefully for the Mac Pro!)
So, if the 2600XT is doing the job for you right now, keep with it for a while. IF you're looking to write OpenCL code, you still can, it'll just run on your CPU until you get a GPU capable of running it. So you still can work on developing OpenCL code in the mean time.
I've been pretty active up in the OpenCL Benchmark thread in the News section, and honestly, the only "benchmark" that we have to go on right now shows the 4870 being pretty aweful. HOWEVER, the benchmark is also complete crap and isn't doing anything that would stress the cards at all.
The fact is, that we really don't know which card will be best just yet. I'm SURE there's a lot of tweaking that needs to be done on the ATI cards, and there aren't really any serious OpenCL programs out yet that push the cards enough to really know the performance.
In fact, I'm betting by the time we get any good OpenCL programs (6 months?) ATI will have a new card out (hopefully for the Mac Pro!)
So, if the 2600XT is doing the job for you right now, keep with it for a while. IF you're looking to write OpenCL code, you still can, it'll just run on your CPU until you get a GPU capable of running it. So you still can work on developing OpenCL code in the mean time.
Wow I didnt know that Snow Leopard ran a 32-bit kernel by default. I just rebooted my mac pro and loaded the 64-bit kernel this time. Much snappier than before!
It does and it doesn't....
ATI's web site says it CAN support OpenCL, WITH CAVEATS!
The problem is, those Caveats make it basically useless for OpenCL, or at least for the sort of thing you'd want to use OpenCL for - moving calculations from the CPU over to the GPU to do.
The 2600 can't do double precision floating point math. That means that if you're taking code you would normally run on a CPU and run the same code on the 2600, you'll get different answers back because there's a lack of precision in the math.
2.45675456E23 != 2.45675E23
There's also some other architectural differences in terms of memory/cache that make the 2600 not really acceptable for OpenCL use.
So, can it be made to run SOME OpenCL code - sure it could be... But you'd be retarded to invest the time, money and energy to write the drivers and such to do so only to have something that wouldn't perform very well and wouldn't give you accurate results. You'd be better off spending $150 and getting a GT120 or waiting for even better cards.
I'm sorry folks, but the 2600 is a 4 year old video card, and wasn't designed with OpenCL GPGPU type computations in mind. Trying to shoehorn OpenCL onto it just isn't going to make for a very good experience.
And believe me, I'm not thrilled about it either! I have a 2600 in my 2009 Pro along with the 4870 in order to run a pair of 20" dell monitors next to my 24" that the 4870 drives.
Yeah all right grue. I was a bit stroppy in my reply. No hard feelings. I have noticed that there is a tendency by a number of contributors to give anyone who doesn't drool over Apple's every move a hard time on mac forums. I take the point that this was not what you were doing and sorry that I suggested you were.
The reason I posted on here was that the OPs dissatisfaction with Apple resonated with my own disappointment at the moment.
W
I just bought a GT 120 to do OpenCL duty on my 2008 MP. I'll keep my 2600XT installed, along with the GTX 275 for Windows.
Except that this "analysis" is complete bunk. Read this:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars
to see just how minor an upgrade SL really is. While there may not be a huge amount of "user-facing" changes, the changes for developers are MASSIVE, and will be very important for future development, both from Apple and third parties.