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4870 Price $350

C

Chaos123x

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
1,698
34
The Apple Store is now selling the cards after a quick 2 day wait.

But they are $350!!!!! :eek:


I guess I should not be surprised by Apple overcharging, but you can get this card for PC for $150.
:confused:


Ships: 5-7 weeks




Overview
For incredible graphics processing power, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of GDDR5 memory is the ultimate choice for visual creative, scientific, and technical applications.
ATI Radeon HD 4870 includes two video ports: one Mini DisplayPort and one dual-link DVI port. This allows you to connect both the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display or another Mini DisplayPort-based display, and a DVI-based display such as the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. Display adapters are available to connect VGA displays.
Compatibility:

Requires Mac Pro (Early 2009 with 1066MHz DDR3 memory) or Mac Pro (Early 2008 with 800MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM memory) with PCI Express 2.0 slot
Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later
 
lol, what did we really expect from a company that is still charging $279 for an 8800GT? :eek:

Hopefully if you give it some time, someone will figure out a BIOS flash for the PC card to make it Mac compatible--similar to what some people did with the 8800GT.
 
Chaos123x said:
$321.00 With my Corporate discount.


Well then I need to spend $27.00 on a adapter to get DVI out for my other monitor.
Click to expand...

4870 Upgrade Kit includes:
* Includes a DVI to VGA connector for easy connection to VGA-based displays

What a waste,
I do not understand why they would include the instead of including an Mini DisplayPort adapter......
 
POLOgt said:
4870 Upgrade Kit includes:
* Includes a DVI to VGA connector for easy connection to VGA-based displays

What a waste,
I do not understand why they would include the instead of including a Mini DisplayPort......
Click to expand...

That is really stupid.
 
Hopefully you can just buy an ordinary Radeon HD 4870 and slam in it :)

Right now I can get the Radeon HD 4870 1GB for nearly half the price Apple is asking for the 512MB version...
 
Pressure said:
Hopefully you can just buy an ordinary Radeon HD 4870 and slam in it :)

Right now I can get the Radeon HD 4870 1GB for nearly half the price Apple is asking for the 512MB version...
Click to expand...

If you did something like flash an OC'd/1gb one, can OS X take advantage of that? or do the Ktxts limit the actual specs?

Could you even use a 4870x2 since if I remember right the architecture reports it as only a single GPU?
 
Flashing a X2 1gb with the Mac 4870 rom?

That would be sweet! and Cheaper!
 
Chaos123x said:
Flashing a X2 1gb with the Mac 4870 rom?

That would be sweet! and Cheaper!
Click to expand...
Possible, once someone manages to post a dump of the EFI on it, and assuming the target card has an adequate capacity flash chip to hold it. :)
 
Valorite said:
If you did something like flash an OC'd/1gb one, can OS X take advantage of that? or do the Ktxts limit the actual specs?

Could you even use a 4870x2 since if I remember right the architecture reports it as only a single GPU?
Click to expand...

I don't think it'd work very well. It's a single card yes, but when you look at it, not all games support crossfire equally well if at all. You'll see it in benchmarks where the 4870x2 dominates and then lags behind in other cases. To the programs/drivers it probably just appears as crossfire 4870's, something you'd have to specifically support to take advantage of.
 
pprior said:
This last page is concerning:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=22

Sounds like the 4870 is louder and uses quite a bit more power at idle (50 watts more!) than the 8800 nvidia card.
Click to expand...
The extra power should be expected, compared to the 8800.

As for noise, mine isn't bad at all. I consistently hear the case fans over it, and they're not bad either. But I prefer to sacrifice silence for good cooling if necessary. But by no means is it like a jet engine. ;) :p
 
mackmack said:
I don't think it'd work very well. It's a single card yes, but when you look at it, not all games support crossfire equally well if at all. You'll see it in benchmarks where the 4870x2 dominates and then lags behind in other cases. To the programs/drivers it probably just appears as crossfire 4870's, something you'd have to specifically support to take advantage of.
Click to expand...

I was under the opposite impression, that on the OS level it appears to be a single card, and the instructions are routed to the different gpus at the hardware level on the card(which is why ATI's x2 cards perform more linearly than Nvidias do), which if true, would mean OSX could still get full power from it(otherwise it'd just be drawing more resources for no reason).

If it's not true...oh well.

Maybe we'll be lucky and in the future Apple will support Lucid's chipset, and then we could finally use any video card in Macs without worrying about compatibility.
 
I didn't even know the 4870 came as a 512MB version. Why even ***** bother? It's hard to believe that in 2009 we are paying $350 for a video card with 512MB of RAM in a professional workstation class PC.

Apple, I want to love them but sometimes I can't help but hate them.
 
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