AMD Announces ATI Radeon HD 3870 Card For Mac and PC

[MacRumors]

AMD today announced the new ATI Radeon HD 3870 for Mac & PC Edition. AMD says the card is "designed exclusively for Apple's Mac Pro systems" and includes two dual-link DVI ports, 512 MB of GDDR4 graphics memory, and 320 stream processors.

“AMD is introducing the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition to enhance the Mac experience to maximum levels of 3D gaming and HD performance,” said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “Mac users demand the best when it comes to HD graphics performance, and the ATI Radeon 3870 Mac & PC Edition is designed to meet and exceed that need by delivering The Ultimate Visual Experience™ to our customers’ displays.”

Delivers More Power for Professional Applications
Superior performance and visual quality make the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition ideal for creative and professional applications on Apple Mac Pro systems, including Aperture™, Motion and Final Cut Studio®. Users can take advantage of the latest graphics features and drive productivity at an extraordinary price.

The release has been anticipated and is expected to give unrivaled Core Image processing power for its price class, largely confirmed by an early review by Xlr8yourmac.com. Unlike the NVIDIA 8800 GT which had two separate models for older and newer Mac Pros, the Radeon HD 3870 Mac and PC Edition will work in any Mac Pro.

AMD says the card will be available in late June for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of USD $219.

Article Link

 

[flopticalcube]

Just in time for the 4850/70 to make an appearance. Only one gen behind now.

 

[kabunaru]

Let the "HD 3870 or 8800 GT" threads begin.
If I were to buy a Mac Pro, I would buy it with this card. I think ATI serves Apple better than Nvidia and ATI cards have better drivers.

 

[LloydBraun89]

oh thank you very much

 

[bobertoq]

This is great news!

- Snow Leopard
- Nehalem Processors (higher GHz, more cores?)
- Better video card (With Snow Leopard GPU acceleration!)

If only I could get my hands on a Mac Pro about this time next year

What's next? Large SSD's and DDR3 RAM?



1st page!

 

[kabunaru]

What's next?

256 core processor, 1 Terabyte of RAM, 1000 Terabyte Hard Drive, 1TB video card Mac Pro. See you in 15 years.

 

[Peace]

I'd be interested to see the side by side comparisons between the 3870 and the 8800.

 

[kabunaru]

I have a quick question.
Why does AMD still call their graphics cards: "ATI Radeon"? Shouldn't it be: "AMD Radeon" now? Didn't AMD buy/acquire ATI?

 

[Sun Baked]

256 core processor, 1 Terabyte of RAM, 1000 Terabyte Hard Drive, 1TB video card Mac Pro. See you in 15 years.

Aren't you aiming for the IBM Roadrunner which hit 1,000 trillion calculations per second and has 80TB of memory ...

 

[flopticalcube]

I'd be interested to see the side by side comparisons between the 3870 and the 8800.

Its there in the XLR8yourMac link.

 

[Silencio]

I'd be interested to see the side by side comparisons between the 3870 and the 8800.

Read the above-linked Xlr8yourmac article for a start.

I'm sure Barefeats will have something up shortly as well.

My other big question would be to compare the fan noise from both cards. That might be the factor that tips the scales for me.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

UEFI/PC BIOS ready...

about time.

Nvidia, your turn.

 

[cloudnine]

Great... but will it blend?

 

[iindigo]

So is this card more multipurpose (i.e. good for both gaming and production) or is it more focused in nature?

 

[Rocketman]

Is it just me or is that a commodity price with turn-key support?

I remember paying $1299 for semi-crippled graphics cards and being happy to get it!

Rocketman

P.S. Can I put 6 of them in one of those external PCIe boxes and use them as a world class co-processor under Snow Leopard? For less than the price of an upper end Mac . . . . . . . . . .

 

[twoodcc]

1000 Terabyte Hard Drive

wouldn't that be a petabyte? or whatever is after terabyte

I'd be interested to see the side by side comparisons between the 3870 and the 8800.

i would also.

i wonder if i could put this in my mac pro, along with my current ati x1900?

 

[iVoid]

I have a quick question.
Why does AMD still call their graphics cards: "ATI Radeon"? Shouldn't it be: "AMD Radeon" now? Didn't AMD buy/acquire ATI?

ATI is a well known name in video cards, so it makes sense for AMD to keep it as a brand name for the video cards.

 

[darthraige]

Fantastic, MORE POWERRRRRRRR! Can't wait for this thing!

 

[ventro]

Would it be possible to put both this card and 8800GT and use the 3870 for OSX and the 8800GT for windows?

 

[kjs862]

Article says the 8800 is better for games and the ati is better for pro aps.

 

[lostngone]

Opencl

Does anyone know if OpenCL in the preview version of Snow Leopard will utilize this card?

 

[NRose8989]

Would it be possible to put both this card and 8800GT and use the 3870 for OSX and the 8800GT for windows?

I wouldn't even bother...... I'm gonna go with two 3870's in cross fire under windows... so you get better performance in os x with one card, then even better gaming under windows with two..

http://www.barefeats.com/harper18.html

 

[ckurowic]

Does anyone know if OpenCL in the preview version of Snow Leopard will utilize this card?

It damn well better support everything made within the last year or its pretty useless.....

 

[ckurowic]

Great... but will it blend?

LMAO. Lets test it!!!!

 

[Nermal]

ATI is a well known name in video cards, so it makes sense for AMD to keep it as a brand name for the video cards.

Indeed. You don't want people saying "AMD video? That'll be as bad as Intel video"!