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Any issues with the MP w/8800GT?

mob psychology

faumble said:
maybe we freak out, but the ati freezing issue is what started it all
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I agree. People go bananas so easily. Maybe something to do with mob psychology.

Originally I ordered the 2.8/8800GT, but decided I didn't want to wait another 3 weeks for delivery. Reports of glitches with the ATI card concerned me, but not enough to prevent me from going with the stock model and a stand-alone 8800GT.

Anyway, I've been running the 2.8 Quad for 48 hours without a hint of a bug, fart or hiccup. The first day I made no changes. Yesterday I added 2x2GB OWC chips and a couple of HDDs. It's awesome: quiet, cool, stable and damn fast. Playing UT2K4 at 100 fps is better than sex (ok, I exaggerate a little). :D

For sure, some people will have problems with the 8800GT. There are issues with any new hardware/software release. It's the nature of the beast. :eek: Expecting otherwise is a set-up for unnecessary suffering.
 
Will the original poster please describe the god damn issues he/she is having with the 8800GT. I really hope it's not just someone jerking us all around. Or a disgruntled customer who hasn't gotten their 8800GT yet and ordered in January.

Post a screen pic, describe the issue, describe it in detail, when did it happen, in what app, maybe some kernel messages. Anything to help us all understand the problem better.

We're all waiting here, all of us spent a good chunk of $ on this machine and obviously want the best performance. Most importantly we want it to work flawlessly.

This is my 2nd order, I returned my first box and re-ordered with the 8800GT, this is not what I want to hear!
 
I used mine all last night without so much as a hiccup (one network drop, but I think that was my fault).

I have not tried the sleep thing yet..but will try tonight and see what happens....man work day is long with that new mac at home. :)

-D
 
Mr.PS said:
Will the original poster please describe the god damn issues he/she is having with the 8800GT. I really hope it's not just someone jerking us all around. Or a disgruntled customer who hasn't gotten their 8800GT yet and ordered in January.
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Chill for a bit, P. This smells very much like someone trying to pull our chain. :mad: Wait for confirmation to get twisted
 
going postal

Mr.PS said:
Will the original poster please describe the god damn issues he/she is having with the 8800GT. I really hope it's not just someone jerking us all around. Or a disgruntled customer who hasn't gotten their 8800GT yet and ordered in January.
Click to expand...
Last night on Most Amazing Police Videos there was a bit about this dude at a gas station. After pre-paying at the counter the customer went outside to pump his gas but the confused clerk screwed up and put the gas credit on the wrong pump. After a few minutes the customer came back into the store and asked the clerk to correct the error. The hapless clerk could not think outside the box and insisted the customer was wrong. The customer escalated to demanding, then yelling, and eventually trashed a few product displays in the store and stomped out. After seeing the store's security vid on the TV news, the customer turned himself in and the whole deal cost him $10K in damages, fines and court costs.

Do you hear yourself? I'm starting to feel like one of the bystanders when that dude went postal.
 
tugger said:
Last night on Most Amazing Police Videos there was a bit about this dude at a gas station. After pre-paying at the counter the customer went outside to pump his gas but the confused clerk screwed up and put the gas credit on the wrong pump. After a few minutes the customer came back into the store and asked the clerk to correct the error. The hapless clerk could not think outside the box and insisted the customer was wrong. The customer escalated to demanding, then yelling, and eventually trashed a few product displays in the store and stomped out. After seeing the store's security vid on the TV news, the customer turned himself in and the whole deal cost him $10K in damages, fines and court costs.

Do you hear yourself? I'm starting to feel like one of the bystanders when that dude went postal.
Click to expand...

That story, while great, does not at all compare to my post above. Sorry if it did to some....:rolleyes:

Anyway, it's annoying when someone comes in and says they have problems but don't give any more info. Especially when some of us have waited 2 months or so, or have returned a defective Mac Pro to get this one. I'm still standing by it being a possible hoax, it would be a good one, because it has a few of us on our toes already that are going to receive their Mac's in a few days.
 
And just remember, gang,,, the card my not be the total answer. 5.2 is on the way. It's close,,,, VERY CLOSE.
 
yukio said:
it's a little dark in the pic so i can't be sure - but i have an 8800gt on a pc and think the connection you speak of - edge connector at top of the board near the DVI plug side of the card - is the SLI connector for daisy-chaining multiple NVidia cards together.
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thank you but if i my say so its a bit disapointing
to hear it from somebody who did this on a pc
but im very greatfull
lets see if there s somebody afterwards starting a thread on this
because there are more waitng for the 8800 to replace after already
having their mp+2600
 
If after 5 weeks of waiting, I take delivery of a defective machine, especially considering the price tag... I'm buying a Dell. No phone calls to Apple, no compromise. I have work to do. I didn't purchase a new machine to ease into the next generation of technology for bragging rights... my present machine is pre-Intel and I need to run Bootcamp to run Vista to run Rhino, period. I'll wait patiently for my machine... there's no hurry, take your time Apple and do it right, software and hardware; I'll gladly wait to obtain a machine of typical Mac greatness, but it better darn well work like $4000 ought to when it shows up at my door. An apology and a small refund is all well and good when you're waiting for a gaming machine, but when your professional life is on hold, shipping dates and performance expectations had better be met.
 
TenFour said:
If after 5 weeks of waiting, I take delivery of a defective machine, especially considering the price tag... I'm buying a Dell. No phone calls to Apple, no compromise. I have work to do. I didn't purchase a new machine to ease into the next generation of technology for bragging rights... my present machine is pre-Intel and I need to run Bootcamp to run Vista to run Rhino, period. I'll wait patiently for my machine... there's no hurry, take your time Apple and do it right, software and hardware; I'll gladly wait to obtain a machine of typical Mac greatness, but it better darn well work like $4000 ought to when it shows up at my door. An apology and a small refund is all well and good when you're waiting for a gaming machine, but when your professional life is on hold, shipping dates and performance expectations had better be met.
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+1, I've already returned one this week, my first Mac Pro with the Ati was all messed up! :( and I'm not a gamer... :mad:
 
Wow... are we serious here... at least one poster has stated they had a problem, but has provided absolutely no details or that they even have a MP with an 8800GT and yet another has posted (who has an 8800GT) and stated there's no freezing and all is well.

I'll be getting mine on Monday and will be putting it through a series of tests and will let you all know.
 
Haven't Done Much Testing yet.....

Well mine arrived (stock except for the 8800GT).

Did the Software Update, and there was the QT update, and the iPhoto and iWeb updates. Rebooted. No problem.

Ran some movie trailers on Apple's site. Installed Firefox + extensions, VLC media player. Put the Mac Pro to sleep TWICE. Both times it woke up from sleep. Fans kicked in for about 3 seconds then went back to their normal quietness. No problems yet.

I've got a buddy in town so I couldn't really mess with it when it first got here (4:45 PST). Time for bed now. I'll try to get some more testing done tomorrow, including an XBench run.
 
Wild-Bill said:
Well mine arrived (stock except for the 8800GT).

Did the Software Update, and there was the QT update, and the iPhoto and iWeb updates. Rebooted. No problem.

Ran some movie trailers on Apple's site. Installed Firefox + extensions, VLC media player. Put the Mac Pro to sleep TWICE. Both times it woke up from sleep. Fans kicked in for about 3 seconds then went back to their normal quietness. No problems yet.

I've got a buddy in town so I couldn't really mess with it when it first got here (4:45 PST). Time for bed now. I'll try to get some more testing done tomorrow, including an XBench run.
Click to expand...

thanks for the input, definitely serves somewhat to ease the tension of the thread!
 
Mark Fletcher said:
For the people who have the 2008 Mac Pro's with 8800 GT's... if you have an old 2006/2007 Mac Pro lying around you could try putting the 8800GT into it and see if it boots?

Thanks,

Mark
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Barefeats comments on this lower on the page. They refer to people with 2006/7 Mac Pros who want to upgrade to the 8800. Not possible, but you can upgrade to the 2600XT.

http://www.barefeats.com/york2.html
 
An update for those chomping at the bit here. Here are extended results from an afternoon/evening with my new Mac Pro. Acitivites included:

Doing an encode with imovie, importing all my music/movies, web checking, emailing, installing various apps like Office '08 and running them.

I also ran things on the bootbamp end for several hours too. This included Crysis playing, Sins of a Solar Empire playing, etc etc. And this was on Vista 64bit.

No problems.

I put the machine to sleep last night before heading for bed. Woke up this morning, hit the space bar, and it woke up just fine. No issues, no video corruption anywhere, nothing.
 
Wild-Bill said:
I'll try to get some more testing done tomorrow, including an XBench run.
Click to expand...

Xbench graphics tests are really not helpful since the Quartz test is CPU intensive and the OpenGL test is simplistic. Ditto for the OpenGL test in Cinebench 10 (which uses the CPU as much GPU for its 1024x768 animation).

If you have full, retail versions of 3D Games (Quake 4, Prey, Doom 3, Halo, UT2004, WoW, etc.), I can give you some suggestions on benchmarking those.

As for Pro Apps, I have some benchmarks you can run with a DEMO copy of iMaginator (Core Image effects by Stone.com) and Motion (RAM preview render/playback).
 
mac2maverick said:
Barefeats comments on this lower on the page. They refer to people with 2006/7 Mac Pros who want to upgrade to the 8800. Not possible, but you can upgrade to the 2600XT.

http://www.barefeats.com/york2.html
Click to expand...

Yeah, Ive seen Barefeats article. Truth be told tho - we've only just started getting our hands on the 8800GT and when Barefeats wrote that article, he didnt have an 8800GT to verify Apples claims.

Since then, we know that Apple/NVidia have been working on a solution. To me it seems silly to have two SKU's of the same board, but with different firmware. I wouldnt be surprised if the current boards actually work in the older Mac Pro's. Thats why I was asking if anyone who has just received their Mac Pro 2008 with 8800GT to try out the card in an older Mac Pro (if they have one lying around!).
 
GeForce 8800 GT? (Yawn)

I posted elsewhere about getting a GeForce 8800 GTX to run on our 2008 Mac Pro (while we are waiting for our GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit to replace the Radeon HD 2600 XT).

The GTX only works under Vista 64 (or Windows XP 64) in the Boot Camp partition but man does it scream. We get 155 fps running Prey timedemo at 1920x1200 "High Quality" with shadows and 8x anisotropy. Compare that to 64 fps with a Radeon X1900 XT on the same Mac Pro 3.2GHz. I bet the GeForce 8800 GT will do 100+ fps if the driver is optimized.

What I'd really like to see is for ATI to release a Mac Pro version of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 (two GPUs on one card). Moo ha ha. It's 78% faster than a GeForce 8800 GT running Unreal Tournament 3 Flyby, according to Anandtech (High Quality 1920x1200):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3209&p=9
 
COD2 mystery / it got very laggy on the new MP w 8800

Hey,

Yesterday I finally received my MP and so far had one problem. I started testing it with games. While bf2142 got so much better (wow), COD2 slowed down tremendously compared to my previous configuration (Early 2006 Imac Intel core Duo, 2gb ram w stock ati hd 2600 pro)!

Both games are maxed out. On my previous computer, I could barely play bf2142 w a lot of lag. It is a breeze now w everything at the highest! I don't think the new beast even notices the games load.

COD2 is a much older game and was even much much faster/smoother on my Imac w almost everything at the highest. In fact it was as smooth as you'd want it to be. I took all the video settings way down along w the resolution, it almost got worse than the maxed out one!!! Certainly got less smooth than the highest settings. i have tried every possible video setting in the menu but just simply the same every time.

What the **** is this? Could my oldie & goodie game be challenging the new video card (know sounds ridiculous but who knows??)

OR could that be a driver issue? Then why would only COD2 deteriorate (also tried x-plane was very good as well)???

Finally can someone recommend a software to test frame rates and ext. of the video card for the games?

Thanks,
M
 
REINMIRT said:
Hey,

Yesterday I finally received my MP and so far had one problem. I started testing it with games. While bf2142 got so much better (wow), COD2 slowed down tremendously compared to my previous configuration (Early 2006 Imac Intel core Duo, 2gb ram w stock ati hd 2600 pro)!

Both games are maxed out. On my previous computer, I could barely play bf2142 w a lot of lag. It is a breeze now w everything at the highest! I don't think the new beast even notices the games load.

COD2 is a much older game and was even much much faster/smoother on my Imac w almost everything at the highest. In fact it was as smooth as you'd want it to be. I took all the video settings way down along w the resolution, it almost got worse than the maxed out one!!! Certainly got less smooth than the highest settings. i have tried every possible video setting in the menu but just simply the same every time.

What the **** is this? Could my oldie & goodie game be challenging the new video card (know sounds ridiculous but who knows??)

OR could that be a driver issue? Then why would only COD2 deteriorate (also tried x-plane was very good as well)???

Finally can someone recommend a software to test frame rates and ext. of the video card for the games?

Thanks,
M
Click to expand...

Are you running in XP or Vista? Did you patch COD2? It should not be causing problems, as people have ran COD4 fine. FRAPS is a program for framerate.
 
Since then, we know that Apple/NVidia have been working on a solution. To me it seems silly to have two SKU's of the same board, but with different firmware. I wouldnt be surprised if the current boards actually work in the older Mac Pro's. Thats why I was asking if anyone who has just received their Mac Pro 2008 with 8800GT to try out the card in an older Mac Pro (if they have one lying around!).[/QUOTE]
********​

You're way ahead of me on this issue. Hey, maybe you (or another reader) can fill me in on something: If I'm correct on this, graphics cards get firmware or maybe software updates that often significantly speed them up. Has this card come out with any fixes or updates? How often do these happen? Are the HD 2600 Pro and HD 2600 XT running slower than the older Geforce options because they haven't been maximized by the manufacturers yet?
 
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