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ATI 4850/4870 for Mac Pro

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belunos

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 10, 2008
72
0
Hi all, I wanted to start a thread to hold any info on these cards. This is regarding the announcement from that German (or was it French) site that stated that ATI was releasing Mac versions of these cards. I've not seen a single news item or forum thread about this since the news first broke. Last I heard ATI was close to release on these, but not a peep since.

So, if anyone comes across any new news on this, please think of us here and post it in this thread.

Thanks
 
It's been mentioned on the forum before in a different thread. Not much info on the details (release date,...) yet though, IIRC. :(

But the basic specs can be drawn from the PC variants already out. Can help with planning physical set-up.
 
Heliconsoul said:
Yeah I'm eagerly awaiting these too. A HD4870 is just what my Mac needs to make it the perfect all rounder :D
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A-men brother! I could put a win card in for games, but I'd rather keep it to a one slot solution
 
Eidorian said:
I'm not terribly fond of single slot cards exhausting back into my computer.
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Not my favorite method of venting either, but as the internal air is too hot to adequately cool the GPU without the fan speed so high it sounds like a jet engine, there really isn't a choice. :(

Perhaps belunos meant a single graphics card solution though. ;)
 
nanofrog said:
Not my favorite method of venting either, but as the internal air is too hot to adequately cool the GPU without the fan speed so high it sounds like a jet engine, there really isn't a choice. :(

Perhaps belunos meant a single graphics card solution though. ;)
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You're absolutely right.. I meant that I didn't want to use a card for windows and a different card for OS X. And back to the top with ye!

/edit: BTW, this thread is the top search result on google for '4870 for mac' :D
 
The new Adobe CS4 Suite which supports GPU acceleration could perhaps lead to a better graphics card choice for mac, if Apple wants Macs to be the best machines for creatives and layouters...
 
belunos said:
You're absolutely right.. I meant that I didn't want to use a card for windows and a different card for OS X. And back to the top with ye!

/edit: BTW, this thread is the top search result on google for '4870 for mac' :D
Click to expand...
I also need a good single card solution that has good performance in both OS X and windows. //Grrr...// :p
macz1 said:
The new Adobe CS4 Suite which supports GPU acceleration could perhaps lead to a better graphics card choice for mac, if Apple wants Macs to be the best machines for creatives and layouters...
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We can only hope. :rolleyes:
Though Apple seems to be getting a little better, they still have a ways to go I think. ;)
I'm in "wait and see" mode until the new Mac Pro releases. :eek:
 
macz1 said:
The new Adobe CS4 Suite which supports GPU acceleration could perhaps lead to a better graphics card choice for mac, if Apple wants Macs to be the best machines for creatives and layouters...
Click to expand...
With that logic, Apple would also have included blu-ray support more than year ago and updated DVDSP after 2005...
 
I have a strong feeling that the new cards are simultaneously released with the Nehalem Mac Pro.
 
Oh why Oh why must Apple continually torture us with sub-par graphics cards. I was so happy when I saw the original rumor of the 4850.

My guess is that they just couldn't cool it down enough for the Apple engineers to feel comfortable about putting it in the MP. Remember all the drama with the X1900's overheating, well the 4850's would have probably run hotter even with a nice cooler attached so it never came to pass.
 
Uh, isn't that the fault of the GPU manufacturer? Since Apple doesn't make the coolers for the cards?

And it's not the Mac Pro's fault, because the thing is dead freaking silent under normal use, and the fans can be cranked up to provide virtually all the cooling needed... It's the fault of the BOX around the GPU that restricts airflow to only be able to come from that one top fan...
 
Sure it is partly ATI's fault for making a card that runs so hot in the first place.

I can't believe for a second though that Apple couldn't come up with a dual slot cooling solution capable of cooling down the 4850 enough, or for that matter the 1900 either. It all comes back to Apple's indifference toward keeping pace with graphics technology.

They get some of the blame even it the card happens to say NVIDIA or AMD/ATI on it because their infrequent graphics driver updates destroy any incentive that the card manufacturers have to crank out PCI-E cards for Apple machines. I guarantee you that if OS X took advantage of new chipsets as they emerged that we would already have long ago had 9 series, 4XXX series cards.

The stability of OS X excuse from Apple is starting to run thin and soon enough OSx86 is going to start cutting deeply into the Apple eco-system. Steve and his cronies might as well start giving us better upgrade options or the current rise in Mac market share will go crashing back down again soon enough.
 
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