Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ATI 5000 Series and GeForce GTX 480 Drivers Hint at Desktop Mac Updates

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,481
30,716



025441-macpro_5870_500.png


A couple of discoveries have revealed early Mac support for the high end ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards, raising hopes that Apple will soon be updating their desktop computers. Both the Mac Pro and iMacs are overdue for product refreshes with no solid timeframe for either update.

The newly released Mac mini has revealed a new set of ATI drivers buried within its default Mac OS X installation. New Macs always have a slightly newer version of the system software installed that provides support for the new hardware. In this case, the software also revealed early support for the ATI Radeon 5 series. Some tinkerers have been able to use the software to drive an ATI Radeon 5870 on an actual Mac Pro. Meanwhile, a recent NVIDIA Driver release have shown references to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 400 series support.

For the masses, neither release is particularly useful, but does remind us that Apple's desktop line is overdue for update. There has been talk of Mac Pro updates for months, but no clear timeframe when it might happen.

Article Link: ATI 5000 Series and GeForce GTX 480 Drivers Hint at Desktop Mac Updates
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/04/ati-5000-series-and-geforce-gtx-480-drivers-hint-at-desktop-mac-updates/
Starship77

Starship77

macrumors regular
Aug 30, 2006
206
116
I just hope they put a good GPU in the iMac. The Mac Pro is too expensive...
 
broken-chaos

broken-chaos

macrumors regular
Sep 2, 2009
189
0
Toronto, Ontario
Starship77 said:
I just hope they put a good GPU in the iMac. The Mac Pro is too expensive...
Click to expand...
Not the ones mentioned here. The ATI 5000 series and the Nvidia 400 series are all full- or over-sized GPUs -- in the case of the really high end (ATI 5800s, Nvidia GTX 400s) they are full-width, take up two slots of vertical space and are nearly a foot long. Those sort of GPUs would never fit in an iMac.

Even the somewhat lower-end single-slot, standard-length cards (lower numbered ATI 5000s) would be hard pressed to fit. Maybe if Apple had a heavily customised build of them to fit into an iMac in a non-standard way, though.
 
A

alectheking

macrumors 6502a
Mar 9, 2010
584
28
I'm waiting for the next round of iMac or MacBook pro... Haven't decided yet, already have an iPad and iPhone4...don't really care for the current mbp and Imacs are imminent:) hopefully soon so I can get my free iPod
 
S

Smurfed

macrumors regular
Apr 2, 2007
239
0
I have the sapphire 5870, it's a beast of a card.

Ati provides monthly driver updates for them, so hope they do the same to the apple ones.
 
designgeek

designgeek

macrumors 65816
Jan 30, 2009
1,064
1
"Town"
I'm excited, bout time for the MP though, it was starting to choke under the weight of its own obsolescence.
 
DoFoT9

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
99
London, United Kingdom
Gtx 480 eh? That is one hot card! Hopefully the drivers will make it useful. Wish I had the money ton fork out for it, what CPU configurations will there be I wonder?
 
MH01

MH01

Suspended
Feb 11, 2008
12,107
9,297
Smurfed said:
I have the sapphire 5870, it's a beast of a card.

Ati provides monthly driver updates for them, so hope they do the same to the apple ones.
Click to expand...

Short answer . No.

Unlike the pc side you will not get tweaked drivers on a regular basis. Apple goes for stabaility over speed so does not tweak the drivers.
 
MH01

MH01

Suspended
Feb 11, 2008
12,107
9,297
On a positive this might mean that 5870 will finally work with the iMac is target mode . Also hope the 5970 will be available for the pro
 
DoFoT9

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
99
London, United Kingdom
MH01 said:
Short answer . No.

Unlike the pc side you will not get tweaked drivers on a regular basis. Apple goes for stabaility over speed so does not tweak the drivers.
Click to expand...

Hadn't looked at that side of things before. The do SEEM quite stable, fairly fast too I guess.

Nvidia have brought out their own drivers of late for the MP Gpus I wonder if ati will do the same?

Is the 5970 the x2 variant or does it come with a x1 variant as well?
 
MH01

MH01

Suspended
Feb 11, 2008
12,107
9,297
DoFoT9 said:
Hadn't looked at that side of things before. The do SEEM quite stable, fairly fast too I guess.

Nvidia have brought out their own drivers of late for the MP Gpus I wonder if ati will do the same?

Is the 5970 the x2 variant or does it come with a x1 variant as well?
Click to expand...

The 5970 is the dual gpu version of the 5870. And also supports mini dp unlike the 400 nvidia series. Which is a bonus for people with the 24 led displays
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom