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

Butts M Biggilo said:
Finally! Waiting to update my quad G5... ;)
Click to expand...

A few folks still have older ("Air Cooled" vintage) G5's...


doctor-don said:
Not too ridiculous considering he said dream.

Prosumers = photographers with lots of storage needs.

SSD: We all hope the prices will fall to some level that we can afford in the very near future. It will be more likely to be usable for reliable backup that will not be susceptible to being moved such as when it is put away for safe-keeping...
Click to expand...

Pragmatically, while 4 bays can be a bit slim, there's not any real need for more, because it simply accentuates the "All Eggs in One Basket" problem.

Insofar as SSDs, in my opinion OS X needs to (very promptly) move to a default configuration of getting the user data off of the boot drive. Doing so would allow a small (<64GB) SSD for fast boots & application launches and further to differentiate Apple hardware from its competitors.


ildondeigiocchi said:
Very pleased to hear this news. Haven't been on macrumors in a while but I've returned to a great leap forward in GPU power in the Mac lineup. Really curious about the GTX480. Apple might tempt me into getting a new Pro... how are they able to do it so easily :D
Click to expand...

I have a 2009 one at work running Snow and it has been giving me more problems than my 7 year old G5. Main problem is the loss of the user account each time we have a power glitch ... I have the "sudo rm..." command on a post-it note on the side of the case. Yes, it has a lot more grunt, but for generally routine stuff, I don't really notice all that huge of a difference. I figure on upgrading my G5 fairly soon, but I'm not in a huge rush...I can easily wait for whenever this bump occurs and if it is BS, pass on it.


-hh
 
I personally can't wait to get a new Mac Pro. I most likely won't pull the trigger until Mac Pro's have lightpeak inside.
 
ilmolto said:
Fingers crossed. I'm going out of my mind with my ancient Power Mac G5 and Tiger. Bring on Mac Pro and Snow Leopard!
Click to expand...
I'm running a Quicksilver G4 from 2002! I so want a new machine but am determined to wait it out for as long as takes. I would be so happy with a new config!
 
Man-Droid said:
I've got the money if Apple has the update. The MacPro is looong overdue.
Click to expand...

Be sure to get the ATi. ATi's cards have ROM chips big enough to flash a Mac Rom onto a PC card. Get yourself a card that Apple will likely want $600 for, for around $400.
 
macintoshtoffy said:
Media Encoder CS5 uses Mainconcept .h624 which uses OpenCL with its latest SDK which is what Media Encoder CS5 is based upon.

FYI DoFoT9, I never said anything about QuickTime - read my post before replying to it.
Click to expand...

Hostile much? :p

DoFoT9 never said you said anything about QuickTime :p

He's just outdated or has a bad memory - he did say "IIRC" after all ;)
 
MorphingDragon said:
Apple is a premium electronics company, if you haven't figured out that premium means expensive, you need to go buy a dictionary.
Click to expand...

You can’t seriously try and justify selling old mid-range hardware at high prices as “premium” :confused:.

Apple is a premium electronics company but their GPU options are anything but. The suggested option of keeping the prices where they are but changing the hardware would fit.
 
macintoshtoffy said:
Media Encoder CS5 uses Mainconcept .h624 which uses OpenCL with its latest SDK which is what Media Encoder CS5 is based upon.

FYI DoFoT9, I never said anything about QuickTime - read my post before replying to it.
Click to expand...
lol. why dont you read my post before replying to it? because i never replied to your post ;)

anyway, enough bitching. i know what u said (was at work thus vague reply) - is CS5 the ONLY thing that supports OpenCL? thats pretty lame, why not some other video codecs and whatnot, it would be nice if HB did (but that is waiting for the lib to update). annoying :(

Vylen said:
Hostile much? :p

DoFoT9 never said you said anything about QuickTime :p

He's just outdated or has a bad memory - he did say "IIRC" after all ;)
Click to expand...

hahahaha confusing man. but yea i guess i am a tiny bit outdated, judging by the reply from macintosh only CS5 works for OpenCL, i expected a little more - in reality i dont think i was that "outdated".
 
Vmaatta said:
You can’t seriously try and justify selling old mid-range hardware at high prices as “premium” :confused:.

Apple is a premium electronics company but their GPU options are anything but. The suggested option of keeping the prices where they are but changing the hardware would fit.
Click to expand...

I was never trying to justify anything.

Apple is a premium electronics company, therefore are expensive.

Nobody likes a whiner! Deal or go elsewhere.
 
DoFoT9 said:
lol. why dont you read my post before replying to it? because i never replied to your post ;)

anyway, enough bitching. i know what u said (was at work thus vague reply) - is CS5 the ONLY thing that supports OpenCL? thats pretty lame, why not some other video codecs and whatnot, it would be nice if HB did (but that is waiting for the lib to update). annoying :(
Click to expand...

It is only commercial encoder so far that utilises OpenCL. Some vendors claim that the work required doesn't make it worth but but considering that encoding times have halved from CS4 to CS5 with the use of OpenCL then I think it is a matter of vendors not wanting to make the investments rather than a cost/benefit analysis.

hahahaha confusing man. but yea i guess i am a tiny bit outdated, judging by the reply from macintosh only CS5 works for OpenCL, i expected a little more - in reality i dont think i was that "outdated".
Click to expand...

CS5 was released two months ago, I would have expected that an individual hanging around in a technology orientated forum would have some rudimentary knowledge about the latest technology being released.
 
macintoshtoffy said:
It is only commercial encoder so far that utilises OpenCL. Some vendors claim that the work required doesn't make it worth but but considering that encoding times have halved from CS4 to CS5 with the use of OpenCL then I think it is a matter of vendors not wanting to make the investments rather than a cost/benefit analysis.
Click to expand...
50% increases are nice, but you would eventually expect more of an increase, as GPUs are many many times faster. it does take a lot of effort though thats true.

CS5 was released two months ago, I would have expected that an individual hanging around in a technology orientated forum would have some rudimentary knowledge about the latest technology being released.
Click to expand...
ha. ouch man. why are you so rude? do you have a problem with people being wrong?

so by your logic, i should expect you to know the full bandwidth of 16x PCIe, the transfer rate of the fastest PCIe SSD hard drive, the actual rate of quad band infiniband, the TB rate of the i7 860, what advantages RAID1+0 has over RAID0+1, or the GPU frequency of the GTX460?? (without googling of course ;) ). i was at work rushing to get a reply in to see what was happening. :)
 
macintoshtoffy said:
It is only commercial encoder so far that utilises OpenCL. Some vendors claim that the work required doesn't make it worth but but considering that encoding times have halved from CS4 to CS5 with the use of OpenCL then I think it is a matter of vendors not wanting to make the investments rather than a cost/benefit analysis.
Click to expand...

The gaming industry is slowly making a transition, Bullet Physics is being rewritten to use OpenCL.


DoFoT9 said:
ha. ouch man. why are you so rude? do you have a problem with people being wrong?
Click to expand...

Its because you're Aussie and Aussies are always wrong. ;)
 
Given that the HD5870M has a TDP maximum of 75W, it's conceivable they'll be in the next iMac update. Nvidia has nothing that can touch that sort of figure, so the high-end BTO iMac will almost certainly run a 58xxM chip, hopefully (really, really hopefully) with a full gig of vram.

In other words, it's not about to set the world on fire, especially given the best case scenario 5870M runs at around the same sort of levels as a desktop 5770. That's still nowhere near being able to drive anything like native resolution on the 27" iMac with the goodies turned up in modern games, especially given how Apple tends to handle GPU drivers.

What would fix a lot of the thermal limitations they've got with the iMac wouldn't so much be the amount of room in the case (the 27" has a fair bit of room back there for silicon) but that there's essentially no targeted way to get heat away from the GPU. All the heat goes the same way as the CPU and power supply's does, meaning you've got yourself a pretty tight thermal envelope. Some dedicated cooling vents artfully introduced into the back would allow for some sort of active cooling solution, and if they engineered it right wouldn't add to system noise. Whether Apple cares enough (even given Steam) is another question altogether.

All this said, count me as a likely buyer when this update rolls around.
 
DoFoT9 said:
^^5850 :cool:
Click to expand...

You're probably right. More's the pity.

On the other hand, they might not feel compelled to downclock a 5850M which means you could actually parallel it with the PC offering, rather than making educated guesses ;)
 
reticulate said:
You're probably right. More's the pity.

On the other hand, they might not feel compelled to downclock a 5850M which means you could actually parallel it with the PC offering, rather than making educated guesses ;)
Click to expand...

haha touché, my gut apple feeling tells me that they will never go for the top end GPU, as the iMac is a "mid" range computer. that and i have seen the logic from a number of well informed users chatting on these forums - they said 5850M haha! nobody knows for sure of course.
 
DoFoT9 said:
haha touché, my gut apple feeling tells me that they will never go for the top end GPU, as the iMac is a "mid" range computer. that and i have seen the logic from a number of well informed users chatting on these forums - they said 5850M haha! nobody knows for sure of course.
Click to expand...

The new iMac will run on the hate, pity and scorn of trolls, therefore our macs will continue to get better as the more silly the trolls look.
 
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
Back