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ATI HD3870x2 in Mac Pro anyone?

S

SuperGrobi

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 16, 2008
97
0
Hello everybody.
Now that people starting to use PC 8800GTs in their new Mac Pros I was wondering if anybody already tried the ATI HD3870x2 card in their Mac Pro? I assume it will run in Bootcamp and thought I will give it a try ... I was not so happy with a PC 8800GT in the second PCI slot since the fan made a constant 100% speed noise in Mac OS X. Will the ATI card behave the same? For a short time Apole listed the HD3870 as option for the Mac Pro ... anybody knows something about the Bios / EFI? I heard that at least Crossfire could work in the new Mac Pro. Does it make sense to connect the HD3870x2 to the stock card HD2600XT in the Mac Pro???
Thanks for help and suggestions.
 
Cindori said:
Crossfire works I think, but you need two cards of the same model.
Click to expand...

Thanks, ... I heard that HD3850 and 3870 work together - but of course they are very similar cards! Love the idea having a dual (quad-core) HD3870x2 Crossfire Mac Pro ;)

I am crazy enough to buy one HD3870x2 just to see how my Mac behaves when I put it into the 2nd slot! (only Bootcamp, of course)
 
I know that the $450 3870x2 beats the $800 Ultra by less than 10 FPS in all of those Tom's benchmarks, so from a price point perspective it's a better buy. But my arguement isn't that the Ultra is better (Though one G80 core apparently STILL kicks the poo out of a single R680). I'm just saying that the 9800GX2 should be better for the same price (It's estimated to be about $450 also). And it doesn't shut down and go home when AA is involved :p

Anyway, of course you can put a 3870x2 into a Mac Pro and use it under windows.

Don't expect it to be MADE for the thing though, everyone thought the same thing with the 2900XT. Apple is not looking for the fanciest gaming card available from the company or they would have used the 8800GTS 512.

As far as the X1900 from last last generation, that was the ATI high end card, so I don't have an explanation for that. WTF APPLE :D
 
So the 3870X2 will not boot into OSX? If I have it in slot #2 and a 8800 (Flashed) in slot one, will the system work in harmony?

Thanks in advance!
 
I have a Radeon HD 3870 X2 and a GeForce 8800 GTX. I tried both on the Mac Pro 3.2GHz under Vista 64.

Prey at 1920x1200 High Quality (8X aniso, dynamic shadows on):
Radeon 3870 X2 (standard clocking) = 201 fps
Geforce 8800 GTX (overclocked) = 166 fps
 
barefeats said:
I have a Radeon HD 3870 X2 and a GeForce 8800 GTX. I tried both on the Mac Pro 3.2GHz under Vista 64.

Prey at 1920x1200 High Quality (8X aniso, dynamic shadows on):
Radeon 3870 X2 (standard clocking) = 201 fps
Geforce 8800 GTX (overclocked) = 166 fps
Click to expand...

That is truly amazing.
I am looking forward to see what you can do with an overclocked 9800 GTX.
 
The Radeon HD 3870 X2 does not work under Mac OS X as a boot screen or as a "slave" second display adapter for extended desktop. It would require a Mac compatible ROM including the EFI 64 bit driver to work that way, as I understand it.
 
barefeats said:
I have a Radeon HD 3870 X2 and a GeForce 8800 GTX. I tried both on the Mac Pro 3.2GHz under Vista 64.

Prey at 1920x1200 High Quality (8X aniso, dynamic shadows on):
Radeon 3870 X2 (standard clocking) = 201 fps
Geforce 8800 GTX (overclocked) = 166 fps
Click to expand...

Most people state that the ATI HD3870x2 is crap compared to Nvidia 8800 cards, however it is obvious from elaborate tests that the ATi and Nvidia cards perform very different when looking at different games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_3870_X2/1.html

Games which fully support the internal Crossfire technology of the HD3870x2 (and thus both CPUs) show that it is not that simple to compare the cards. If ATI would improve the drivers and more games would support its technology the HD3870x2 would be a real alternative to 8800GT/GTX/GTS/Ultra cards ... of course, the EFI ROM for OS X would help a lot to be more popular for Mac enthusiasts ... :rolleyes:
 
SuperGrobi said:
If ATI would improve the drivers and more games would support its technology the HD3870x2 would be a real alternative to 8800GT/GTX/GTS/Ultra cards ... of course, the EFI ROM for OS X would help a lot to be more popular for Mac enthusiasts ... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
And that is why i am ditching ATI even though there is a better ATI card for my computer. I'm sick and tired of ATI's crappy drivers that breaks something every time they come out.
 
Crappy drivers

In the Mac OS X realm, ATI seems to have an edge on drivers.

And I don't mean just 3D gaming. When you compare an nVidia GeForce to a comparable ATI Radeon, the ATI wins hands down rendering Core Image effects in pro apps like Motion, iMaginator, and Aperture.

And if ATI were to release a Mac compatible 3870 X2, I'd sell my GeForce 8800 GT pounce on it.
 
The reason ATI cards have gone down the drain is because when AMD bought them they took all their engineers to build integrated graphics chips.

I would relegate them to the average user's cheap graphics card. a 3870 is around 149 bucks now.
 
Topper said:
If AMD went out of business, I'd be a happy person knowing we can't have such junk in our computers.
Click to expand...

You really think Nvidia will develop cheap and powerful cards in the future without any competition? ... you don't need to go to business school to understand that ... oh well
 
knome said:
The reason ATI cards have gone down the drain is because when AMD bought them they took all their engineers to build integrated graphics chips.

I would relegate them to the average user's cheap graphics card. a 3870 is around 149 bucks now.
Click to expand...

That is a good thing, as it is forcing Intel to actually look into competing in the iGPU (<-- :D) market. What is sad is the most widely sold GPU is the GMA950, but nothing actually takes advantage of it due to it's slowness.

Here's to hoping Larabee show up sooner rather than later!
 
PPC vs. Intel war tunred into ATi vs nVidia war. :D

Ha... good to see there still is a war going on! It will be a sad, sad day if Intel were the only PC CPU supplier, and nVidia the only GPU manufacturer.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
PPC vs. Intel war tunred into ATi vs nVidia war. :D

Ha... good to see there still is a war going on! It will be a sad, sad day if Intel were the only PC CPU supplier, and nVidia the only GPU manufacturer.
Click to expand...

I fully agree ;)

Maybe I should add a comment to all these "ATI haters":

Myself, I have a XFX 8800GT running in the Mac Pro and I am very happy with it. However, after managing that installation I was thinking how to improve my system even more. SLI will not work in the near future (or maybe never) on the Mac Pro board but I have some hope left for Crossfire. This is why I am interested in the HD3870x2 because I was dreaming of a "quad-system" with two HD3870x2 in Crossfire :rolleyes:
I love to play aroung with my computer´s setup and get bored quickly if everything is working fine ;)
I am very thankful for all the "productive" comments of some people in this threat (especially the ones telling me all day how crappy ATI cards are ... huh) but that is just not the point of this thread. If you have, however, useful information on how to use the HD3870x2 in a new Mac pro I am happy for every good comment and experience :)

Also, I remember a time some years ago when I met a lot of people telling me how slow and crappy those Macintosh computers are and how stupid I must be to stick with Apple. Well, I prefer to have my own opinion and love to swim against the stream :)
 
So taken together I so far understand that the card can be used in Bootcamp (as expected) but, although the Mac OS drivers support the 3870 GPU chip, no EFI ROM was ever released for ATI 3850, 3870 or 3870x2 cards, correct? Also so far there are no drivers that permit running two HD3870x2 in Crossfire using Bootcamp ("Quad-core" so to speak) - apparently those are expected to be released in April.
 
SuperGrobi said:
So taken together I so far understand that the card can be used in Bootcamp (as expected) but, although the Mac OS drivers support the 3870 GPU chip, no EFI ROM was ever released for ATI 3850, 3870 or 3870x2 cards, correct? Also so far there are no drivers that permit running two HD3870x2 in Crossfire using Bootcamp ("Quad-core" so to speak) - apparently those are expected to be released in April.
Click to expand...
Pretty much!
 
I see. Well, if there would be a small chance to run the HD3870x2 in Mac OS one day (at least one of the two GPUs) I would give the card a try in Bootcamp. I am curious how things develop :rolleyes:
 
Notice this thread got a lot shorter?

The question was:

Has anyone tried an ATI HD3870x2 in Mac Pro?

All extraneous discussion and arguments about the merits of ATI versus nVidia, or different models of ATI in comparison to models of nVidia, or different models of nVidia against themselves, are just that.. Extraneous.

Wanna battle it out? Start yourselves a new thread and keep it civil.
 
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