I don't know much about ATI cards. How much better (than the mutant 8800GTSXyz, or whatever) would those cards be in an iMac? Are those cards realistically possible for iMac, or would they keep them Mac pro only?
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ATI's 4870 HD and 4850 HD Graphics Cards Coming for Mac
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Great - even more cards giving sub-par performance. You'd think Apple would have the best cards as a BTO in the Mac Pro at least. ATi 4870 X2 would make a sweet video editing and gaming rig in that.
However, nVidia > ATi IMO - nVidia are always producing faster PC cards than ATi and the 4870 X2 is a one-off win for them.
However, nVidia > ATi IMO - nVidia are always producing faster PC cards than ATi and the 4870 X2 is a one-off win for them.
The current 8800GS in the iMac is actually a mobile chip, the 8800M GTS. This is probably due to power and heat. The iMac chip is of course not upgradable. Any refresh for future iMac models will have to wait for the mobility radeon 4850 which can probably fit thermally, but ATI hasn't released it yet. Since the mobility versions aren't out there's no way to tell the performance increase, but it'll probably be significant.
I don't think Apple released CUDA 2.0 for nVidia, rather nVidia released CUDA 2.0 for Apple. But yeah, even if OpenCL is open and cross-compatible, they may need to hurry up with it otherwise CUDA will get too entrenched.Mac 13 said:
In terms of Photoshop, CUDA 2.0 does not accelerate Photoshop itself. However, it is possible to write third-party plug-ins for Photoshop that take advantage of CUDA 2.0 and nVidia GPUs.
The issue is not whether the 4870X2 is available, but it is whether Crossfire is available for Mac since all X2 cards require it. It may be lack of ATI support or Apple support or maybe both for Crossfire for Mac, but if they ever allow it they'll probably wait to add it to Snow Leopard's feature list.OS X Dude said:
A bit of humor, today, I see.
Anywhoo....I'll be in the market for a MacPro eraly next year. It will be nice to have these as an option.
In regards to your Photohop/CUDA remark: yes, it will accelerate Photoshop. Stonehenge (the next version of Photoshop) offloads much of its rendering to the GPU via CUDA. We're not just talking plug-ins, we're talking the core application itself.
That's not true at all. The 4870X2 does not require crossfire. You only need crossfire if you want to install TWO 4870X2's.
Wrong. The x2 is basically 2 GPUs stuck on piece of PCB. It needs Crossfire to allow the two GPUs to talk to each other. The Crossfire he's referencing is the firmware capabilities, not an actual physical link. The two chips communicate via Crossfire and the PCIe 2.0 switch. Ironically, the PCIe 2.0 switch has more latency than the 1.0 switch.
A one-off win that may go for a long time, as I doubt 55 nm GT200 is going to help NVIDIA that much.
RV870 (Lil Dragon, 40 nm
eek, H1 2009) supposedly uses 15% less power than RV770, giving twice the performance per watt of RV770.Are you sure CUDA 2.0 will accelerate Photoshop itself?
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_develop.html
Because, the documentation that nVidia provides only describe how to develop plug-ins for Photoshop.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nvidia-cuda-photoshop,news-2436.html
And news reports only mention Photoshop plug-ins in association with CUDA 2.0 while Photoshop itself won't have GPU acceleration until Stonehenge as you mention.
Yes, RV870 should be very interesting. Although I'm concerned about the 40nm process seeing that I haven't heard that TSMC's 45nm process is in production yet.iMacmatician said:
My fault. I was talking about Stonehenge (CS4, whatever you want to call it). As for CS3, you're right, I doubt it will get any sort of GPU off-loading capabilities with the next version on the horizon.
Yea, that test. Where the 4870 is 7 frames slower, 2 frames slower, 0.5 frames slower, 6 frames slower, 7 frames faster, etc.?
Yea clearly they don't compete, jeez, how stupid of me. You really believe that for cards to compete they have to match up exactly on every benchmark? I mean.....really?
You have to factor in cost, average performance, driver maturity (those are release driver tests by the way, we're on Cat 8.8 now), power consumption, etc.
Factoring all of that in, the 4850/4870 are better buys vs the GTX260/280. You get at best, single digit frame rate bumps in only some games with the GTX series, but you spend substantially more, and use more power.
That's why I consider them better buys. Not because of anecdotal single digit frame rate increases in 3 or 4 games. It's about considering all factors.
And regarding the 4870X2. Crossfire is not as hardware dependent as SLI. You don't need an ATI motherboard to enable Crossfire. And with a card like the 4870X2 where the Crossfire is done onboard, the rest of the hardware is largely irrelevant. You don't have to have some craptastic Nvidia MCP on your board that gets hot enough to boil water. Enabling NVidia's SLI on a Mac system would be more difficult due to NVidia being stupid about keeping their SLI proprietary and hardware dependent.
All ATI would have to do is release Crossfire drivers for OSX. This isn't exactly some earth shattering accomplishment. They just haven't seen a need for it as the Mac gaming community has been quite small.
Look at it from ATI's perspective. Why bother tossing a small team at developing OSX crossfire drivers when there's no market for it. There are few, arguably none (from ATI's perspective) programs that would be able to utilize it, outside of games. And for the heavy 3D modelers and other heavy users, they use the Quadro cards anyway.
The point being, if Apple continues to push this "Bringing games back to Mac" or whatever they titled it, they will have to offer more GPUs geared towards gamers, which may lead to ATI releasing Crossfire drivers for Mac. And with Photoshop and other programs taking advantage of GPUs in the future, I can imagine quite a few Mac Pro owners salivating at the idea of a 4870X2.
omg, you can say what you want, but when I read the first page of comments I must conclude the mediocre mac-only user knows nothing about modern graphic cards...
atm the situation in GFX-land comes down to this: the best cards out there are the GeForce GTX280, directly followed by the ATI HD4870 (which at its turn tops the GeForce 9800GTX+).
The HD4870 is a lot cheaper though, and Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI, so the HD4870 is considered the best choice.
What does it do? it runs Crysis at Ultra-high (at least when you take enough in 1680*1080 resolution and 2x AA) that's what it does
Furthermore the HD4850, the somewhat lower version of the 4870, is delivering benchmarks somewhere between the GeForce 8800GT and the GeForce 9800GTX.
About the HD3870 comments: the HD3870 is only delivering about 80% of the performance the 8800GT does.
If they put it in the iMacs (which they could do, considering the price: the HD4850 as the basic version, HD4870 as an option/standard in the 24") the Mac-gaming status goes up a whole few levels.
If they also deliver CrossfireX in the MacPro, so you can use four HD4870s at once, Apple is set in the 3D world for the next year
atm the situation in GFX-land comes down to this: the best cards out there are the GeForce GTX280, directly followed by the ATI HD4870 (which at its turn tops the GeForce 9800GTX+).
The HD4870 is a lot cheaper though, and Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI, so the HD4870 is considered the best choice.
What does it do? it runs Crysis at Ultra-high (at least when you take enough in 1680*1080 resolution and 2x AA
) that's what it does Furthermore the HD4850, the somewhat lower version of the 4870, is delivering benchmarks somewhere between the GeForce 8800GT and the GeForce 9800GTX.
About the HD3870 comments: the HD3870 is only delivering about 80% of the performance the 8800GT does.
If they put it in the iMacs (which they could do, considering the price: the HD4850 as the basic version, HD4870 as an option/standard in the 24") the Mac-gaming status goes up a whole few levels.
If they also deliver CrossfireX in the MacPro, so you can use four HD4870s at once, Apple is set in the 3D world for the next year
omg, you can say what you want, but when I read the first page of comments I must conclude the mediocre mac-only user knows nothing about modern graphic cards...
atm the situation in GFX-land comes down to this: the best cards out there are the GeForce GTX280, directly followed by the ATI HD4870 (which at its turn tops the GeForce 9800GTX+).
The HD4870 is a lot cheaper though, and Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI, so the HD4870 is considered the best choice.
What does it do? it runs Crysis at Ultra-high (at least when you take enough in 1680*1080 resolution and 2x AA
Furthermore the HD4850, the somewhat lower version of the 4870, is delivering benchmarks somewhere between the GeForce 8800GT and the GeForce 9800GTX.
About the HD3870 comments: the HD3870 is only delivering about 80% of the performance the 8800GT does.
If they put it in the iMacs (which they could do, considering the price: the HD4850 as the basic version, HD4870 as an option/standard in the 24") the Mac-gaming status goes up a whole few levels.
If they also deliver CrossfireX in the MacPro, so you can use four HD4870s at once, Apple is set in the 3D world for the next year
Did you ever stop to consider WHY a mediocre Mac user doesn't know squat about high end video cards? I bet it's the same reason a mediocre PC user doesn't know squat about them either. I.E. they don't use them or come in contact with them or have a need for them.
On a forum dedicated to computers, in a thread dedicated to a graphcs card update, you'd at east expect some knowledge about the matter, but at the first page I see people talking about the Radeon X19800 as if it' still up-to-date.
I am active in a lot of forums about both Mac and general computerstuff, and trust me: macusers seem to have less of an idea what's the current status of the graphic hardware.
My experience so far has also shown me macusers do generally know more aboutkernels, drivers, multithreading and so on.
They would be nice, but don't expect them to be available. It's likely Apple only went with the FX 5600 because the drivers aren't optimized under OSX like they are on Windows meaning that the 8800GT would out perform every other Quadro card.
With windows dominating for 3D applications I doubt it will ever make sense to make the sort of investment needed to bring these cards to OSX and make them worthwhile. That and the consumer cards are often providing enough raw power for people on alot of the DCC apps these days. Other uses besides DCC for the pro cards aren't really the domain of the Mac.
Probably just priorities. There aren't that many bleeding edge games on OS X. I believe Quake Wars is the latest, and we are waiting for Call of Duty 4, UT3, and Gears of War, but all of those are no Crysis or Assassin's Creed.
In contrast, a X1900XT still gives the 8800GT a run for it's money in Core Image acceleration for things like Aperture. So for some things, older GPUs still have a leg up.
The 2600 sucks, hard. There's your comparison.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, iMac. No.
Enjoy your integrated display.
Also Adobe has a plug-in for photoshop supposably it would run faster with just a software update ....
Wow, so original! I haven't heard that HILARIOUS line ANYWHERE on the internet before in my entire life! YOU SHOULD BE A COMEDIAN.
No. The iMac will get whatever piecemealings are sitting around the ati factory from the last generation of video cards. Enjoy your low frames per second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation
Lol, i was gonna say...
I'll get one, my MP has broken and had to be repaired twice now, both times due to the 8800gt.
Regarding CUDA and OpenCL, just to clarify that AMD(Ati) dropped their own GPGPU framework "CTM" in favor of OpenCL, meaning that they will support Apple's OpenCL from the start when 
introduces it with Snow Leopard.
Nvidia is pushing CUDA so strongly as of right now that you'll probably see OpenCL support later than sooner, giving AMD advantage with Apple's software.
introduces it with Snow Leopard. Nvidia is pushing CUDA so strongly as of right now that you'll probably see OpenCL support later than sooner, giving AMD advantage with Apple's software.