Great news, if true. A FireGL 7700 would be a nice $1K alternative to the $2.8K Quadro 5600 in the Mac Pro, too. Can't wait for this to happen. Let's go Apple. 
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ATI's 4870 HD and 4850 HD Graphics Cards Coming for Mac
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Great news, if true. A FireGL 7700 would be a nice $1K alternative to the $2.8K Quadro 5600 in the Mac Pro, too. Can't wait for this to happen. Let's go Apple.
I'm sure it would be a welcome addition by some, but without the driver optimization it would be just an expensive 3870 under OSX. Useful for someone who wanted to do 3D work in windows and didn't really need more than a 3870 in OSX and didn't want to switch monitors or have more than one GPU, but not the sort of customer Apple probably gives a crap about
. I also doubt they would want to sell a card that would be out performed by the 4800 series but cost three times as much.Maybe AMD will get on top of it, but I could easily see it to not even be worth considering from a financial aspect.
I'm sure it would be a welcome addition by some, but without the driver optimization it would be just an expensive 3870 under OSX. Useful for someone who wanted to do 3D work in windows and didn't really need more than a 3870 in OSX and didn't want to switch monitors or have more than one GPU, but not the sort of customer Apple probably gives a crap about
Maybe AMD will get on top of it, but I could easily see it to not even be worth considering from a financial aspect.
People using 3D apps would certainly want the opportunity to purchase the FireGL 7770 and I'm sure they might be pleased at the prospect at saving $1.8K over the Quadro 5600. Users of professional video cards don't mind paying more for their video cards. What's galling is knowing that every PC workstation vendor gives you the choice of EVERY Professional video card from Nvidia and ATI and not just one
like Apple does. If Apple doesn't want to supply it's customer with the proper hardware equipment for the Mac Pro, they should have the integrity to stop calling it a Mac Pro I'm hopeful that Apple will step up to the plate and do the right thing for it professional computer users. 
Oh god damn it, i just bought the 3870 a few days ago for the mac.
I could always sell it i suppose but god damn, that was so fast. The only way id buy it would be is if it sold for around $300 or less (the 4870) but i know it wont, so I dont feel too guilty.
I could always sell it i suppose but god damn, that was so fast. The only way id buy it would be is if it sold for around $300 or less (the 4870) but i know it wont, so I dont feel too guilty.
People using 3D apps would certainly want the opportunity to purchase the FireGL 7770 and I'm sure they might be pleased at the prospect at saving $1.8K over the Quadro 5600. Users of professional video cards don't mind paying more for their video cards. What's galling is knowing that every PC workstation vendor gives you the choice of EVERY Professional video card from Nvidia and ATI and not just one
Well I believe the situation is as follows: ATI write their own OSX drivers for Apple. Apple pay for the ones that ship with Apple systems.
For the v7700 to offer the same performance benefits it has over the 3870 in windows (they use the same hardware) ATI would need to invest in developing the optimzied drivers/firmware specifically for OSX and the popular 3D applications on OSX.
Apple aren't going to pay for that because OSX isn't really the best platform for 3D applications on the high end and it likely isn't worth the investment for them (as shown by the drivers for the Quadro FX 4500 and FX 5600). So this leaves ATI to decide whether it is worth it to develop the proper drivers for OSX and offer the same level of support windows users have access too. I could easily imagine the sales numbers would be small and unlikely enough to cover the cost of development.
Without optimized drivers it would as effective as an HD3870 in OSX.
I don't think there is much wrong in calling it the Mac Pro, plenty of "professionals" don't need 3D power. I think there needs to be alot more market share and business adoption before we see the current idea of professional GPUs being properly utilized on OSX (i.e same hardware but better drivers).
To people who think the 4870X2 would require OSX crossfire support: No it would not.
The beauty of the X2 cards from ATI and also the 9800GX2 from Nvidia is that everything is done on the board without overhead. Thus, the 9800GX2 will work with itself in SLI on an Intel board, and the 4870X2 will work in Crossfire on an Nvidia board. There is no hardware or software support required except for drivers.
Otherwise, great news. I do wonder a bit about the 4850 AND the 4870 being offered. The 4870 has a huge leg up of course, but they're both high end cards, so they don't appeal to massively different parts of the market. More choice is always good though, so that's hardly grounds for a complaint.
Who thinks Nvidia has always been better than ATI? Take a look at some history, this is not the case. The ATI 9 series DESTROYED Nvidia, and the X?00 series was about the same, as were the X1?00 series. The 8 series was the only real Nvidia victory of recent. It was amazing, and blew EVERYTHING away. The only reason Nvidia has kept a lead up to this point is the terrible R600, which allowed them to rehash old chips onto smaller silicon for a minimal performance improvement.
The beauty of the X2 cards from ATI and also the 9800GX2 from Nvidia is that everything is done on the board without overhead. Thus, the 9800GX2 will work with itself in SLI on an Intel board, and the 4870X2 will work in Crossfire on an Nvidia board. There is no hardware or software support required except for drivers.
Otherwise, great news. I do wonder a bit about the 4850 AND the 4870 being offered. The 4870 has a huge leg up of course, but they're both high end cards, so they don't appeal to massively different parts of the market. More choice is always good though, so that's hardly grounds for a complaint.
Who thinks Nvidia has always been better than ATI? Take a look at some history, this is not the case. The ATI 9 series DESTROYED Nvidia, and the X?00 series was about the same, as were the X1?00 series. The 8 series was the only real Nvidia victory of recent. It was amazing, and blew EVERYTHING away. The only reason Nvidia has kept a lead up to this point is the terrible R600, which allowed them to rehash old chips onto smaller silicon for a minimal performance improvement.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Apple is indeed moving to the nVidia mobile chipset for the iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook and Mac Mini as more and more rumors state.
The Mac Pro might be the only Apple machine that comes with an ATI option, but then if it really does handle Core Image-based applications better, that is the machine you'd want those cards on since they have the most power.
Where are exactly these rumours of Apple switching to nVidia chip-sets?
I thought they would make their own custom chip-sets if anything.
Any ways, how long before we see the 5xxx series cards from ATI?
Just a question, what makes you guys think that ATi will offer these cards as BTO. Haven't they traditionally been a third-party option? i.e. you can't order an ATi card when you order your mac pro. Probably be something similar to the 3870 "Mac & PC Edition" maybe?
Oh yeah I forgot to add that this is a big win for Mac users and AMD ATi could totally dominate the Mac market if they play it smart. It's nice to know that there are more options out there but I'm pretty content with my 8800GTS 512mb for the time being.
not if it's shellacked in and then gets a generous coating of my johnson's weather seal or tite seal!
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
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.
Can't wait to see what apple has cooking since they are supporting Cuda 2.0 now and they did show interest in this technology awhile back.
Though does that even matter given the % of Macs that can accept a PCIe video card. Or is the dream of a consumer Mac with a PCIe slot for video going to happen?
Yes and no...for example, at one point you could order the X850 as BTO for the AGP Power Macs. Apple tends to switch back and forth between ATI and nVidia, always have.
--Eric
I hope this isn't what ATI offers for the Nehalem Mac Pro while the 5870 is burning a hole through it's benchmarks. I was so glad that Nvidia and Apple were able to reach an agreement to use a brand new card. If ATI can deliver whatever is fresh off the press when the next Mac Pro comes out, I would absolutely buy it. Of course, I'd buy the ATI card regardless because of the obvious performance difference, but it would only sweeten the deal if I was getting a current generation card.
Currently, the last 5870 rumor I saw sounds incredibly wrong when presented side by side with the 4000 series. The main point was "dual core", which doesn't mean much since the 4870 has 800 "cores", although they are much more specialized than a CPU for obvious reasons. However, I remember that ATI is moving to a 6 month business model. The 3800 series came out in mid November, and the 4800 series replaced it in June. It wouldn't be very far out to speculate that something will come out this November from both parties.
If anyone is more familiar with the ATI rumor mill, please chime in and expand on the above paragraph.
Currently, the last 5870 rumor I saw sounds incredibly wrong when presented side by side with the 4000 series. The main point was "dual core", which doesn't mean much since the 4870 has 800 "cores", although they are much more specialized than a CPU for obvious reasons. However, I remember that ATI is moving to a 6 month business model. The 3800 series came out in mid November, and the 4800 series replaced it in June. It wouldn't be very far out to speculate that something will come out this November from both parties.
If anyone is more familiar with the ATI rumor mill, please chime in and expand on the above paragraph.
Yeah, so we can have complete complacency and no competition. Sounds like an awesome plan.
Regardless of the bad press on Nvidia lately, as Mac users are we better off with Nvidia due to Cuda which Apple has something cooking with this technology ? Also Adobe has a plug-in for photoshop supposably it would run faster with just a software update ....
No. ATI has all but dropped their own proprietary parallel processing "GPGPU" SDK in favor of helping Apple develop OpenCL, so they are going to be much more aligned with Apple/OSX, and perhaps their hardware itself will be much more optimized for Snow Leopard/OpenCL than nVidia's Geforce cards.
Yes, it's a single card, but it has two GPU on one PCB and uses an internal crossfire bridge and crossfire software model to divide operations. This is why ATI has to constantly update their drivers for new games when they come out. If their drivers don't recognize the game, you'll see no performance gains versus a 4870. This is good in theory in that they can manufacturer smaller GPUs with higher yields and just use two of them on one board for the high-end models, but it makes the driver situation a lot more hairy.
It's yet to be seen if the 4870X2's internal-crossfire model is going to be something that is easily and efficiently ported over to the OSX version of their drivers.
"sub-par performance"? The 4850/70 are excellent cards, and rival the fastest nvidia cards on the market for a lot less price. As i said above, the 4870 X2 uses an internal crossfire driver model, which is probably going to complicate it's implementation on the Mac as I don't believe traditional 2-card crossfire support is available on their OSX drivers. Besides, OSX is hardly used for hard-core gaming. I know there are those who dual-boot into XP or Vista for gaming, but that's not really the intended use of the Mac Pro.
Considering they were the undisputed market leader for 2+ years, and even now have very competitive cards, that's a bit of a strong statement. They do screw up by not moving GT200 to 55nm though, which made their enormous die expensive to manufacturer and hence ATI is whipping them on retail price. When they have the 55nm parts out and some clock tweaks, the GTX 280/260 will both be very competitive parts. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fanboy of either company and I am certainly glad that ATI was able to recover. The 4800 series are great cards.
"was a flop from the beginning." What? It was one of the best cards on the market when it came out-- essentially a higher clocked 8800GTS 512MB. The only thing faster was the 9800GX2. However, the 4800 series has certainly been a big redeemer for ATI. And considering we are talking about them in reference to Macs, even before this latest generation ATI has had a huge advantage because of their much superior OSX drivers. nVidia cards running on OSX are a joke, especially in Core Image performance.
Crossfire generally delivers much better performance scaling WHEN it is optimized well for a given game, however, SLI support is more consistent across a broad range of titles, whereas Crossfire is more hit and miss.
You did notice the "mac" in "macrumors.com" didn't you? Apple historically has not exactly been associated with the 3D gaming scene. Most people around here are Mac enthusiasts, artists, musicians, photographers, software/web developers, etc.
I heard something a fair while ago that says, historically, nVidia cards work better with OpenGL and ATi work better with DirectX (hence their use in the xbox systems, which were named partly after their basis on DirectX).
So, in that respect, a GTX 280 running an OpenGL game would outperform a 4870 X2 running the same OpenGL game?
So, in that respect, a GTX 280 running an OpenGL game would outperform a 4870 X2 running the same OpenGL game?
Originally Posted by kiang
Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI
Ironically, Crossfire used to be such a bitch to work and set up compared to SLi that ATi completely "re-did" Crossfire not long ago to make it more efficient and simpler to set-up.
I believe that is also when CrossFireX (Quad-SLi) came along, though I may be wrong on that.
Crossfire is delivering a much better job then SLI
Ironically, Crossfire used to be such a bitch to work and set up compared to SLi that ATi completely "re-did" Crossfire not long ago to make it more efficient and simpler to set-up.
I believe that is also when CrossFireX (Quad-SLi) came along, though I may be wrong on that.
The only problem I can foresee is the price.
When the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition finally arrives, they will be priced at the official MSRP of $199 and $299 or perhaps even more, seeing as the Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition currently is listed at $219.
Admittedly still priced very, very competitive with the current offerings.
When the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 Mac Edition finally arrives, they will be priced at the official MSRP of $199 and $299 or perhaps even more, seeing as the Radeon HD 3870 Mac Edition currently is listed at $219.
Admittedly still priced very, very competitive with the current offerings.
Yes in most cases NVIDIA cards have outperformed ATi cards in OpenGL on the Mac side of things. Check out barefeats.com.