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Crossfire for nMP on Windows / Boot Camp

Anim said:
Fantastic stuff. Dual D700's and an 8 Core Mac CPU. Running BF4 at 4k with Ultra settings was mad. So that confirms it for me. Things can only get better as drivers become even more optimised.

😀
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Registered just to post this line:

SOLD! 😀

I need a workstation-class machine for development, but like to do gaming as well. iMac'12 just does not cut it, even pimped out one (mine also got screen ghosting, thank you Apple).

And instead of spending extra $2K to get a decent gaming rig (not mentioning space, cabling and general messiness) I can just get dual D700s.

Well done, Apple!

EDIT: I think 6-core Xeon would be faster, due to higher clocks and the fact that games do not need lots of cores usually, too hard to develop for. And proper gaming drivers add even more speed of course.
 
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Crossfire does seem to be enabled, but that BF4 test was not great. It was unplayable at 4K Ultra and barely playable at 4K High. I wonder if 4K is the biggest factor. Seeing that I assume most people won't have 4K monitors, I'm guessing Ultra would be just fine at 2K.

Yet to be confirmed though.
 
Yeah resolution makes a huge difference. I mean I have a 30" monitor running 2560x1600 and I bet even at that resolution it'll be pushing it. "1920x1080" gaming will probably handle ultra-like settings just fine (i.e. ~60fps).
 
chfilm said:
So this is it? Crossfire works?
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Well, that video shows 2 x graphic cards detected in the benchmark, this 8 core with dual D700's workstation machine is approx 10% faster than a Titan based gaming rig. I assume the drivers are in their infancy too.

Crossfire was shown to be enabled in the driver section too.

So for us that are hoping for a workstation that would also double up as a gaming machine can be very happy at this point.
 
Foxdog175 said:
Crossfire does seem to be enabled, but that BF4 test was not great. It was unplayable at 4K Ultra and barely playable at 4K High. I wonder if 4K is the biggest factor. Seeing that I assume most people won't have 4K monitors, I'm guessing Ultra would be just fine at 2K.

Yet to be confirmed though.
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4K gaming at the moment is more of a gimmick - it is available for quite expensive displays and to achieve playable 4K/Ultra results you will have to spend almost the same you pay for Mac Pro with D700s.

And get bulky and LOUD (even when idle) Windows box too.

For 2K/1080p gaming this thing would be a beast.
 
Anim said:
Well, that video shows 2 x graphic cards detected in the benchmark, this 8 core with dual D700's workstation machine is approx 10% faster than a Titan based gaming rig. I assume the drivers are in their infancy too.

Crossfire was shown to be enabled in the driver section too.

So for us that are hoping for a workstation that would also double up as a gaming machine can be very happy at this point.
Click to expand...

I wonder why in a review I saw online that the game they were testing didn't use both video cards. I forgot which review site it was on.
 
Foxdog175 said:
Crossfire does seem to be enabled, but that BF4 test was not great. It was unplayable at 4K Ultra and barely playable at 4K High. I wonder if 4K is the biggest factor. Seeing that I assume most people won't have 4K monitors, I'm guessing Ultra would be just fine at 2K.

Yet to be confirmed though.
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For 4K gaming you need stupid graphics power so this is not a surprise.

On a side note we seem to get more good news every day. CPU is upgradeable. GPUs seemingly support Crossfire. Soon the "unhappy crew" are going to run out of things to complain about.
 
Avenger said:
I wonder why in a review I saw online that the game they were testing didn't use both video cards. I forgot which review site it was on.
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No idea, maybe there are newer bootcamp drivers installed since that review? I also think it is mostly the drivers that manages crossfire and not the game itself.
 
I wonder if win 8.1 is ok to get for mine as Apple only lists 8 for Bootcamp. But it seems to work in the video.
 
theSeb said:
For 4K gaming you need stupid graphics power so this is not a surprise.

On a side note we seem to get more good news every day. CPU is upgradeable. GPUs seemingly support Crossfire. Soon the "unhappy crew" are going to run out of things to complain about.
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Hopefully they'll just fade away. More likely there will be something new to be unhappy about...
 
theSeb said:
Soon the "unhappy crew" are going to run out of things to complain about.
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I was one of the "Unhappy crew members" 🙂 Seeing this video I have no more complains 🙂 I guess D500 or even D300 in Crossfire should give really nice gaming experience if you're not planning on 4k gaming which i'm not.
 
2128506 said:
Registered just to post this line:

SOLD! 😀

I need a workstation-class machine for development, but like to do gaming as well. iMac'12 just does not cut it, even pimped out one (mine also got screen ghosting, thank you Apple).

And instead of spending extra $2K to get a decent gaming rig (not mentioning space, cabling and general messiness) I can just get dual D700s.

Well done, Apple!

EDIT: I think 6-core Xeon would be faster, due to higher clocks and the fact that games do not need lots of cores usually, too hard to develop for. And proper gaming drivers add even more speed of course.
Click to expand...

Funny, I'm in exactly the same boat as you. I need a workstation for development, like to play a few games to relax after a day of code, and don't want to spend another $2k and have another ugly box sitting around.

This is why I crossed my fingers and ordered the hex core with D700 upgrade, five minutes after the store went live. With the delay I could easily cancel if it turned out to be a bum idea, but even if it wasn't I'd probably still get it. Anyhow, glad that turned out to be the right decision!

Now that $5k price isn't looking so bad after all ...
 
Really want to see the comparison between the D500s and those D700 scores. If the difference is big enough, might change my order... but suspect I don't need that much horsepower...
 
Cubemmal said:
Funny, I'm in exactly the same boat as you. I need a workstation for development, like to play a few games to relax after a day of code, and don't want to spend another $2k and have another ugly box sitting around.

This is why I crossed my fingers and ordered the hex core with D700 upgrade, five minutes after the store went live. With the delay I could easily cancel if it turned out to be a bum idea, but even if it wasn't I'd probably still get it. Anyhow, glad that turned out to be the right decision!

Now that $5k price isn't looking so bad after all ...
Click to expand...

+3 for the same boat, although I gave up on PC gaming around 2002 and have recently started dipping my toes back in. As hard I try I simply cannot play FPS without a mouse and keyboard and I miss my Quake/Duke Nukem 3D days.
 
wildmac said:
Really want to see the comparison between the D500s and those D700 scores. If the difference is big enough, might change my order... but suspect I don't need that much horsepower...
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More and more nMP are being delivered. I don't think you will have long to wait for a D500 bench result.

But looking at the results of the D500 here: http://architosh.com/2013/10/the-mac-pro-so-whats-a-d300-d500-and-d700-anyway-we-have-answers/

Personally I don't think it will be that different (for games) as the D700. It has a few less stream processors and 3GB ram. For gaming I think that will have very little impact compared to the D700.

Just my opinion of course.
 
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