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GeForce GTX 285 Appears in Apple Online Store

seancusick said:
I think that I know the answer, but would like to hear from others. Some site cough (9 to 5 mac) are stating that the PC version, which is about $130 less, is identical and as the same card. They are actually suggesting people buy from Amazon, complete with a link. It was my understanding that you were tied to the overpriced "mac version." They are suggesting that it is the same card. $319 works for me, $450 does not. I would like to hear from people who know the true answer. I would think that major mac sites would not state that it works, if it, umm does not. Thanks in advance. I will take my answer off of the air....
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I've heard that you have to flash the regular one with a special Mac firmware. but I'm no expert on the subject.
 
slicecom said:
Thats why I stick to ATI cards. They all have both EFI32 and EFI64 ROMs. Nvidia could easily do this too, but choose not to. I've had nothing but bad experiences with Nvidia cards anyways. 4870 here I come!
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In most benchmarks, the 4870 offers no advantage over the 8800. Heat and power wise, the 4870 is a beast. It will be nice to get some OpenCL benchmarks on them both. That's really the only reason I want to upgrade.

I currently keep a nice PC (Currently it's a Core 2 Quad 3.0 with an nVidia GTX 275) strictly for my h.264 encoding. It can plow through 1080p video in 1/4 of the time that my Mac Pro can. I REALLY want to do this all on one box. The GTX 285 with OpenCL could have easily done that.
 
Transeau said:
In most benchmarks, the 4870 offers no advantage over the 8800. Heat and power wise, the 4870 is a beast. It will be nice to get some OpenCL benchmarks on them both. That's really the only reason I want to upgrade.

I currently keep a nice PC (Currently it's a Core 2 Quad 3.0 with an nVidia GTX 275) strictly for my h.264 encoding. It can plow through 1080p video in 1/4 of the time that my Mac Pro can. I REALLY want to do this all on one box. The GTX 285 with OpenCL could have easily done that.
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How do these two cards and Computers compare ripping a movie to AppleTV using Handbrake in speed?

Does the 8800 have h.264 encoding?
 
It's good to see Apple making this card available. The Mac will probably never be a 'hard core' gaming platform (SLI x4 etc) but this card brings a lot of performance to those that like to play games like Crysis, Far Cry 2, etc in Boot Camp.

I spent a similar amount of money to this on a GeForce 8800GTS 640Mb two or three years ago, and it's still a solid performer. The cash is not wasted.
 
thanks for the flashing answer. It seems like 9 to 5 updated their info. I searched around- meaning google- and could not find info on those that flashed it to a mac version. Has anyone done this before? I know that mac version is not out, but looking at the specs, will we be able to flash it?
 
Transeau said:
In most benchmarks, the 4870 offers no advantage over the 8800. Heat and power wise, the 4870 is a beast. It will be nice to get some OpenCL benchmarks on them both. That's really the only reason I want to upgrade.

I currently keep a nice PC (Currently it's a Core 2 Quad 3.0 with an nVidia GTX 275) strictly for my h.264 encoding. It can plow through 1080p video in 1/4 of the time that my Mac Pro can. I REALLY want to do this all on one box. The GTX 285 with OpenCL could have easily done that.
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Yeah, if I had an 8800, I wouldn't switch to a 3870 as their performance is very similar (I have the crappy 7300). I'm pretty sure the 4870 works fine in our MacPro 1,1's as well, its just new Nvidia cards that don't work.
 
twoodcc said:
too bad i can't put one in my 2006 mac pro
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From my understandings ATI put both 32 bit & 64 bit drivers on their 4870 video card. Thus it will work on yours, mine & others 2006 Intel Mac Pro. this same bit of information indicated that the Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 will only work in the 2008 & 2009 versions of the Intel Mac Pro. No 32 bit drivers (support for the 2006 Intel Mac Pro.)

The Nvidia card has the advantage of not having the Mini DisplayPort connector, thus saving $99 for an adapter. Any new screens I purchase will be at least a 30" model. I was hoping for a 42" model with 3840 X 2400 resolution. But the change to LCD back lighting will keep resolutions down for a few years. At present I'd add an HP 30" display (can be connected to 3 or 4 Macs without using a costly DL KVM switch.) 2 to the GTX 285 card, but only 1 without an adapter to the ATI 4870 card.
 
mklos said:
Nice to see Apple is pushing Mini Display Port!

No Mini Display Port=NO SALE!
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For those with plenty of DL DVI standard connectors, a display port means an extra $100 to make the card work on that 2nd display. It changes a an expensive sale to a cheaper sale.
 
Does anyone know if the GTX285 will support OpenCL in Snow Leopard? It's not on the official list of cards, but perhaps it will be added. Surely it's capable, just a matter of Apple providing support?
 
mklos said:
Nice to see Apple is pushing Mini Display Port!

No Mini Display Port=NO SALE!
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Apple doesn't manufacture the card, they have no say in what connectors are on it.

Frankly if I had Mini DisplayPort it'd be a no-sale for me, since I don't want that piece of crap connector on my computer.
 
I may have to push for two of these for the 2 road Mac Pros at work. I need both outputs to be DVI; so having both as DVI is a bonus for me.

Mini Display port has no use for me at this time.

-mark
 
Might get one of these for my efix hackintosh, and save a few pennies too. :cool:

There's news that this make of card has been (unoficially) working on Efix solutions with the mac FX4800 driver (same type of GPU) not only the GTX285 but all of the 200 series cards, be that the GTX260, GTX275, but no news on the GTX295 yet.

In fact with the announced support of the i7 platform I'm feeling a bit more happy about going the efix route in the firstplace.

It's pretty good that 3rd party card makers such as EVGA are making mac cards though, if a couple of other third parties like GigaByte, Asus, BFG and whoever else follow suit it should bring the prices down, which should be great for everyone. Maybe the GPU drought that the macintosh platform has suffered from for so long may be coming to an end.
 
grue said:
Apple doesn't manufacture the card, they have no say in what connectors are on it.

Frankly if I had Mini DisplayPort it'd be a no-sale for me, since I don't want that piece of crap connector on my computer.
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Its actually a better connector than DVI, but to each his own.....
 
mklos said:
Its actually a better connector than DVI, but to each his own.....
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Maybe, unless you want to hook it up to a 30" display without shelling out for a dongle and using up a USB port.

But once the displayport thing takes off fully things should improve, you never know Apple might allow audio to go through it too like the spec suggests, should stop all the "I want HDMI" wining. :D
 
Mac Kiwi said:
Why is there no 2GB version of the same card like the PC ones?.......I also note the 2G PC one is about the same price.


http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?


I want as much on board memory as possible for throwing polys around in Mud,zbrush etc...
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If someone can flash the rom onto other cards that could solve that problem, and some money. I never followed the 4870 rom flashing thread, so I'm not sure if anyone had any joy with that GPU.
 
ricosuave said:
How do these two cards and Computers compare ripping a movie to AppleTV using Handbrake in speed?

Does the 8800 have h.264 encoding?
Click to expand...

My Mac Pro rips a 2 hour DVD and does high quality h.264 using Handbrake in about 3 to 4 hours.

My PC using "Badaboom" encoder (nVidia CUDA based encoding) on the GTX275 will rip and encode h.264 in about 30 minutes.

The 8800, in the same PC is about 1 to 1.5 hours.
 
Transeau said:
My Mac Pro rips a 2 hour DVD and does high quality h.264 using Handbrake in about 3 to 4 hours.

My PC using "Badaboom" encoder (nVidia CUDA based encoding) on the GTX275 will rip and encode h.264 in about 30 minutes.

The 8800, in the same PC is about 1 to 1.5 hours.
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Those are some seriously nice numbers.

/Crosses fingers hoping a Logic update will offload to the GPU, or 2.
 
Thank you Apple for not supporting us 2006 MacPro users...I have an upgradable Mac that has no (new) video card upgrades...how long til my nVidia 8800 becomes obsolete (if not already)?
 
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