Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is this the fasted GFX card for mac pro?
- Thread starter JamesGorman
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Its a card for those doing special scientific work. Thats about it. Not worth your money unless you know what its good for.
It used to be (a few years ago and prior) that the Quadros were the full enchilada without feature masking or crippling of any kind and in some cases the chips themselves were actually a different die. The results of this was that quadro cards could be counted on for smooth steady and consistent frame rates in a wide variety of load conditions. The desktop models might have been a little faster but the smooth consistency wasn't (as) guaranteed.
People are saying of the latest cards that it's all driver and that the hardware is identical. If this is true then there's a very good chance they won't be worth any extra money at all - for anything. I've not looked into it myself.
People are saying of the latest cards that it's all driver and that the hardware is identical. If this is true then there's a very good chance they won't be worth any extra money at all - for anything. I've not looked into it myself.
So what would be the best card for gaming and watching hd and what not? Is the gtx 285 the best card for the mac for that stuff then?
Identical in most areas except one; VRAM. There's enough VRAM in there to make CUDA applications weep!
Personally... If I had a choice of a BIY computer for science applications, a couple or three would get swung into it for sure Sure its not Mac, but its... For Science!But yeah. When it comes to the sheer processing power, the Quadro offered at the Apple store is identical to the GTX 285; same processors, etc. However, the Quadro can load more "stuff" onto its VRAM and attempt to eliminate distasteful latency between the systems RAM and the card.
And once again... Quadros are used for either bleeding-edge applications or CUDA, and on the Windows side (with a few models)hardware acceleration on the card can be enabled.
I use pair of Mac 285 and 2G PC 285 (Palit model) for CUDA - latter injected post boot. Both have 240 cores. Runs multi GPU examples. Do you really think Quadro is better for Cuda apps?
Dr Pants - if you have Quadro and Cuda up can you run MonteCarlomultiGPU - Mac/PC 285 (when run separately) will do > 100,000 options per sec, 80,000 each when together, when both cards run at 1.48 GHz. What does Quadro do?
I use Cinema 4D and heavy photoshop cs3 extended files. And I've just a refurbished Mac 2008 3.2 Ghz with the ATI HD 2600.
Do you think that the Quadro 4800 would be a good choice, or the 285 GTX is better under OSX? There are no serious benchmarks for 3d apps under OSX.... and that's ****ing bad. I think that Apple don't want people to make them.... Specs told 3 years ago that Specviewperf would have been made soon also for OSX (it exists for Win and Linux).... 3 years are passed..... and Apple can continue to keep her users under ignorance....
Do you think that the Quadro 4800 would be a good choice, or the 285 GTX is better under OSX? There are no serious benchmarks for 3d apps under OSX.... and that's ****ing bad. I think that Apple don't want people to make them.... Specs told 3 years ago that Specviewperf would have been made soon also for OSX (it exists for Win and Linux).... 3 years are passed..... and Apple can continue to keep her users under ignorance....
That's what I did, I got mine on eBay for $149.99 shipped, and both DVI ports work!
The GTX 285 is the best choice. It has a slightly faster, newer, GPU and of course is much cheaper. Only ever buy the quadro if you plan to use bootcamp for optimized apps in Windows.
While the Quadros offer some great features in performance and precision optimization the FX 4800 is a very high end card, capable of driving many views on multiple displays on fiendishly complex models. It is overkill for most autocad users and the raw power of the 285 coupled with Autocad 2008 supporting D3D are probably more than enough for you.
I found this link that benches pro cards against an old 9800 GTX for autocad:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/firegl-quadrofx_15.html#sect0
but if the link speed of the PC GTX285 is 2.5GT /S instead of 5GT /S of de oficial EVGA Mac Edition, this is not a problem for the overall performance?
That's what I did, I got mine on eBay for $149.99 shipped, and both DVI ports work!
Do you have 2 apple displays connected to it? I wonder if my 2 23" ACDs would work with it.
Mind posting some benchmarks for the card?
I have 2 x Dell S2309W's attached to it, but I did have 2 x 20" ACD connected, you would be fine. Here's a benchmark:
This is interesting question. I have yet to find a situation where this Link speed causes compromise, and I run a Mac and PC 285 side by side. Maybe I just have not run the right tests, but I have been getting similar numbers from both on the OpenGL benchmarks and Cuda apps. I'd really like to know if anyone has found an app where it shows.
