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Mac Pro Owners Still Waiting for NVIDIA 8800GT Option... Due Next Month?
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Hoo-whee, competition for Mac Pros!
Time for Apple to fix several major issues with the Mac Pros (not least of all horrific video card and blu-ray support) and bring them back to the cutting edge that warrant their high prices. This can only be a good thing for high ticket power users in the long run.
And my favorite, the gleamin' chrome monolith...
When a company is as woefully unresponsive to its power users as Apple as become as far as the large desktops go (just LOOK at the horrendous time between updates right at the buyers' guide here for the Mac Pro AND the Cinema Displays, AND lagging far behind windows/PC's on blu-ray support), sh*t happens.
Am I going to buy one now instead of the tricked out $9,000 Mac Pro (cart that's been sitting at the Mac Online Store for five MONTHS now waiting for a Cinema Display upgrade and blu-ray support)?
I am SERIOUSLY considering it, especially since they won't rape me re: the custom configuration I need.
Besides, it was far too much to ask Mr. Steve Jobs for a Mac Pro with a Blu-ray burner in it, or better video card support. I think these folks will be far more accomodating.
Time for Apple to fix several major issues with the Mac Pros (not least of all horrific video card and blu-ray support) and bring them back to the cutting edge that warrant their high prices. This can only be a good thing for high ticket power users in the long run.
And my favorite, the gleamin' chrome monolith...
When a company is as woefully unresponsive to its power users as Apple as become as far as the large desktops go (just LOOK at the horrendous time between updates right at the buyers' guide here for the Mac Pro AND the Cinema Displays, AND lagging far behind windows/PC's on blu-ray support), sh*t happens.
Am I going to buy one now instead of the tricked out $9,000 Mac Pro (cart that's been sitting at the Mac Online Store for five MONTHS now waiting for a Cinema Display upgrade and blu-ray support)?
I am SERIOUSLY considering it, especially since they won't rape me re: the custom configuration I need.
Besides, it was far too much to ask Mr. Steve Jobs for a Mac Pro with a Blu-ray burner in it, or better video card support. I think these folks will be far more accomodating.
An issue though... it won't just be OS X compatible. Some updates will cause issues by unpatching the video card drivers and so on, rendering Leopard unbootable until you repatch the system.
Sure, it is cheaper, but it isn't bulletproof. Just be aware of that when you plunk down your money.
how much speed gain do I get if I upgrade from x1900xt to this? Say, if I play crysis, how much more frame rate do I get? Does anybody know?
It's on the way
I just now placed my order for the new Nvidia card, it's on the way. Woot! I was within two weeks of giving up and having a local builder make me a linux box.... I am VERY happy Apple came through with this. Once I get it and have it installed I'll be sure to post on here and let people know how it's working out for me.
I just now placed my order for the new Nvidia card, it's on the way. Woot! I was within two weeks of giving up and having a local builder make me a linux box.... I am VERY happy Apple came through with this. Once I get it and have it installed I'll be sure to post on here and let people know how it's working out for me.
Gosh. There are a lot of "totally new" people popping in to say they have ordered one...
Not suspicious or anything. Honest.
Not suspicious or anything. Honest.
Yes, thanks! I'm hoping that the competition will make Apple more responsive to its high end Mac Pro customers re: video card support, blu ray burning/authoring support, and new cinema displays, and I'm giving it a couple of weeks to see what happens. I would rather buy from Apple, but if another company is more responsive to my needs at a third the cost, it's a no-brainer for me, because I don't even bother with any version of an OS until X.X.5 or X.X.6 when it's finally become stable and before Apple starts mucking it up to get ready for the NEXT OS, and then only X.X.Final versions I'll upgrade to anyway.
How is the Mac Pro Nvidia 8800GT when it comes to fan noise? One of my biggest complaints about the X1900XT is its noisy as hell fan and heat sink that clogs up within a month of heavy use.
If I can get a faster card that perhaps runs cooler, has a quieter fan and I don't have to vacuum out every three weeks, I am so ordering this new board.
If I can get a faster card that perhaps runs cooler, has a quieter fan and I don't have to vacuum out every three weeks, I am so ordering this new board.
So you're going to run Tiger then?
Seriously, leopard is mostly stable now. I haven't had any issues at all in the past months and it's shaping up to be a truly rock-solid operating system.
That's on authorized hardware, though. If you build a hackintosh you may have subtle problems that don't exist on real Macs. I have a friend with a Hackintosh and he's happy, though, so I wish you good luck with that endeavor.
I have a x1900xt but don't notice it's fan being that noisy. I do notice it a bit when playing CoD 4 in boot camp but my guess is your fan needs cleaning, is defective, you've added ram or have ram that doesn't have a heatsink or that I am partially deaf
. Note to all that buy cheap ram: Ram with heatsinks may cost a bit more but it will help to keep the fans in your mac pro to a minimum.
Well, I just wanted to make it clear to the individual that buying a Hackintosh is going to be more work than official hardware because the Hackintosh won't even get OEM support like Windows boxes usually get.
That and I priced out one of their Open Pro boxes since I was curious what sort of perf I could get on the Kentsfields, and honestly, it lacks oomph in the CPU department after getting used to an 8-way Clovertown system. Granted, my box is something that is quite a bit beyond what you would find in a home system.
Thanks for the heads-up. I'm still running Tiger on both iMacs, but the next computer (whatever it is) I'll give Leopard a go.
You might want to hold off on any purchase from Psystar:
http://gizmodo.com/380488/psystar-exposed-looks-like-a-hoax
Seems someone did some digging and Psystar isn't exactly deserving of trust at this point.
Got my new Nvidia 8800GT installed today
Card arrived in the mid-afternoon, delivered FedEx. Got the card installed, then realized that it was NOT going to work with Tiger (the box clearly says it needs OS X 10.5.2 to run - durrrr on my part for not reading that). In fact, the machine would not start up at all. So, removed that card, and rather than hassling putting back the x1900xt card (which was a major BEAR to install in the first place) I instead installed my original Nvidia card ( 7300 GT) that originally came with my Mac Pro. Once I had that set up, I then installed Leopard (Which I had ordered previously, only to find that it did NOT work well with my ATI card, ended up wiping the hard drive and rolling back to Tiger. *sigh* - Wotta pain inna rear THAT was...)
Anyways, got Leopard installed, and it worked fine with my original Nvidia card, so then I went through and installed all of the updates, which took a couple of iterations to do... just kept downloading everything, rebooting, then scanning for whatever else "software update" says it needed. Once I had everything updated and "software update" reported there were no more new updates to download, then I went ahead and powered down, took a breath, opened up my Gen 1 Mac Pro, removed the 7300GT video card and installed the new 8800GT video card.
Machine booted right up, and has worked very well since. I do a lot of development in virtual worlds (Second Life (TM) by Linden Labs), and after making sure everything was working as I expected, I logged into my primary platform and started checking things out.
The overall performance was around 70% better, was getting framerates at 19 to 24 FPS in sims where I had been previously getting framerates of 10-12 FPS, so that's a big win right there.
So, got it, installed it, it works. The card is a breeze to install, MUCH easier to install than the ATI card I replaced. I'm getting much improved rendering and framerates, the only major caveat I feel the need to report here is that you MUST have Leopard 10.5.2 installed to be able to install and use this video card.
Kudos to Apple for making this card available to Gen 1 Mac Pro users.
Card arrived in the mid-afternoon, delivered FedEx. Got the card installed, then realized that it was NOT going to work with Tiger (the box clearly says it needs OS X 10.5.2 to run - durrrr on my part for not reading that). In fact, the machine would not start up at all. So, removed that card, and rather than hassling putting back the x1900xt card (which was a major BEAR to install in the first place) I instead installed my original Nvidia card ( 7300 GT) that originally came with my Mac Pro. Once I had that set up, I then installed Leopard (Which I had ordered previously, only to find that it did NOT work well with my ATI card, ended up wiping the hard drive and rolling back to Tiger. *sigh* - Wotta pain inna rear THAT was...)
Anyways, got Leopard installed, and it worked fine with my original Nvidia card, so then I went through and installed all of the updates, which took a couple of iterations to do... just kept downloading everything, rebooting, then scanning for whatever else "software update" says it needed. Once I had everything updated and "software update" reported there were no more new updates to download, then I went ahead and powered down, took a breath, opened up my Gen 1 Mac Pro, removed the 7300GT video card and installed the new 8800GT video card.
Machine booted right up, and has worked very well since. I do a lot of development in virtual worlds (Second Life (TM) by Linden Labs), and after making sure everything was working as I expected, I logged into my primary platform and started checking things out.
The overall performance was around 70% better, was getting framerates at 19 to 24 FPS in sims where I had been previously getting framerates of 10-12 FPS, so that's a big win right there.
So, got it, installed it, it works. The card is a breeze to install, MUCH easier to install than the ATI card I replaced. I'm getting much improved rendering and framerates, the only major caveat I feel the need to report here is that you MUST have Leopard 10.5.2 installed to be able to install and use this video card.
Kudos to Apple for making this card available to Gen 1 Mac Pro users.
Time for a new thread?
Great. I feel better about ordering it now.
Would you like to start a new thread for reporting installing issues, reviews, and troubleshooting? If you do, please post the link to the thread here. Thanks!
Great. I feel better about ordering it now.
Would you like to start a new thread for reporting installing issues, reviews, and troubleshooting? If you do, please post the link to the thread here. Thanks!
A note to all readers. If you install this card and plan on using it in bootcamp/windows then you will need to install the latest beta drivers from nvidia otherwise it will not work properly. IT MUST BE THIS VERSION 174.74
Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_174.74.html
Windows Vista 32bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_174.74.html
Windows Vista 64bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_174.74.html
Source for the fix is from http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2008-04-22/#16225
Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_174.74.html
Windows Vista 32bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_174.74.html
Windows Vista 64bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_174.74.html
Source for the fix is from http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2008-04-22/#16225
So, does your 8800GT have less heat/failure problems than your 1900XT in y our Mac Pro? I also run Second Life and (even after blowing out the 1900XT dust), post-Leopard has become a crashing prone problem. The 8800GT draws less power, but also doesn't have an external port to dump the heat outside the case.
How do you compare the stability of the 8800 vs 1900 under Leopard and Second Life?
How do you compare the stability of the 8800 vs 1900 under Leopard and Second Life?