Mac Pro Update with AMD Radeon HD 3800 GPUs

[scorp888]

Game developers won't bother even considering porting games to OSX if Apple offers nothing that can handle their games to their full potential.

And I don't mean "well, for 3mths every 2 years they have a semi-top end card available for mac".

I agree, but you'd have to see a sea change on the drivers from for this to happen.

We all know you can run an 880 gt in a mac pro today...providing nvidia released an osx 10.4/10.5 driver for it.

I guess the key here is does apple think that people are going to upgrade their computers less, if it's possible to do small incremental upgrades of ram and gpu that today where it's not.

So does apple go into the selling gpu business far more than they do today where they only really offer post sales bto options after the event.

 

[Topper]

We all know you can run an 8800 gt in a mac pro today...providing nvidia released an osx 10.4/10.5 driver for it.

Therein lies the problem.
Does nVidia make the video card drivers or does Apple?
I have researched this and I have yet to find a definitive answer.
If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that Apple makes the drivers.

 

[Sun Baked]

Game developers won't bother even considering porting games to OSX if Apple offers nothing that can handle their games to their full potential.

And I don't mean "well, for 3mths every 2 years they have a semi-top end card available for mac".

Putting a high end card in the Mac Pro won't attract game makers either, since that isn't the market you develop games for -- since the Mac Pro penetration isn't really that big so you can't sell enough games.

You need to aim at a bigger chunk of the near million Macs a month, which ends up basically being notebook graphics (which lands MacBooks and iMac users.)

This is still where the lack of consumer level gaming machine (aka, no desktop chips sold here) will continue to hurt you.

 

[dusanv]

All you guys are absolutely right. They don't care about gamers and that's really stupid. They'll never grab decent market share without gamers and a proper desktop box. Who wants to have another box just for PC games (no, consoles just plain suck)? But they're too busy raping audio/video/graphics people with the Xeon/FBRAM equipped Mac Pro to notice anybody else...

 

[macz1]

It is't even neccesary to port the games to OS X. For gaming you better use Windows. The problem begins with the hardware not supporting newer games and a total neglected software support for those graphics cards in OS X not even allowing to boot the system when they are installed in the computer.
Its counter productive.

 

[krunk]

It is't even neccesary to port the games to OS X. For gaming you better use Windows. The problem begins with the hardware not supporting newer games and a total neglected software support for those graphics cards in OS X not even allowing to boot the system when they are installed in the computer.
Its counter productive.

True enough. I for one wouldn't mind putting a cheapo 70 dollar consumer card in slot 2 and a gaming card in slot 1 for windows. . . as long as OSX was smart enough to boot to the second card. (which currently it cannot)

 

[scorp888]

Therein lies the problem.
Does nVidia make the video card drivers or does Apple?
I have researched this and I have yet to find a definitive answer.
If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that Apple makes the drivers.

I'm not so sure, we know apple is fairly canny about this sort of thing.

Nvidia and AMD have the experts on the drivers for linux and windows, I'd say the card manufacturers..

i.e Apple to Nvidia..of course we'd love to use your 8800gt..but AMD are offering their card with driver support..

 

[scorp888]

True enough. I for one wouldn't mind putting a cheapo 70 dollar consumer card in slot 2 and a gaming card in slot 1 for windows. . . as long as OSX was smart enough to boot to the second card. (which currently it cannot)

That's not my understanding..2nd card for windows works.

 

[krunk]

That's not my understanding..2nd card for windows works.

Yep, that's what I'm saying. Right now, only the second slot can be used as the video card for windows. But putting a top notch card in the second slot handicaps it.

I was indicating that if apple doesn't want to put the effort into providing decent video card options, I would be satisfied with allowing OSX to boot from the less ideal second slot so windows could use the top notch card at maximum potential.

 

[wentwj]

Personally I think you guys are putting too much importance on gaming (I, by the way, am a gamer). Apple hasn't cared at all about the gaming market in the past, and I don't think that'll change to a large degree (they will slowly advance in that direction, but I doubt anything too quick).

Most of the mac computers aren't designed for gaming, but instead for either home or office use. The iMacs are basically designed to be nice small, compact home machines, and the Mac Pro's are designed as workstations.

Well it's tempting to look at these machines and try to see how they'd fit into a gaming world, thats not the world that apple is currently aiming for. If they wanted to go after that market i'd be best to create an entirely new line of, what would essentially be a hybrid of the two. A headless iMac with some of the upgradeability of the Mac Pros (of course they'd also need drivers for new cards to do this with any success).

I personally don't expect that to happen for a while, apple has been doing fine increasing it's market share by keeping at what it's doing. I expect them to keep their GPUs modern when they update their models, but not keep up with it inbetween the upgrades.

 

[cuestakid]

Yep, that's what I'm saying. Right now, only the second slot can be used as the video card for windows. But putting a top notch card in the second slot handicaps it.

I was indicating that if apple doesn't want to put the effort into providing decent video card options, I would be satisfied with allowing OSX to boot from the less ideal second slot so windows could use the top notch card at maximum potential.

Can you clarify something-what second slot are you referring to and how would I go about doing what you are talking about because that is exactally what I am thinking about doing-getting a graphics card only for use when in boot camp.

 

[^squirrel^]

Putting a high end card in the Mac Pro won't attract game makers either, since that isn't the market you develop games for -- since the Mac Pro penetration isn't really that big so you can't sell enough games.

You need to aim at a bigger chunk of the near million Macs a month, which ends up basically being notebook graphics (which lands MacBooks and iMac users.)

This is still where the lack of consumer level gaming machine (aka, no desktop chips sold here) will continue to hurt you.

It's not about attracting the gamers market, it's about satisfying their current customers. It's embarrassing to see they have signed deals with gaming manufactures but done nothing to their hardware to back this up!

I'm a casual gamer and like playing Flight Sim X, Counter Strike and Battlefield. Now Flight Sim is about the only game that really pushes my GPU, but future games like Call of Duty 4 will really struggle with my X1900.

I'm considering selling my Macpro and buying a Macbook Pro and the building a gaming PC, just because i'm getting fed up at waiting for a refresh.

 

[badlydrawnboy]

Guess it's MWSF now. Apple Store isn't down, no rumors, nothing happening. Oh well. Life goes on.

 

[krypt]

I still find it hard to believe Apple would pay for priority on Penryn and then wait until mid-Janurary to start selling them. I suppose that was only a rumor, but there's still the fact that Intel said Mac Pro-bound Harpertown Xeons are to speed records.

Oh well, it does seem we're looking at MWSF now.

k

 

[KevinPlusPlus]

Apple does seem to be breaking a lot of the norms lately (like the silent MacBook update on a Thursday), so maybe it won't be January. I agree that releasing between Thanksgiving and Christmas would be a bit strange, but this has been a strange year.

 

[krunk]

Can you clarify something-what second slot are you referring to and how would I go about doing what you are talking about because that is exactally what I am thinking about doing-getting a graphics card only for use when in boot camp.

So, you have one 16-lane pci express slot in the mac pro. The rest are 8-lane. To take full advantage of a video card you need the 16-lane connection, which is the main one.

However, since OSX is incapable of booting from the second slot your faced with the decision of a) Using a 16-lane card in an 8-lane slot and thus handicapping your 500 dollar card. or b) manually swapping them out for each reboot.

 

[Pressure]

So, you have one 16-lane pci express slot in the mac pro. The rest are 8-lane. To take full advantage of a video card you need the 16-lane connection, which is the main one.

However, since OSX is incapable of booting from the second slot your faced with the decision of a) Using a 16-lane card in an 8-lane slot and thus handicapping your 500 dollar card. or b) manually swapping them out for each reboot.

8-lanes are more than enough bandwidth to power any graphic card today. The performance delta between 8-lanes and 16-lanes are negligible at best when it comes to gaming.

 

[technocoy]

tell you what apple...

since you are so frigging slack to get us decent cards on the platform AT LEAST make some way for us to have a real deal graphics card installed in our sixteen lane slot that we can turn off when we boot into OS X from windows gaming so that we don't have to manually swap cards each time.

I need some GD graphics options and I need them yesterday. It's silly to me that even after the move to intel and Leopard finally going retail that we are still dealing with no drivers for cards that have been on the market for over a year.

This is getting absurd.

My x1900 finally fried itself the other day (2 months out of warranty of course) and I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay apple 350.00 dollars for a two year old card. Either lower the price to match PC cards or get us some more options. This is pissing people off.

 

[chewietobbacca]

AMD scored some major OEM contracts with the 3800 series like Dell and so on so I'm wondering if they have anything with Apple at this point for a near-future refresh.

After all, it would make sense to go from a 2600XT as mid-range to a 3850 high mid-range (for PC's at least) but will be a significant boost to performance (2x at least).

The 3850 would be ideal because it's already a single slot card, has low power draw, runs very cool at idle, and is loaded with features including UVD which would be ideal for both gamers and multimedia users. And it's performance is actually pretty darn good (the 3800's really redeemed the 2900XT). Quesiton is, will Apple actually do this?

 

[Pressure]

AMD scored some major OEM contracts with the 3800 series like Dell and so on so I'm wondering if they have anything with Apple at this point for a near-future refresh.

After all, it would make sense to go from a 2600XT as mid-range to a 3850 high mid-range (for PC's at least) but will be a significant boost to performance (2x at least).

The 3850 would be ideal because it's already a single slot card, has low power draw, runs very cool at idle, and is loaded with features including UVD which would be ideal for both gamers and multimedia users. And it's performance is actually pretty darn good (the 3800's really redeemed the 2900XT). Quesiton is, will Apple actually do this?

It would be amazing in the iMac. In fact, I have been speculating that it was quite possible but seeing as the mobile version of the Geforce 8800GTS and Geforce 8800GTX uses 44 Watt, it may also be a candidate.

 

[overcast]

All you guys are absolutely right. They don't care about gamers and that's really stupid. They'll never grab decent market share without gamers and a proper desktop box. Who wants to have another box just for PC games (no, consoles just plain suck)? But they're too busy raping audio/video/graphics people with the Xeon/FBRAM equipped Mac Pro to notice anybody else...

Yeh because gamers take up what, 1% of the entire industry for manufactured computers. Try again.

 

[Kosh66]

I still find it hard to believe Apple would pay for priority on Penryn and then wait until mid-Janurary to start selling them. I suppose that was only a rumor, but there's still the fact that Intel said Mac Pro-bound Harpertown Xeons are to speed records.

Oh well, it does seem we're looking at MWSF now.

k

Again, if you READ all those articles, it states that the new high-end Penryn processors start coming out in very short supply starting in mid-November, so Apple is not going to have enough supply of high-end Penryns till sometime in mid to late December, so a January release makes perfect sense to those that read between the lines and add some non-optimistic rational to it.

You guys just read these articles with too much optimism.

 

[cuestakid]

thanks for clearing that up-it sounds like I could just put in a regular pc graphics card into one of the slots and use it in boot camp. But there is still one thing that i do not understand and that is if I do geta pc card, couldnt I just remove the power connector to it when I switch between mac and PC or something like that?

Sorry for asking all these newbee questions I ust have not been able to find straight answers to these questions

thanks

 

[krunk]

thanks for clearing that up-it sounds like I could just put in a regular pc graphics card into one of the slots and use it in boot camp. But there is still one thing that i do not understand and that is if I do geta pc card, couldnt I just remove the power connector to it when I switch between mac and PC or something like that?

Sorry for asking all these newbee questions I ust have not been able to find straight answers to these questions

thanks

Removing the power connector could be bad. The card might try to pull it's power from the card slot. If it does and the card slot can't handle the power requirments... Bad Things(TM) might happen.

But I'd note the previous poster's response pointing out that the performance loss between 16 and 8 lanes is negligible.

 

[krunk]

Yeh because gamers take up what, 1% of the entire industry for manufactured computers. Try again.

No, more like the majority of computer owners play games.

http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26039746

And I'd wager the vast majority of computers users who everyone goes to and says "hey, what computer should I buy?" play games.

The anti-gamer mentality in the mac community mainly comes from the fact that apple computers have been a horrid platform for gaming for many a year. Thus Apple's customer base is disproportionately comprised of non gamers or at least users who put games as a distant second to platform choice (like myself).

You might point out that most of these gamers don't need the latest and greatest video card. And you'd be absolutely right in that assumption. However, Apple's reputation as an anti-gaming platform probably pushes a lot of these users away.

To use the tried and true Apple is to computers as BMW is to cars analogy, BMW makes its reputation off of superb automotive engineering that most BMW owners can't afford. People buy the 30k beamers not because they don't want a 90k beamer, but because of the reputation BMW has built with their high end offerings.

In summary,

-) The majority of computer users game
-) Apple has a bad reputation for being anti-gamer
-) Reputation is built on a companies "best of class"
-) If Apple wishes to attract the majority of computer users, they should increase their reputation as a valid gaming platform.