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NVIDIA 8800GT for Older Mac Pros Now Available

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iFizz said:
Don't put words in my mouth. I NEVER said that. I said the GPU was not the bottleneck. Do you even know how a computer works? I said CPU, FSB, and RAM were the bottlenecks. In case you don't know, system bandwidth and FSB are synonymous. I'm done with this argument. Next...
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Ah, you are right. I thought you made that comment. 😱

System bandwidth and FSB aren't synonymous. If DDR was 128 bit versus 64 bit bandwidth would double but your FSB wouldn't.
 
diamond.g said:
System bandwidth and FSB aren't synonymous. If DDR was 128 bit versus 64 bit bandwidth would double but your FSB wouldn't.
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And you are also correct. I misstated. I was trying to explain the differences in speed on the older and newer MPs FSBs. My bad.

BTW, above is a screenshot of a test of the 8800 on PCIe 1 vs 2.
 
Back to topic…

I am estatic over the news. I'm looking forward to doing some next gen gaming, and not having to swap cards back or forth between Windows and Mac. Thank you Steve Jobs!!! 😀
 
aLoC said:
I don't know why Apple didn't just stick with BIOS in their computers, thus avoiding these problems in the first place.

Yes, it is an ancient piece of crap compared to EFI, but who gives a monkeys. The first thing the OS does is clear out all the BIOS crap anyway since it doesn't work in protected mode. So it is loaded for like a few seconds before it is nuked. Is all this expended effort really worth it for a few more boot options?
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When it means those boot options are understandable by the common user without needing an in-house geek to decipher them... you bet Jobs will demand it.

Last time I checked, in BIOS mode you were limited to VGA during post, and you were also locked into real mode. Now, the other side of the coin is that it is immensely easier (although not impossible) to create a custom pre-boot environment with firewire target mode, and even wireless network booting in an EFI environment than in a BIOS environment.
 
My question is will the Nvidia card overheat and cause complete system crashes like my current ATI X1900. It's worth the $ if you're stuck like me with a crappy card that overheats and is out of warranty.
 
kurtk9 said:
My question is will the Nvidia card overheat and cause complete system crashes like my current ATI X1900. It's worth the $ if you're stuck like me with a crappy card that overheats and is out of warranty.
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Well, it is also kinda funny that the 8800GT option is also over 100$ cheaper than the older and slower card. If you aren't running a ton of pro apps, I would say grab it (I did).
 
Tallest Skil said:
If all flagship computers were on the cutting edge, they'd all have the same specs and be no different from one another.

The Mac Pro is their flagship because it has technology that isn't niche.

Why are you wasting $9,000 on Apple RAM/HDDs anyway?!
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Too many problems with third party ram. Some works for awhile and then another OS update comes along and knocks it out. Read the Mac forums.

I like to have a unit that will do what I need it to do out of the box without building the damn thing myself, and don't mind the higher cost IF IT WILL DO THAT. Same reason I'm angry Apple doesn't have a blu-ray burner and blu-ray authoring support worked up yet and let PC's and Wndoze take the lead.

Same reason I'm considering PsyStar, because they'll build something to my specs that WILL do what I need it to do out of the box. For one-third the cost.

I'd rather buy Apple, but if they continue to crap on my needs, then my money goes elsewhere.
 
xbjllb said:
Too many problems with third party ram. Some works for awhile and then another OS update comes along and knocks it out. Read the Mac forums.

I'm considering PsyStar, because they'll build something to my specs that WILL do what I need it to do out of the box. For one-third the cost.
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You refuse to use third party ram, but you are OK buying a whole third party computer. Aha! 🙄
 
That's retarded. Apples ram is so stupidly expensive. Maybe people who buy some no-name brand bargain basement ram have problems but the rest of us are fine..Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, all fine.

$999 for 4gb for my mac pro on apples site, I think I paid $145 for the 4gb I put in last year. What would a software update have to do with your ram anyway? Come on.

On another note, I hope they ship my damn 8800 already!
 
thespazz said:
Sorry, wrong. "If this was the whole quote, then the period stays inside." When inserting a "quote inside a sentence, the period stays outside".
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Not in America, buddy.

That only applies to ! and ? punctuation marks.

Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks.

Unless you're using some funny sort of style guidelines. Check any major publication in the US, or open up an AP Style book if you have one.

He said, "My what a big face you have!"
Why did you say "You have a big face."?
I talked to Bob and he used what you would call "racial slurs."
 
xbjllb said:
Too many problems with third party ram. Some works for awhile and then another OS update comes along and knocks it out. Read the Mac forums.

I like to have a unit that will do what I need it to do out of the box without building the damn thing myself, and don't mind the higher cost IF IT WILL DO THAT. Same reason I'm angry Apple doesn't have a blu-ray burner and blu-ray authoring support worked up yet and let PC's and Wndoze take the lead.

Same reason I'm considering PsyStar, because they'll build something to my specs that WILL do what I need it to do out of the box. For one-third the cost.

I'd rather buy Apple, but if they continue to crap on my needs, then my money goes elsewhere.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA!!! This made me ROFLMAO!! Funniest post in a while!
 
KindredMAC said:
Why is it that Firmware on video cards has to be so complicated for the Macs and cause us to not have a wide selection???
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Firmware is not complicated at all. In fact, some have written custom firmware for PC video cards to make them run on Macs. THe problem is that the GPU manufacturers are lazy, it wouldn't take a whole ot of effort on their part to have a BIOS and an EFI compatible ROM, but they choose not to. This card appears to be purchased by apple, and retrofitted with an EFI compatible BIOS.
 
I know Apple tend to markup a fair bit but $279 seems a lot for this card given you can get them for >$200 everywhere else..
What's the upgrade kit, can't you just drop in a regular 8800GT? Would that not be compatible?
 
xbjllb said:
Same reason I'm considering PsyStar, because they'll build something to my specs that WILL do what I need it to do out of the box. For one-third the cost.

I'd rather buy Apple, but if they continue to crap on my needs, then my money goes elsewhere.
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Psystar is a hoax company so good luck getting a machine from them..
 
digitalpencil said:
I know Apple tend to markup a fair bit but $279 seems a lot for this card given you can get them for >$200 everywhere else..?
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First, Apple always overprices everything. Second, I imagine they are overpricing the 8800 for old Mac Pros in order to pay for all the man-hours they spent coding the drivers for it.
 
Cindori said:
You refuse to use third party ram, but you are OK buying a whole third party computer. Aha! 🙄
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Uh, as long as the manufacturer puts it in for me, I know it's going to work or it goes back; doesn't matter who the manufacturer is.

I'd be BUYING a third-party computer; not BUILDING one.
 
kurtk9 said:
My question is will the Nvidia card overheat and cause complete system crashes like my current ATI X1900. It's worth the $ if you're stuck like me with a crappy card that overheats and is out of warranty.
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i went thru the same thing, and i ended up buying the ATI card about 5 months ago.
 
Trip.Tucker said:
The gpu core is only half the card. Do you want to consider the other components or just make an uneducated statement that they are the same card.
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I'm not a big gamer, but I consider myself pretty well versed in the details of consumer graphic cards.
How can you say that the specific GPU core only represents "HALF THE CARD" ? I would say more like 80-90%. what else could possibly contribute so much to the performance of a video card besides the actual processor(s)? I guess the amount of VRAM can be important, especially if were are talking about cards under 320/512MB, but what other factor am I missing here? All cards based on a given GPU core and reference design have the same memory bus width, right? And differentiation in core/shader/memory clockspeeds would still be considered part of the GPU core.... So what is it that you are referring to?
 
xbjllb said:
Uh, as long as the manufacturer puts it in for me, I know it's going to work or it goes back; doesn't matter who the manufacturer is.

I'd be BUYING a third-party computer; not BUILDING one.
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Buying RAM from a third party is extremely common and problems are not as frequent as you are implying. Also the procedure for installation on all the Macs ive used has been very easy (except the mini).
 
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