NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL

[Mercury]

If you both are on your way to becoming doctors, I think you can afford the measly 12K for a computer.


🙄

The Army doesn't pay that well, but...right. Doctors do get extra pay from normal officers, and they do get faster promotions and start off sooner, but it's still not as much as a civilian could make. Although, if they let you do internship and residency, then it's not bad...

Thinking about becoming a JAG to start off, if I don't know what I want to do and get no good offers, after law school.

Regardless, I think there are plenty of people here who'd sell their souls for dual 30"s.

 

[DMann]

Apple Enterprise

I sort of cheated. That's med school debt x 2 for my wife and I...

I am a little bit peeved at our hospital, actually... We used to use macs for medical image viewing because they were the best system out there... now that the Army has decided that we are going to be an "Army of One," they have gone to a total Windows environment. I can hardly get a good workflow, the servers, workstations, and image viewing systems are so freaking BUGGY. We use now these crappy Viewsonic flat panels with absolutely HORRIFIC viewing tolerances, or whatever the proper terminology is.
I tried to convince our IT department that we should s***can these pieces of junk and go back to the mac platform... dual G5s everywhere driving 23" LCDs for medical image viewing would be very nice.

Looking at DICOM images using freakin' Dells with Viewsonic monitors is like malpractice. OsiriX is a peachy DICOM viewer that would smoke using this new graphics card...

Here is the number to contact Apple about getting a G5 system demo in your hospital: You can call Apple's Enterprise Account Rep Alan Chwang directly at 408-974-6481.

 

[sushi]

I sort of cheated. That's med school debt x 2 for my wife and I...

I am a little bit peeved at our hospital, actually... We used to use macs for medical image viewing because they were the best system out there... now that the Army has decided that we are going to be an "Army of One," they have gone to a total Windows environment. I can hardly get a good workflow, the servers, workstations, and image viewing systems are so freaking BUGGY. We use now these crappy Viewsonic flat panels with absolutely HORRIFIC viewing tolerances, or whatever the proper terminology is.
I tried to convince our IT department that we should s***can these pieces of junk and go back to the mac platform... dual G5s everywhere driving 23" LCDs for medical image viewing would be very nice.

Looking at DICOM images using freakin' Dells with Viewsonic monitors is like malpractice. OsiriX is a peachy DICOM viewer that would smoke using this new graphics card...

The Army has switched over to Mac servers running Apache in some areas.

VIDs are now using Macs again. Finally. NT4 was a joke.

In other places, Macs being used as Unix platforms.

While I realize that it is an uphill battle, please hang in there and keep pushing!

Sushi

 

[sushi]

Being American, I was not aware of that difference in grammar, although it still drives be crazy. Thanks for the correction.

Two countries separated by a common language! 😀

Sushi

 

[davetrow1997]

Ignorant IT...

Here is the number to contact Apple about getting a G5 system demo in your hospital: You can call Apple's Enterprise Account Rep Alan Chwang directly at 408-974-6481.

That's awesome. I am all about that... you should see the blasted system we have to read plain films in the intensive care unit right now. We are making clinical decisions based on these freakin' things. The IT guy was so incredibly nasty about the whole thing, too.

His quote: "I know some of you guys like those macs, but the Army has made a decision not to support them. That's all we have to talk about."

Now that the Army, via COLSA, has started to embrace the platform, and as another person mentioned, G5s running apache, I may have more luck.

 

[davetrow1997]

The Army doesn't pay that well, but...right. Doctors do get extra pay from normal officers, and they do get faster promotions and start off sooner, but it's still not as much as a civilian could make. Although, if they let you do internship and residency, then it's not bad...

Thinking about becoming a JAG to start off, if I don't know what I want to do and get no good offers, after law school.

Regardless, I think there are plenty of people here who'd sell their souls for dual 30"s.

My wife's a civilian.. in residency.. I'm in residency, myself.. The Army pays a 40K-70K premium for its physicians based on specialty, years in service, board certification, and additional voluntary obligation; this is on top of the regular officer's salary.

That translates to 60-80K (in residency)-195K (after 20 years, as a colonel living in DC doing thoracic surgery) (in other words, maxxed out on all compensation). Most Army docs make around 130K in mid-career. This is comparable to family practicioners, psychiatrists, and internal medicine docs in civilian practice.

The nice thing about having a Mac system in the hospital would be that there would be someone knowledgeable to bug... Because we'd have to hire someone to support it. Would have to be a person capable of handling everything cause I know those cheap IT bast**ds won't hire a Mac-only tech. I've also been trying to pitch the idea of using iChat as a way to connect our satellite clinics and handle some of the referral load by setting up VTC clinics... they also shot that down.

 

[sushi]

I've also been trying to pitch the idea of using iChat as a way to connect our satellite clinics and handle some of the referral load by setting up VTC clinics... they also shot that down.

Probably have to wait until Internet 2, or whatever it is going to be called.

IMHO, once the user can established an uninteruptable connection at X bandwidth, you will see this type of application use increase dramatically.

Sushi

 

[sushi]

Now that the Army, via COLSA, has started to embrace the platform, and as another person mentioned, G5s running apache, I may have more luck.

I think that it was me that you are referring to. AFAIK, they were using G4 based servers when the transistion occurred a while back. Most PC IT heads do not know about this it seems.

BTW, in order to help you, please let us know the arguments that are being presented. Then we can give you counter points to use in your discussion.

Sushi

 

[sushi]

His quote: "I know some of you guys like those macs, but the Army has made a decision not to support them. That's all we have to talk about."

Here's an idea...

Make a bet with him.

Bet him that the Army is using Macs. Then hopefully he will counter with they are not. Bet heavily. 😀

Then have fun showing the examples. 😀 😀 😀

I can give you some pictures of our VID which has G4's with 23 inch Cinema displays.

Sushi

 

[davetrow1997]

Sorry, Sushi...

Here's an idea...

Make a bet with him.

Bet him that the Army is using Macs. Then hopefully he will counter with they are not. Bet heavily. 😀

Then have fun showing the examples. 😀 😀 😀

I can give you some pictures of our VID which has G4's with 23 inch Cinema displays.

Sushi

Sorry...
I was in a rush and was too lazy to look back at whom I was quoting. Now what's the VID, exactly? We use something called MEDWEB, which is, I'm assuming, sort of a web-based translator of DICOM images.

What were the points I was using? Gosh, you should have been there... mostly I was just red-faced and white-knuckled when that little peon was smugly dismissing me...

I stated (please correct me.. I'm not very knowledgeable.. sort of just bringing up some arguments I've heard before):

1) The interplatform compatibility is superb, allowing people who have preferences to work on macs versus PCs to pick their system at their leisure; that would improve morale and their personal workflow

2) The stability of the plaform running off UNIX is phenomenal.. this would allow a backup system in a number of circumstances... 1) a virus takes our Windows 2000 environment down 2) a security threat is identified for Windows that forces them to take it down for patching 3) a bug takes the system down

and on and on... and all of these things have happened so far.. and we were left with jack squat for computing... plus, every time the hospital tests its generators, the dirty current that gets sent briefly takes every computer in the hospital down because the cheap bastards don't have UPSs... after they boot back up they invariably are acting buggier and buggier, to the point where they just crash incessantly.

3) I never got to point #3 because by this time the little bastard had just been repeating over and over... I know some of you guys like those MACS (he said it condescendingly and dismissively), but the Army has decided that we are going to be operating in a Windows XP enviroment (which was delayed because it doesn't work with our new EMR (Electronic Medical Record).
😡

 

[davetrow1997]

Probably have to wait until Internet 2, or whatever it is going to be called.

IMHO, once the user can established an uninteruptable connection at X bandwidth, you will see this type of application use increase dramatically.

Sushi

We actually did a proof-of-concept test that went pretty well! We did two patient interviews using two laptops in different offices in the hospital. Unfortunately, one patient was a little... strange to begin with... and had a very paranoid reaction to it... was pretty funny. The other thought it was pretty amazing...

 

[sushi]

We actually did a proof-of-concept test that went pretty well! We did two patient interviews using two laptops in different offices in the hospital. Unfortunately, one patient was a little... strange to begin with... and had a very paranoid reaction to it... was pretty funny. The other thought it was pretty amazing...

It's all in the needles, man!

Seriously.

We soldiers are scared of you Docs poking us with a needle.

Even the combat hardened ones amonst us.

Something about a needle... 😱

Sushi

 

[weezer160]

overkill?

do you think a dual 2.5, with 1 GB RAM and the 6800 Ultra DLL would be an overkill for the old 17" monitor 😎 i'm just asking because those aluminum displays are much too expensive for me (as far as displays, perhaps later i will, though), and i plan on using my old 17" studio LCD monitor. 🙄

 

[os10geek]

do you think a dual 2.5, with 1 GB RAM and the 6800 Ultra DLL would be an overkill for the old 17" monitor 😎 i'm just asking because those aluminum displays are much too expensive for me (as far as displays, perhaps later i will, though), and i plan on using my old 17" studio LCD monitor. 🙄

I don't see why it would be any less overkill if you were buying a new display. I'm upgrading to a 6800U on my G5 1.8 (in benchmarks, the 6800 is roughly 5 times the speed of my current card), and I have a 17"er that I bought in September.

BTW, don't forget a DVI to ADC adapter, if you're going to be using the old 17".

 

[Maggot]

PC user

Has anyone seen a DDL card for the PC that can power the 30 inch beast? None of the 6800 Ultra cards for the PC seem to mention DDL even though they might have two DVI outputs.

I have lurked on these boards for over a year for this monitor, looks like I might have to wait a few more months for a card to be available too. Should be worth the wait though.

 

[sushi]

Now what's the VID, exactly?

Used to be known as a Visual Information Center. Now it's known as a Visual Information Division, but has the same function.

They do things like official photos, presentations, and such for the command.

We use something called MEDWEB, which is, I'm assuming, sort of a web-based translator of DICOM images.

MEDWEB. Sorry, but I am not familiar with MEDWEB.

What were the points I was using? Gosh, you should have been there... mostly I was just red-faced and white-knuckled when that little peon was smugly dismissing me....

Typical PC centric IT person it sounds like.

1) The interplatform compatibility is superb, allowing people who have preferences to work on macs versus PCs to pick their system at their leisure; that would improve morale and their personal workflow

Good point.

Because PC dweebs have a hard time realizing something contradicatory to their beliefs, I generally put this point like this:

MSFT Office is great. I like using Excel, Word and PowerPoint. What is really cool, is that office is available for both the Mac and the PC.

<At this point, many of the before mentioned IT dweebs have a dumbfounded look of disbelief.>

I go on to state that I use MSFT Office for the Mac to create and edit a Word documents just like I do on the PC. I use either USB flash drive to transfer the files.

2) The stability of the plaform running off UNIX is phenomenal.. this would allow a backup system in a number of circumstances... 1) a virus takes our Windows 2000 environment down 2) a security threat is identified for Windows that forces them to take it down for patching 3) a bug takes the system down and on and on... and all of these things have happened so far.. and we were left with jack squat for computing... plus, every time the hospital tests its generators, the dirty current that gets sent briefly takes every computer in the hospital down because the cheap bastards don't have UPSs... after they boot back up they invariably are acting buggier and buggier, to the point where they just crash incessantly.

Again, good points.

I generally approach this in the following manner.

I start out discussing OS'es in a way not to reveal my Mac preference.

Then mention that Unix is a wonderful solid and stable OS. And how some organizations are switching form Windows to Linux. For example IBM and the Japanese government.

Then I mention how the new Mac OS is basically Unix with a GUI shell.

Again, dumbfounded looks. I mention that while the original Mac OS was entirely GUI based, the new one beginning with Mac OS X is based on Unix.

3) I never got to point #3 because by this time the little bastard had just been repeating over and over... I know some of you guys like those MACS (he said it condescendingly and dismissively), but the Army has decided that we are going to be operating in a Windows XP enviroment (which was delayed because it doesn't work with our new EMR (Electronic Medical Record). 😡

I think that your IT Dweeb is referring to MEDCOM and not the Army.

There are plenty of examples where the Army is using Mac based systems such as:

- VID's
- Army Servers (as in THE Army Servers)
- Research environment
- MWR Marketing

...and some others.

Sorry for the delay in commenting. I missed this post somehow. Anyhow, I think that you are on the right track. The key is to get the ammo for each type of specific question. Don't be afraid to receive the question, and say something like, you make a good point, let me think about it.

Then get your ammo and launch both barrels.

BTW, Macs are now on the GSA schedule. So they are definitely not banned from purchase by Army units.

Well, I hope this helps.

Sushi

 

[os10geek]

Has anyone seen a DDL card for the PC that can power the 30 inch beast? None of the 6800 Ultra cards for the PC seem to mention DDL even though they might have two DVI outputs.

On the PC, it's one DVI (standard DVI, I believe), and a VGA port.

 

[Maggot]

On the PC, it's one DVI (standard DVI, I believe), and a VGA port.

Aye, some are that configuration and others are Dual DVI. But none are Dual Dual 🙂

If anyone sees one that is shout so I can put my order in.

 

[Cooknn]

On the PC, it's one DVI (standard DVI, I believe), and a VGA port.

So why can't I run a PC card with my new 23" Cinema display? I don't need Dual Dual DVI and I don't plan on running more than one display. Sorry if I missed the answer to this somewhere else 😱

 

[os10geek]

So why can't I run a PC card with my new 23" Cinema display? I don't need Dual Dual DVI and I don't plan on running more than one display. Sorry if I missed the answer to this somewhere else 😱

Assuming that you mean "run a 23" Cinema off a PC card?" Of course you can...if you're using a PC. I doubt that you could buy a PC 6800 and run it in a Mac without some driver hacking/GPU hacking (You'll also need a DVI-to-ADC powerblock/converter)


Could you clarify what exactly your situation is?

 

[Cooknn]

Could you clarify what exactly your situation is?

I would assume that nVidia will release OS X drivers since they are releasing the GeForce 6800 Ultra for the Mac. My thought was that maybe I could grab a less expensive 128MB PC card (half the price) and use the OS X drivers.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with nVidia. The PC cards are architecturally different than the Mac card and are not compatible with the forthcoming OS X drivers. I guess that should have been obvious - but I needed to know 😱

 

[PtMD]

Aye, some are that configuration and others are Dual DVI. But none are Dual Dual 🙂

If anyone sees one that is shout so I can put my order in.

There are two that I know of that have Dual-Link TMDS transmitters, the Quadro FX 4000 has Dual Dual Link DVI and the FX 3000 has Dual DVI but only one supports Dual Link.

Street price on these are high as they are flagship Quadros, around $1700/1400 respectively. 🙄

I only hope we see some cheaper GF 6800 derivatives.

PNY has some info up on their site if you are interested:
http://www.pny.com/products/quadro/fx/4000fx.asp
http://www.pny.com/products/quadro/fx/3000fx.asp
http://www.pny.com/products/quadro/brochures/QuadroSpecSheet.pdf

Cheers,
PtMD

 

[MikeTheC]

As far as I can see, two Ultras with SLI would drive FOUR 30" displays ... with the load on all four dynamically readjusted between the two cards.

Too bad you can't daisy-chain the Ultras indefinitely ... think X-grid in a GPU?

Or maybe I need to get rich first.

You know, reading this, I am left wondering something. Back in the days of the Mac II, IIx, IIci, et al, you could have as many video cards as you had NuBus slots and extend your desktop indefinitely to that limit.

Does anyone here know if (hypothetically) that can still be done at this point? I mean, I know there's only just the one AGP slot, but if you put 2 or 3 high-performance Mac-compatible PCI video cards in, would it work and would it add to the sum total of your display?

On another thought, imagine a G5 with 6 AGP slots with their own busses, etc., and 6 of these Ultra 6800s in there. You could have 12 30" displays! Then, when you're flying a flight simulator, you would have three across the front with a forth over the middle, then 2 stacked on top of each other on each side, 2 behind you, and 2 mounted horizontally above you. Golly, that gets me excited...

It boggles the mind how many displays you could hypothetically connect if they were all just 23" models. Imagine 24 23" displays!

[/drool]

 

[zakee00]

Yes this card is Mac specific but PC versions are also becoming available from various vendors. The Ati X800 is also theoretically powerful enough to drive the 30in but drivers might not support it yet.

I suspect that the 6800 card may run at a conservative clock speed in order to reduce power requirements, heat, and noise. Nevertheless, I expect the perfomance to be phenomenal.

I am actually very dissapointed that Apple chose to use the 6800 Ultra over ATi's x800 XT. I have had verrryyyy bad experences with nVIDIA and don't really like them as a company very much...bad drivers too. Proformance-wise, the x800 XT and the 6800 Ultra are pretty much neck-and-neck. nVIDIA cards generally proforms better in OpenGL, maybe that is why Apple chose their card. But nVIDIA is just retarded, 500 WATT POWER SUPPLY??!?!? 😱 How is Apple going to deal with this card, + DUAL 2.5GHz G5's? 😕

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

the 6800 is akin to the g5...it's a floating-point beast. which is what most games are based on, floating-point calculations. i too am an ATi fan, but this 6800 is really an amazing card, despite the obscene requirements.