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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 confirmed for June release

Luba Cox said:
If I did the calculation correctly, the nVdia 285 is 34% faster than the ATI 4870. And looking at Barefeats the 4870 is about (it varies) 25% faster than the ATI 4850.

Mathematically, can we say the 285 is 59% (34+25) faster than the 4850??
Click to expand...

I would not use that chart to guess percentages of what cards would be most powerful for Macs.
Mac video cards differ too much from PC cards.
For example, for PCs the 8800 GT will out perform the HD 3870. For Macs, it is the other around.
The chart may give you an idea how the video cards compare to each other but it certainly is not set in stone when it comes to Macs.

By the way, I calculate that the GTX 285 is approximately 58 percent faster than the HD 4850 when it comes to PCs playing ET:QW.
And that's about what you figured.
laugh.gif
 
Gonk42 said:
I don't know how OpenCL will work in Snow Leopard but in Cuda you can use an unconnected (to a monitor) graphics card for calculations. So, for example, the 120 could drive the monitor and the 285 do some powerful parallel computing without danger of interference from the display grabbing memory.

Given that you probably couldn't get much money for it anyway, it is probably worth hanging onto the 120 as it is always useful to have a backup should display problems arise.
Click to expand...

Exactly right: My CUDA setup has an 8800 and a 285, with the 8800 driving my monitor and both doing CUDA, i.e. the 285 is a pure compute engine. This is all working nicely under bootcamp, where the 285 is more than twice as fast at doing pure calculation (checked with the MultiGPU examples) as the 8800, which is consistent with it having about twice as many cores at about the same clock speed. The 120 could be used in exactly the same way, though it has fewer cores. On an 8800 under OS X the CUDA examples (e.g. the spectacular n-body simulation) all seem to work very well even when also driving a display - I doubt the 120 is so good.

I think it a few months we will see similar ideas working under Snow Leopard, once the OpenCL tools are fully enabled for better GPUs. The test examples I have come across were targeted at the 8800 GPU, and we are waiting for both CUDA and OpenCL on OS X with support for better cards, which is itself probably contingent on those infernal long-awaited proper 200/quadro drivers.
 
10THzMac said:
Exactly right: My CUDA setup has an 8800 and a 285, with the 8800 driving my monitor and both doing CUDA, i.e. the 285 is a pure compute engine. This is all working nicely under bootcamp, where the 285 is more than twice as fast at doing pure calculation (checked with the MultiGPU examples) as the 8800, which is consistent with it having about twice as many cores at about the same clock speed. The 120 could be used in exactly the same way, though it has fewer cores. On an 8800 under OS X the CUDA examples (e.g. the spectacular n-body simulation) all seem to work very well even when also driving a display - I doubt the 120 is so good.

I think it a few months we will see similar ideas working under Snow Leopard, once the OpenCL tools are fully enabled for better GPUs. The test examples I have come across were targeted at the 8800 GPU, and we are waiting for both CUDA and OpenCL on OS X with support for better cards, which is itself probably contingent on those infernal long-awaited proper 200/quadro drivers.
Click to expand...

I just wanted to say thanks for your several posts on your CUDA work. It is an area I'd like to get into when I have a bit more time (I'm writing up a PhD at present) and though I'm still debating whether to go the Mac route or a DIY build or a Dell it is very useful to have feedback from someone who has got the system working.
 
eVGA GTX 285 for Mac = $436.66

Hi Guys, just to let you know I found the eVGA card for sale from provantage today.

The price is $436.66. Manufacturer Part# 01G-P3-1080-TR

Link

Anyone think their posting is a mistake? It looks legitimate.

Now I just need to decide between this (supporting vendors that make official products is always a plus right!) and flashing a PC 4870 since the Apple version is a way overpriced and only has 512MB or memory.

Update: other world computing (OWC), bottom line telecom, alrightdeals, etc. are selling them now too.
It seems that OWC claims a 19 day waiting period before shipping and I bet the others are the same.

It also seems that the 2006 Mac Pro owners (like myself) may have to resort to flashing as all sites claim 2008 Mac Pro or newer and we know what Nvidia did with the 8800GT. I'm hoping eVGA will change the game and act like ATI by placing in the few extra KB we need in the ROM file.
 
Warehouse Available Incoming ETA
California, Southern 0 40 06-03-2009
Tennessee 0 20 06-03-2009
Illinois 0 20 06-03-2009
Pennsylvania 0 40 06-03-2009
Total In Stock: Total Back Ordered: Total Incoming:
0 0 120
 
Anyone know who is likely to stock this in Europe?

Also where are the drivers going to be for this? Are they in 10.5.7? or as a small update?
 
shroud said:
Hi Guys, just to let you know I found the eVGA card for sale from provantage today.

The price is $436.66. Manufacturer Part# 01G-P3-1080-TR

Link

Anyone think their posting is a mistake? It looks legitimate.

Now I just need to decide between this (supporting vendors that make official products is always a plus right!) and flashing a PC 4870 since the Apple version is a way overpriced and only has 512MB or memory.

Update: other world computing (OWC), bottom line telecom, alrightdeals, etc. are selling them now too.
It seems that OWC claims a 19 day waiting period before shipping and I bet the others are the same.

It also seems that the 2006 Mac Pro owners (like myself) may have to resort to flashing as all sites claim 2008 Mac Pro or newer and we know what Nvidia did with the 8800GT. I'm hoping eVGA will change the game and act like ATI by placing in the few extra KB we need in the ROM file.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! Now at least I have the prices so I can figure out whether the GTX 285 ($436-$479) or the 4870 ($349) is a better buy for me. Is it safe to assume that the GTX 285 is similar support to the ATI 3870? (ie, not apple branded, but works) And I wonder if there will be similar issues that people are seeing with the 3870 now after an OS update.
 
10.5.7 doesnt have gt200/gt200b drivers, so if they dont include cd with drivers, then u will have gt200 working without resolution change/qe/ci
 
Jesus babyraping christ, $490?

Well, if it works on the 2006 & 2007 models I guess I'll pay it, but FFS that's ridiculous. A $50 premium I can swallow, but $150?
 
grue said:
Jesus babyraping christ, $490?
Click to expand...

laugh.gif


Yes, I know it's a lot of money but what can you do when they have you over the barrel?!

Unless ATI brings out an ATI 4890 for Macs in the near future, I am buying the GTX 285.
I refuse to get a flashed PC card with a "Link Speed" of only 2.5 GT/s.
.
 
The only problem i'm facing right now is if I get the eVGA GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition I will not be able to use Apple's LED Cinema Display and that's were the ATi 4870 comes to play and I know the 285 GTX is the better card but I do want Apple new LED display, if only the desktop LED Displays will give users a choice to either to use Mini display-port or DVi on the same cable from the display if that possible or I just might wait until the new 30 inch to be release and see what's the connection will be but I know the mini display-port will be the main connection unless Apple or evga makes adapter so that users that wants to use Apple LED cinema with the 285 GTX can
 
PC version now coming out of coma

Given the ghastly price of the Mac edition I played a bit with Core Vidia this morning with my PC 285, as per my short thread here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/694694/

I used 10.5.7, CoreVidia 1.1, set the memory to 1536 (I have 2G card but cannot do 2G yet), also edited the CoreVidia plist, pasting in an NVCAP setting from an NVFLASH ROM dump with NVCAP maker and adding the 0x05e3 PCI ID, and after a LOT more fiddling around, have got this far. No QE/CI, Link Speed 2.5, not 5, and CUDA is not working properly, but it illustrates it might be a pure driver issue. My Reward/Effort on this is very low - we really do need to see know what is on that driver disc, and even that I do not know if I will get it totally up without a ROM flash.
 

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EEk!!! :eek:

$450?! FFFFffuuuu....

I plan on purchasing my new Mac Pro this summer with my ADC discount. Adding a 4870 to a CTO build is only an additional $160. I would *much* rather have the GTX285, but I just don't think I can justify the near-$300 premium for the card over the already pricey ATI card.

Does anybody here think it would be worth it in my situation?!
 
mattcube64 said:
EEk!!! :eek:

$450?! FFFFffuuuu....

I plan on purchasing my new Mac Pro this summer with my ADC discount. Adding a 4870 to a CTO build is only an additional $160. I would *much* rather have the GTX285, but I just don't think I can justify the near-$300 premium for the card over the already pricey ATI card.

Does anybody here think it would be worth it in my situation?!
Click to expand...

I don't even know what you are using the computer for.
The HD 4870 Mac card is more than satisfactory for running pro applications and playing games.
For most people the GTX 285 is overkill, but not for me.
.
 
Topper said:
I don't even know what you are using the computer for.
The HD 4870 Mac card is more than satisfactory for running pro applications and playing games.
For most people the GTX 285 is overkill, but not for me.
.
Click to expand...

I guess for me, I kind of want to get a card that I could grow into potentially - get the best card (within reason) so that 1 or 2 years down the road, I don't regret not spending the extra $100 to get the "better" card. (and I put better in quotes, cause I really don't know which is better)

I hope that I have the patience to wait it out and see some real world benchmarks & experiences, then decide if I will go with the 4870 of the 285.
 
turtlebud said:
I hope that I have the patience to wait it out and see some real world benchmarks & experiences, then decide if I will go with the 4870 or the 285.
Click to expand...

That's the smart thing to do.
I can't picture the 4870 512MB card coming close to the performance of the GTX 285 even with nVidia's shabby drivers.
The card I would really like is the HD 4890. HD 4870 X2 even better.
But it will be nice to say that I've got the world's most powerful single gpu consumer video card.
.
 
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