nVidia GTX285 being faster is one big fat lie!!!

[MorphingDragon]

I was doing research for my sister for a new computer and she needed Final Cut so I decided to look at the cards available for the Mac Pro. To my surprise the Apple reality distortion field affects hardware too. The HD4870 outperforms the new GTX285 for Mac Pros!!!

http://www.macsonly.com/
http://osxreality.com/2009/06/17/geforce-gtx-285-or-radeon-hd-4870-whats-best-for-cod4/
(Those reviews are the only ones I could find)

Shocking isn't it? Apparently its because nVidia intentionally cripple the GeForce cards when it comes to OpenGL so they buy the Quadro Cards.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1003209/graphics-card-premiums-overprice-opengl
This is also proved by the use of Soft Modding to get the Quadro Equivalent from a GeForce card.

TBH I'm kinda pissed cuz She needs two screens and the Dual Link adapter sucks. :/ I know what card I'm getting when I finally get an iMac. Darn nVidia.

 

[ekwipt]

Final cut is not going to even use the card, so i wouldn't worry about it. The 285 is the better buy

 

[MorphingDragon]

Final cut is not going to even use the card, so i wouldn't worry about it. The 285 is the better buy

She uses more than Final Cut. If OpenGL is crippled why spend the extra money?

 

[Umbongo]

Hardly a lie when it is faster at most things.

While what you say about OpenGL is sort of true, it isn't relevant for OSX. Its just a case of AMD's drivers being better than NVIDIA's for Macs.

edit: OpenGL isn't crippled. Quadro (and FireGL/FirePro) cards have optimised OpenGL drivers, but not on OSX. ATI's drivers are superior giving the performance gain for something like Motion.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Hardly a lie when it is faster at most things.

While what you say about OpenGL is sort of true, it isn't relevant for OSX. Its just a case of AMD's drivers being better than NVIDIA's for Macs.

edit: OpenGL isn't crippled. Quadro (and FireGL/FirePro) cards have optimised OpenGL drivers, but not on OSX. ATI's drivers are superior giving the performance gain for something like Motion.

How on earth isn't it relevant for Mac OSX? Most things being what... Games? The Mac Pro is a Workstation it needs to have OpenGL optimized Drivers.

 

[Umbongo]

How on earth isn't it relevant for Mac OSX? Most things being what... Games? The Mac Pro is a Workstation it needs to have OpenGL optimized Drivers.

The OpenGL differences between GeForce and Quadro cards on windows (what your link was refering to) are irrelevent because the same drivers are not used on OS X. There is no noticable driver performance difference between the two lines for OS X. It is purely hardware performance.

As for the Mac Pro needing optimised OpenGL drivers, I couldn't agree more. However there is obviously not the business requirement for it as they haven't bothered so far, even on a $3,000 card (FX 5600). The GTX 285 has it's uses. It is a more powerful card than the 4870, it is better for many windows applications and games and its raw power makes it perform better for some pro apps under OS X.

 

[MorphingDragon]

The OpenGL differences between GeForce and Quadro cards on windows (what your link was refering to) are irrelevent because the same drivers are not used on OS X. There is no noticable driver performance difference between the two lines for OS X. It is purely hardware performance.

As for the Mac Pro needing optimised OpenGL drivers, I couldn't agree more. However there is obviously not the business requirement for it as they haven't bothered so far, even on a $3,000 card (FX 5600). The GTX 285 has it's uses. It is a more powerful card than the 4870, it is better for many windows applications and games and its raw power makes it perform better for some pro apps under OS X.

I know the drivers are Windows but it follows suit in Linux as well.

She does want a Quadro eventually she just cant afford one right now. Plus we have to import a Mac Version from America.

I wonder how OpenCL would perform on the 2 cards.

 

[zmttoxics]

When it comes to games the 285 is the better card. Check with any pc gamer. That is not to say the 4870 isnt fantastic for games, its just the 285 will out perform it.

When it comes to Final Cut and such, most of video editing happens at the CPU, so it really doesn't matter what graphics card you get.

 

[Black107]

I know the drivers are Windows but it follows suit in Linux as well.

She does want a Quadro eventually she just cant afford one right now. Plus we have to import a Mac Version from America.

I wonder how OpenCL would perform on the 2 cards.

I dont see how a Quadro card is going to help your sister in FCP. Seems to me she'd be better off with a card that would allow real-time editing/rendering while using a specific codec like black magic or kona.

 

[Sun Baked]

http://www.barefeats.com/

 

[Tesselator]

Hehehehe Game cards are good for gaming and maybe the upcoming OpenCL. Testing ancient games and VERY poorly written benchmarkers on new hardware is not useful at all. All of the tests at the macsonly site are a complete waste of time. LOL He essentially proved that the 8800 was the best card (as a least waste of money purchase). Tee Hee Hee.

Newer cards are about having lots of RAM and beautiful accurate realtime shaders. That's it. There's nothing in Cinebench, Quake III, Xbench, Halo, or the other software he used to test these things - and I'll bet barefeats did exactly the same things!. Quake and Halo don't even use hardware shaders AFAIK - Quake for sure! If you have no need for those things then you don't need a new card.

Motion which comes with Final Cut Studio has all kinds of particle and Fourier transform like effects which may make use of the advanced shaders in the newer cards. Certainly large sets in Motion and other 3D apps will make use of the additional RAM.

If all she is using in the FC suite is the FC video editor and maybe Color, then she should get an 8800 IMHO. I guess it will be about the same performance and they're on e-bay and at the shops now for between $50 and $75. But if you or her wanna try a few cool games or maybe later expand into 3D then get either the 4870 or the 285.

NVidia has a much better reputation for richer more accurate and less buggy OpenGL. ATI has a reputation for speedy and pretty directx performance but buggy or bad OpenGL performance. I dunno so much about their individual strengths and weaknesses on a Mac in OS X but this is how it has been on Windows for the past 10 years or more. I also know that Apple doesn't support directx in OS X. I guess these cards have profiled like this (for 10 years) due to their respective drivers so it may very well be an entirely different story on the Mac - I dunno.

Anyway, just some food for thought.

 

[TheStrudel]

To my surprise the Apple reality distortion field affects hardware too. The HD4870 outperforms the new GTX285 for Mac Pros!!!

I don't recall  claiming that the 285 was the fastest card. Sure, they say it on the sales page, but that's sales print. They also call the 4870 "impressive". When was the last time you took sales print wholly at face value? But to give you some more relevant information, you may want to check out Barefeats for better benchmarks. We've been discussing on these forums for months whether ATI or Nvidia cards are better, and the truth is that we'll really have to wait for Snow Leopard to know for sure. It will change things, though not necessarily in the way we expect.

Also worth pointing out is not that Nvidia's crippling cards, but that drivers for OS X cannot be compared to windows drivers. It's been reported that ATI write the OS X drivers, but  writes the Nvidia drivers. With the possible exception of the 285. Historically,  has not put a high priority on graphics performance.

 

[morphin1]

Bigger does not mean better.
I am an avid Nvidia fan but have recently been put off by driver support and gains in these monstrous cards.
On one machine I have the 280, on another a 9800gx2 and on another I have the Ati 4870. Unfortunately the ATI does a very good job at performance as opposed to the Hot/power hungry 280/9800gx2 and does not leave much to be desired.
Don't be fooled by marketing and numbers as most of Nvidia's drivers aren't good enough to make use of the hardware they sell at such premiums.
Go for the ATI and that's my take.
Enjoy

 

[Topper]

.
All right, I'll add my two cents worth....

If you are looking to use your Mac Pro with professional applications only, go with ATI's HD 4870.

If you are looking to use the Mac Pro for both professional applications and gaming, go with NV's GTX 285. This is especially true if you are going to use Boot Camp for gaming.

If you've got more money than god, get a Quadro FX 4800
.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I dont see how a Quadro card is going to help your sister in FCP. Seems to me she'd be better off with a card that would allow real-time editing/rendering while using a specific codec like black magic or kona.

She uses more than Just FCP, and FCP does have hardware based acceleration.

 

[sven-]

I also know that Apple doesn't support directx in OS X.

Wrong. DirectX is a Microsoft closed source "Windows only" standard. There's nothing Apple could do about that. So saying Mac OS X doesn't support DirectX is just ridiculous, because Microsoft wouldn't even allow Apple.

Yeah, Microsoft and its own standards, it makes me sick. It's so useless. DirectX isn't even a handier language for developers. OpenGL is easier, but since Windows has biggest market share, people have to use DirectX. Just like other useless Microsoft standards (.wma/.wmv , Silverlight ...)

 

[MorphingDragon]

Wrong. DirectX is a Microsoft closed source "Windows only" standard. There's nothing Apple could do about that. So saying Mac OS X doesn't support DirectX is just ridiculous, because Microsoft wouldn't even allow Apple.

Yeah, Microsoft and its own standards, it makes me sick. It's so useless. DirectX isn't even a handier language for developers. OpenGL is easier, but since Windows has biggest market share, people have to use DirectX. Just like other useless Microsoft standards (.wma/.wmv , Silverlight ...)

Im sure VOB, Flash and AAC are standards. Not W something something.

 

[Tesselator]

Wrong. DirectX is a Microsoft closed source "Windows only" standard. There's nothing Apple could do about that. So saying Mac OS X doesn't support DirectX is just ridiculous, because Microsoft wouldn't even allow Apple.

Same thing. Apple doesn't have it for whatever reasons: can't, won't, souldn't, couldn't, wouldn't... Take your pick. It's all the same result: No DX on Apple. No need to blow a gasket over semantics bro!

 

[nanofrog]

Yeah, Microsoft and its own standards, it makes me sick. It's so useless. DirectX isn't even a handier language for developers. OpenGL is easier, but since Windows has biggest market share, people have to use DirectX. Just like other useless Microsoft standards (.wma/.wmv , Silverlight ...)

Unfortunately, given MS's share of the OS market, 3rd party software developers have to abide by MS's coding specs in order to make their products work. It's just the reality developers and end users have to live with.

Think of it this way; how many products, software and hardware, worked really well, yet found themselves extinct as a result from financial reasons such as too small a market share?

 

[10THzMac]

I am not sure the OP is even correct - if you look at the other threads on the 285 you will some of us have found that there is actually a bug (not Nvidia cripple effect) with the first release of the drivers, in that the 285 runs at a lower clock speed and a MUCH lower memory speed than it is capable of unless it is kicked into action by some 3D commands. So many of the early benchmark tests are misleading in terms of what the card is really capable of, as they reflect a bug in the power management and not the card itself. Keep an eye on forums.evga.com - some people have found out they can make WoW go faster using the a Cuda app to kick the card into its fastest mode, which is what I do running Cuda numerical models (where there is a factor of 10 (TEN!!) to be had by running small 3D app in background).

 

[TheStrudel]

What a weird bug. First time I ever heard of running two apps using the same resource to increase performance.

 

[Tesselator]

Unfortunately, given MS's share of the OS market, 3rd party software developers have to abide by MS's coding specs in order to make their products work. It's just the reality developers and end users have to live with.

Think of it this way; how many products, software and hardware, worked really well, yet found themselves extinct as a result from financial reasons such as too small a market share?

I don't think I agree. I spent some time in the commercial game developing industry and it's more a matter of human resource than forced or implied standards. OpenGL games run just fine on a wintel platform after all. Look at the Quake & Doom series for example. No "direct" anything in those. Naw, game companies and start-ups develop what they're good at and what they feel are the requirements for the desired result within the their resource body. If a dev house has a couple of OpenGL wizards on hand it's more than likely that their products will be OpenGL based. etc.

 

[dr. shdw]

Hehehehe Game cards are good for gaming and maybe the upcoming OpenCL. Testing ancient games and VERY poorly written benchmarkers on new hardware is not useful at all. All of the tests at the macsonly site are a complete waste of time. LOL He essentially proved that the 8800 was the best card (as a least waste of money purchase). Tee Hee Hee.

Newer cards are about having lots of RAM and beautiful accurate realtime shaders. That's it. There's nothing in Cinebench, Quake III, Xbench, Halo, or the other software he used to test these things - and I'll bet barefeats did exactly the same things!. Quake and Halo don't even use hardware shaders AFAIK - Quake for sure! If you have no need for those things then you don't need a new card.

Motion which comes with Final Cut Studio has all kinds of particle and Fourier transform like effects which may make use of the advanced shaders in the newer cards. Certainly large sets in Motion and other 3D apps will make use of the additional RAM.

If all she is using in the FC suite is the FC video editor and maybe Color, then she should get an 8800 IMHO. I guess it will be about the same performance and they're on e-bay and at the shops now for between $50 and $75. But if you or her wanna try a few cool games or maybe later expand into 3D then get either the 4870 or the 285.

NVidia has a much better reputation for richer more accurate and less buggy OpenGL. ATI has a reputation for speedy and pretty directx performance but buggy or bad OpenGL performance. I dunno so much about their individual strengths and weaknesses on a Mac in OS X but this is how it has been on Windows for the past 10 years or more. I also know that Apple doesn't support directx in OS X. I guess these cards have profiled like this (for 10 years) due to their respective drivers so it may very well be an entirely different story on the Mac - I dunno.

Anyway, just some food for thought.

http://www.barefeats.com/nehal13.html

ETQW, UT3, COD4..pretty sure they use shaders..

 

[nanofrog]

I don't think I agree. I spent some time in the commercial game developing industry and it's more a matter of human resource than forced or implied standards. OpenGL games run just fine on a wintel platform after all. Look at the Quake & Doom series for example. No "direct" anything in those. Naw, game companies and start-ups develop what they're good at and what they feel are the requirements for the desired result within the their resource body. If a dev house has a couple of OpenGL wizards on hand it's more than likely that their products will be OpenGL based. etc.

I was thinking in terms of development tools. Available resources certainly play a role, as developing one's own tools is time consuming, and can eat enough that it costs any competitive edge (delays to final product).

It may not apply to gaming as much as other areas, but I still think it applies to most applications. They just want tools that are ready made and available. Or even outsourcing the project if possible, as they may not want to go on a hiring spree for contract personnel. Human Resources won't have to bother finding anyone, and it avoids any issues with employment taxes and the like. Then take into account they can also avoid having to "make" by shifting existing personnel around or lease additional building space for them, aquire the furniture, and computer systems needed. Use your imagination, and I think you could find something else that makes the short term financial picture grim for managment.

Even on the hardware-software integration side, 3rd party tools tend to be used for firmware development, rather than creating them in house. Some companies will outsource it, as the tool developers also offer custom development services as well.

There used to be a point in the past where the tools didn't exist, and there weren't 3rd party companies doing the work. So internal development was necessary, not an option. Not so much now from what I've seen.

 

[Tesselator]

http://www.barefeats.com/nehal13.html

ETQW, UT3, COD4..pretty sure they use shaders..

ET - Nope!
UT3 - I dunno for sure but I think not! 95% sure.
COD - I dunno about that development at all so i can't comment.

Anyway by my remark I just meant that the tester is a bit of a nincompoop (barefeats too btw) for testing with the tools they do and drawing the conclusions they do from those tests. Quake is what? Frigging 10 years old? ET is the Q3 engine so no difference there. Q4 uses hardware pixel-shaders - it runs on a mac. Test with that! etc. etc.