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NVIDIA Launches Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac Pro
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http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...eaming-to-mac.ars?comments=1#comment-21024034
Ars Technica was nice enough to confirm with nVidia for me that it is in fact a typo. Only up to OpenGL 2.1 is fully supported with OpenGL 3.0 being feature complete except for GLSL 1.30 as has been the case since 10.6.4 for nVidia DX10 GPUs and 10.6.3 for ATI DX10 GPUs. And Apple is actually further ahead on supporting OpenGL 3.2 extensions than OpenGL 3.1, which while not ideal is not necessarily a bad thing since OpenGL 3.2 included several extensions aimed at easing porting games from DirectX to OpenGL so those are definitely readily useful.
So, if you want support for the current OpenGL version on your Apple computer - simply boot Windows 7.
What's the problem?
This is high end graphics card to complement the recently ported AutoCAD to the Mac or a luxury gaming card.
What's really laughable is you not able to afford one but you can spend time here taking jabs at this.
They are but you can really only have one card in a machine so ..... The cards above just don't accelerate certain things like the CUDA Cards..... So with good reason I suspect that the CUDA cards will not perform well with 3D games. I was hoping someone here had some info on the subject first hand.
desktop/consumer graphics do not support all the capabilities required to use certain features in certain professional applications. just check the compatibility charts for an application like Maya.
I doubt games can take advantage of CUDA...I'm pretty sure the app has to be programmed to take advantage of it, just like with OpenCL, and I'm fairly certain game writers haven't been doing that. why would they need to, anyway? CUDA is for making the GPU do some CPU tasks, and games aren't particularly CPU-heavy.
actually, workstation cards make for terrible gaming cards.
Which brings us to the following question: Is it recommend or wise to play high definition content in a flash-based environment?
My answer is: No, flash was never a suitable environment for high definition content.
This would have been helpful to me early in the year. However, as a professional 3D artist, I had to switch platforms back to Windows 7 64 bit for numerous reasons. In part, it was because there was no nVidia cards when I wanted to upgrade, only ATI which was offered as 5870 top end.
I think this card is great for those still on a Mac Pro doing 3D art design. Programs like I use such as Maya, Vue, etc. all take a great deal of power and use the CUDA cores. What some do not realize is just how limited the Mac Pro has become since this is the first time in well over a year that any professional 3D artist has had an option besides their poor offerings for video cards they typically have for Mac Pro use.
I continue to see Apple as being more consumer focused than professional which is why I went back. However, I recommend Apple to anyone that is a typical computer user. It's just not for those like myself because it is too little and too late now.
I think this card is great for those still on a Mac Pro doing 3D art design. Programs like I use such as Maya, Vue, etc. all take a great deal of power and use the CUDA cores. What some do not realize is just how limited the Mac Pro has become since this is the first time in well over a year that any professional 3D artist has had an option besides their poor offerings for video cards they typically have for Mac Pro use.
I continue to see Apple as being more consumer focused than professional which is why I went back. However, I recommend Apple to anyone that is a typical computer user. It's just not for those like myself because it is too little and too late now.
Or drop 14K to get a quadro plex 7000 (dual 6000's)... that would kick but on anything...Add some $$$, get a Quadro 6000 and have 448 CUDA processors, 6GB of RAM and 1.3 billion triangles per second.
Anyhow as stated, GeForces take some educated guesses and present these as their results if they are precise enough, Quadri continue to calculate. Thus they are "slower" but the image is better, think Toy Story rather than Crysis.
Nvidia said:
um yeah... it CAN do stereoscopic display visualization, hence the little cable running to the 3 pin connector in the image. Being able to display 3d stereoscopic images requires a compatible card, not just the software. A professional workstation card would have this as they are using them to make your Toy Story 3 in 3D, Movie of the Week in 3D, etc.
Adobe Premiere allows one to make 3d stereoscopic movies, IF you have a compatible card.
You can also make stereoscopic renderings with the right software AND the right card.
A run of the mill card will not do it.
Other than the number of cuda cores, vram and drivers, there are differences to the underlying card's architecture, such as improved performance in double point precision and other tasks related to visualization with precision. These differences make the card tailored to workstation environments, and while you can soft-mod a consumer card, it is still missing that underlying bit of architecture that makes these cards premium priced. Will this matter for the average user, well let me put it this way, if you don't know why you need a quadro (or AMD firepro), then chances are you aren't in an industry (or are not working a professional role) that needs or can take advantage of one.
BTW I noticed no-one has mentioned that these showed up on the apple store November 2, only to disappear on the 12th (some orders were placed though) was 1199 in US, 1299 in Canada
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Yeah ... so I'm trying to imagine exactly what complex projects and applications would need this type of card ...
I'm not trying to be funny ... really ... who buys and uses these cards?
For $1199, it better do graphics, games, cook me breakfast, wash my dishes, and paint my roof.
What if the card just increases you ability to be productive so can make more money in order to afford a gaming PC and servants to cook your breakfast, wash you dishes and paint (?) your roof?
Lethal
Ideal for DaVinci Resolve (software edition):
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/davinci/resolve/howtobuy/
Here is an example of the DaVinci Resolve abilities:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/userstories/detail.asp?story=robinhood
@mr mods: No, this is no advertisement. I use the software in my own productions.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/davinci/resolve/howtobuy/
Here is an example of the DaVinci Resolve abilities:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/userstories/detail.asp?story=robinhood
@mr mods: No, this is no advertisement. I use the software in my own productions.
it's been stated repeatedly: people who do work where drawings much be precise, or where the applications require certain capabilities that aren't included on consumer graphics.
Maya, 3Ds Max, AutoCAD, and Premiere are a few programs which benefit from using workstation graphics cards. a lot of these programs can still run on consumer graphics, but certain features are inaccessible, or they don't run as well.
Please refer to my prior post and read about 3D artists on Google. Also you can refer to magazines like 3D World, 3D Artist, etc. for more.
Who uses them is people like myself that are 3D artists. In fact, I had to move from the Mac to Windows 7 64 bit due to the limits of even the Mac Pro. If you read my post you will note there have been little or no offering for professional users for graphic cards, only consumer type cards like the ATI 5870. If you want to know what someone like myself uses, it is a custom built PC around $8-10,000 and has things like liquid cooling and 3 nVidia 480x cards overclocked, duel top line Intel workstation CPUs and 24GB of RAM. See Maximum PC magazine, July 2010 Dream Machine for more.
Granted, I am no where near the typical computer user. But I need at least this much power or even more if available. What it means is for high-end programs like Maya, Vue, C4D, etc. is I can get performance out of them no regular user will ever need unless working with those types of programs. I do and can use as much as you can throw my direction. What this all means is too much to explain in a post here, but basically it amounts to keys things such as faster rendering times (which is very important when working on projects) and the ability to do more complex scenes.
Take the above as example. Say I am trying to make a scene with a Mac Pro and only an ATI 5870 with 10GB of RAM. I may face limitations on creation for a scene due to the fact the hardware simply is not good enough to allow for more. Let's say I want to do a battle scene with 8 high resolution figures that are more detailed than what you see most of the time in games. In other words, graphic novel quality or better for realism. Well, all those texture maps for the skin and such are going to take a lot of processing power, memory, etc. This limits the scene if I have a system with only the specs above to say 3 or 4 characters I can use. But, with a faster system and a high-end card like the nVidia 4000 it will give me what I need to use.
Taking this one step more down the road is what I do. That is not only do I have a super high-end PC for my 3D art creation but also a small render farm. The render farm consists of 3 more computers that are somewhat scaled down in specs but networked together. This is called "networked rendering" and supported for some of those high-end 3D art programs. It allows the render jobs not only to use the main platform, but also to pass the work load off to multiple computers for even greater power and speed for rendering. Think of it in terms of SETI At Home but for 3D art programs.
Hope that helps explain some what the need is and what people like myself MUST have for our 3D art projects.
People doing a lot of high end video work that requires a lot of processing power. If you are using programs like Maya, Houdini, DaVinci Resolve, Autodesk Smoke, Realflow, Vray, Renderman, Vue, possibly BouJou, pieces of Adobes CS5 suite etc, will use these cards.
Pretty much anything dealing with 3D content creation or video creation where you are doing a lot of editing.
Maybe the kind of guys who spend their time on MR rather listen to the Byrds than the Beatles
The Bird? Isn't that the father of bebop jazz?
That is a very poor generalization. In most cases it is the software with improper process weighing where they blame it on the hardware.
Go back through this thread and notice that multiple people have stated that you can buy a nvidia GTX 480($500) and essentially turn that into a Quadro class card. You do this by flashing the bios with software.
This allows you to use the pro drivers that this card comes with at $1200.
Now also keep in mind that the GTX has better specs all the way around, in fact double the cuda cores.
I will argue that a GTX 480 flashed will do the same quality and previews on all applications as the Quadro 4000. It will not be limited.
I will not argue that you won't get NVIDIA support for pro apps with the GTX. I also will not argue that the Quadro might have better cooling and service life.
I would like to see better specs on the quadro for the extra $700...
He just doesn't like the idea that any graphics card - OF ANY KIND - *can* cost over about $300.
Neither do I.
Which is incorrect. Just because some older cards were able to be softmodded doesn't mean every card can. There is no evidence I have seen that modern Nvidia cards can be soft modded. It took a long, long time for the softmods for G80 and G92 series cards to turn up even. The softmods just improved performance in some benchmarks, they were missing features and the real performance of their Quadro equivalents.