quadro

[RichardI]

Wow. $1800 dollars? Are these cards really worth the money? What is in this card that is not in other "high end" graphics cards like the new 300 series?
Man, I just think that's an awful lot of money. Who would the target consumer be? I've been wondering that for some time now, when I noticed the new Mac Pro did not offer a Quadro (or at least they didn't advertise one).

Rich

 

[trancepriest]

Man, I just think that's an awful lot of money. Who would the target consumer be? I've been wondering that for some time now

What third world country are you from?

 

[Bubba Satori]

Who would the target consumer be?

Graphics professionals. Photoshop, After Effects, Cinema 4D users.

 

[Bubba Satori]

article claims $1800

Yep. PC workstation users can get it for $1,200.

http://www.compuvest.com/Desc.jsp;jsessionid=auyvfKRJcZnas85Pid?iid=990041

 

[xhambonex]

Graphics professionals. Photoshop, After Effects, Cinema 4D users.

haha Cinema 4D, great memories. I'll add Alias, 3DS Max and Maya to the list, I like them better. I could use that kind of power. Or just a MacPro in general.

 

[grue]

Yep. PC workstation users can get it for $1,200.

http://www.compuvest.com/Desc.jsp;jsessionid=auyvfKRJcZnas85Pid?iid=990041

retail vs MSRP are vastly different things.

 

[RichardI]

What third world country are you from?

Ha ha. One that included reading skills fairly early on in the education system. How 'bout yourself?

Rich

 

[Bubba Satori]

retail vs MSRP are vastly different things.

I know. I work in retail. Always avoid buying your memory, hard drives and video cards from Apple whenever you can.

 

[Tesselator]

And why did you quote me?

Yeah.. Guess I missed the right button.

I think someone on page 2 asked who had one or something. I forgot already.

 

[Tesselator]

Wow. $1800 dollars? Are these cards really worth the money?

I used to ask the same question. If you're at a workstation 8, 10, 15 hours a day and making $6k ~ $12K a month then yes absolutely worth it!!! If you're just learning CG, are a hobbyist, or don't spend that much time in CG applications then nope! Not worth it!

 

[Bubba Satori]

I used to ask the same question. If you're at a workstation 8, 10, 15 hours a day and making $6k ~ $12K a month then yes absolutely worth it!!! If you're just learning CG, are a hobbyist, or don't spend that much time in CG applications then nope! Not worth it!

That's it in a nutshell.

 

[DELLsFan]

Cost of laziness is more like it.

But whatever. I'm actually far more likely to just continue swapping video cards when I go between MacOS and Windows. I don't need a good video card for Final Cut Pro, and gaming under the MacOS is an unfunny joke. I'd just like even generic Windows GPU support under MacOS… I don't need quartz extreme or any of that other fluffy crap… I just don't like having to physically swap my video cable every time I reboot

My next large Apple purchase may very well be the Mac Pro - and the idea of using two video cards (one for MAC OS X and one for Windows) is intriguing to me. I'd be very interested hearing folks' experiences with this notion. How do the cards' performances vary between Mac OS X apps and Windows games, for example? Thanks for your insight!

Meanwhile, it seems to me a graphics card that is roughly the price of a normal Mac is better left burning in a crucible at nVidia labs. Holy cow! Is there really a burning need out there for these??

 

[trancepriest]

One that included reading skills fairly early on in the education system.
Rich

EPIC FAIL!

 

[trancepriest]

I used to ask the same question. If you're at a workstation 8, 10, 15 hours a day and making $6k ~ $12K a month then yes absolutely worth it!!! If you're just learning CG, are a hobbyist, or don't spend that much time in CG applications then nope! Not worth it!

Why do you have to make $6k ~ $12k a month? That's ridiculous... if you have an interest and you have the money and know how to use the features of the card... then its worth it. If you make $75 a month off this card then its worth it... will pay for itself in 2 years. Come on guys this is a tool for work... we are not living in rural China. Heck if you make $37.50 cents a month off this card then it will pay for itself in 4 years.

 

[Cabbit]

Why do you have to make $6k ~ $12k a month? That's ridiculous... if you have an interest and you have the money and know how to use the features of the card... then its worth it. If you make $75 a month off this card then its worth it... will pay for itself in 2 years. Come on guys this is a tool for work... we are not living in rural China. Heck if you make $37.50 cents a month off this card then it will pay for itself in 4 years.

If you enjoy working with 3D modeling applications then this card does not need to pay for itself. Not everything is about how much money you can make at the end.

My shopping lists is a 2.26 Macpro, 12GB ram, this quadro and 2 old 20inch ACD if i can still find them or 1 30inch ACD. I plan on using it primarily for photo editing, web development, and a bit of video work which i make my money out of. More importantly for me i intend to get a boot camp partition with 3D Max or find a 3D modeling/animating tool that works for me on OSX for hobby modeling and animating.
I can do all of my work stuff on my Macbook quite well and will properly continue to do the bulk of it even when i have my Macpro as the lower energy requirements of the Macbook work out better than having a 1KW monster on all day.

 

[sparkie7]

No one has one yet. It needs 10.5.7 just to operate.

10.5.7 has not been released yet.


Some one asked how big the card was:

But do MBP's even have a video card slot??? No, right?

Its possible.. with the expsnsion systems from Magam..

http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/index.html

 

[trancepriest]

If you enjoy working with 3D modeling applications then this card does not need to pay for itself. Not everything is about how much money you can make at the end.

I'm with you. Don't know why others on here is making a big deal of it.. heck you have teenagers with $1800 30 inch displays. If you love 3D work and need this card and have the money... go get it.

 

[Cara1001]

It's kind of annoying that the MAC PRO is marketed at professionals as a top of the line system yet if you are a interested in working in the 3D arena, your crippled by poor support for the most advanced cards available to Windows users.

Hence pushing you towards windows when you make a purchase. As a graphics pro, I work from home as a freelancer a lot. I work in 3D, Video, Motion Graphics - as well as web and graphic design.

I use Mac based tools for 90% of my work, especially the video as I'm a FCP fan and trained on this package, but I don't want to have to buy a separate PC to do the 10% of high end architectural 3D work I do. I need a power user card as I use massive data sets and build very detailed models, so I don't really have many great options at the moment, and those options I get tend to be available months after their PC equivalents and are usually way more expensive.

:-/ come on apple - get your game together. Will there ever be a day when I can just plug in a PC graphics card and it will just work?

 

[powers74]

graphics

If you enjoy working with 3D modeling applications then this card does not need to pay for itself. Not everything is about how much money you can make at the end.

Sure it is, it's America!

My shopping lists is a 2.26 Macpro, 12GB ram, this quadro and 2 old 20inch ACD if i can still find them or 1 30inch ACD. I plan on using it primarily for photo editing, web development, and a bit of video work which i make my money out of. More importantly for me i intend to get a boot camp partition with 3D Max or find a 3D modeling/animating tool that works for me on OSX for hobby modeling and animating.

If your 3D modeling & animation requirements are primarily hobby, I would definitely suggest Blender. Even at that, Blender is pretty much equal in it's feature set to 3DSMax/Maya, and next version should clean up the UI alot too, not that it's that bad once you get used to it.

 

[Umbongo]

If you enjoy working with 3D modeling applications then this card does not need to pay for itself. Not everything is about how much money you can make at the end.

My shopping lists is a 2.26 Macpro, 12GB ram, this quadro and 2 old 20inch ACD if i can still find them or 1 30inch ACD. I plan on using it primarily for photo editing, web development, and a bit of video work which i make my money out of. More importantly for me i intend to get a boot camp partition with 3D Max or find a 3D modeling/animating tool that works for me on OSX for hobby modeling and animating.
I can do all of my work stuff on my Macbook quite well and will properly continue to do the bulk of it even when i have my Macpro as the lower energy requirements of the Macbook work out better than having a 1KW monster on all day.

I agree with your first sentance, but be very aware of what you are getting with this card. There is a difference between buying an $1,800 graphics card and a $300 one if the $1,800 one isn't offering you anything extra. This card isn't going to probably offer you anything for photo, web and video and the consumer cards offer a lot of performance in 3D Max these days as it uses direct 3D. These cards aren't a prerequesite for high end DCC anymore especially on the amateur side of things.

When you have a budget think about where else you could spend that difference. You might get a better workflow from better displays, the 2.66GHz upgrade, SSDs, external raid and so on. All this card is likely to give you is faster viewport performance in your chosen 3D application and you may find that performance on a Radeon 4870 is more than enough for anything you intend to work on anyway.

 

[illegallydead]

I agree with your first sentance, but be very aware of what you are getting with this card. There is a difference between buying an $1,800 graphics card and a $300 one if the $1,800 one isn't offering you anything extra. This card isn't going to probably offer you anything for photo, web and video and the consumer cards offer a lot of performance in 3D Max these days as it uses direct 3D. These cards aren't a prerequesite for high end DCC anymore especially on the amateur side of things.

When you have a budget think about where else you could spend that difference. You might get a better workflow from better displays, the 2.66GHz upgrade, SSDs, external raid and so on. All this card is likely to give you is faster viewport performance in your chosen 3D application and you may find that performance on a Radeon 4870 is more than enough for anything you intend to work on anyway.

As numerous, VERY numerous amounts of people have pointed out, this is a "know you will need all of this things power or don't use it" kind of thing. No freaking duh you won't buy this if you have a small budget. For the price of this card you can buy a whole Macbook Pro. This is not designed for "dabblers", only for people who really, actually need all that it offers.

 

[Minocan]

I wonder the performance of this card vs 4870 under Apple Color because of the VRAM advantage.

BTW this needs only one power connector unlike ATI 4870 which needs two.

 

[trancepriest]

OK if someone wants to buy this card for "status" and doesn't know a damn thing about 3d pro apps... what are some of the cool things he can do with this card on day one?

 

[d525125]

4870 for OSX and 295 for Bootcamp?

In latest 09 Mac Pro can one do the same with an Apple-installed 4870 card and a GTX 295? Alternatively, could one run the Quadro for OSX and a GTX 295 for Bootcamp in 09 MP? In both cases are there the right number of slots and adequate power available?

 

[JohnnyLemonhead]

I still want to know what Apple is going to do with the 30" ACD, it is long long overdue for an update.

Oh they'll slap a $5 webcam on it, too, and jack the price up to $2 grand. Don't worry. They're getting to it. You'll have your 200 to 300% overpriced 30" monitor in no time. Hell, they might even offer it in a matte version so professionals can actually continue to use it.