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Sapphire is launching Radeon 7950 Mac on Tuesday

GermanyChris said:
That's a hundred and half premium..

That one will require some thought.
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Every article I've read about the release has quoted the $450 selling price, so that's not shocking.

Over priced, that's another debate. You can easily convince corporate/IT folks to jump on this off the shelf upgrade option with a full warranty and full boot support out of the box. Buying a flashed card, or flashing a card was never met with great response from those folks in the past...

eva01 said:
Thanks much sir/ma'am!

None of the sapphire partners i looked at had it in stock and neweggs as i said was deactivated.

Checked amazon but apparently i missed that possibly because it's "out of stock".
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Sir, and no problem. 🙂

Doubt Amazon has any inventory yet, but at least they're taking orders. Good thing about Amazon is that when they do eventually stock and sell, IF it sells for a higher price, and you buy at the currently list price, you get the cheaper price... unless they cancel your order.
 
OK Apple, now support PCI 3.0 and OpenGL 4.2 in the new pro's and os. Crossfire would be nice too 🙂
 
MacVidCards said:
I think you need to consider that NOBODY wants to do the support for multiple Mac GPUs. Sitting somewhere is a room full of "Geniuses" reading from their scripts. The scripts ONLY have to have parts for cards that Apple considers "real". The second the Mac Pro can run EVERY GPU out there, the "Genuises" will be overrun with calls from people around the globe "I have a Techron 3000 with 2 DVI ports and butter churn attachment, how do I make iTunes work?"
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I doubt they will be overrun if it is just MPs. Not only because there are not a lot of the machines out there as compared to laptops and iMacs but because typically MP owners can figure many things out for themselves.

I have had to get help at the genius bar exactly once over several machines. That was because of a drive failure in my old eMac and I did not have a good backup. Most of when I walk into an apple store I am avoiding them. I can think of two or three times I asked sales questions but it was largely to get an 'authoritative' second opinion for someone else with me to back up my case.
 
The sapphire website lists a lots of features like 7.1 audio output and stereoscopic 3D. I guess not all are available on OS X...
 
MacsRgr8 said:
If this comes out and it will work in a Mac Pro '08 (3.1) I will definitely buy one!

It seems that performance wise it shouldn't be that different from a GTX 680 MX (the grfx card in a maxxed out iMac 27").

Now... this will give my Mac Pro 3.1 another year to live!!

BTW... and THAT must be one of the reasons why Apple hates the Mac Pro. It simply is too easily upgradeable, i.e. users don't buy a new one often enough. 😉
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According to the Sapphire website you need a minimum of a 4,1 early 2009 Mac Pro.
 
Moogintroll said:
The press release says that the card is compatible with the 2010 Mac Pro and later, so are us 4,1 owners out of luck or will the card just not be as fast?
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I was thinking of switching from a non-EFI to the Sapphire 7950 for Mac. I use a 4,1 and I don't see any reason why it would only work on 5,1 and over.

linuxcooldude said:
According to the Sapphire website you need a minimum of a 4,1 early 2009 Mac Pro.
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Excellent. Now I have to find a Canadian retailer that has this card.
 
GermanyChris said:
Firmware flash??
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I'm going to guess that AMD/Sapphire has put something in place to slow the spate of flashing, although won't know til someone tries.

A little remembered fact is that the 5770 and 5870 have a flash block in place.

If Netkas had not dug through the EFI and made various mods, there never would have been any flashed 5770s and 5870s.

By offering the Mac 5770 and 5870 in slightly different layout than the PC versions they were able to make the flashed ones have various limitations. (Boot screen on VGA only, PCIE 1.0 speed, etc)

Even back in the Radeon 9800 days, there were things done to slow the flashing of cards.

In any case, I can confirm that the unflashed cards will only run at PCIE 1.0 and it is quite likely even if flashing is figured out, the flashed cards will likely run at PCIE 1.0 speed as well.

So it is unlikely that it will be a simple thing to have a quick and easy flash to make an exact equivalent card. Or maybe Sapphire is run by a pack of fools, a couple Einsteins here have already assumed that Sapphire forgot to see if the cards actually fit in Mac Pros and for some reason have 3 inch drywall screws hanging out the back of the card for no reason.
 
I have the 5870 on my 2010 Mac Pro and I was thinking about buying this card but kinda want to wait to see what Apple is going to offer in the new 2013 Mac Pro, What do you guys think, Will Apple go with AMD or Nvidia this time around.
 
MacVidCards said:
I'm going to guess that AMD/Sapphire has put something in place to slow the spate of flashing, although won't know til someone tries.

A little remembered fact is that the 5770 and 5870 have a flash block in place.

If Netkas had not dug through the EFI and made various mods, there never would have been any flashed 5770s and 5870s.

By offering the Mac 5770 and 5870 in slightly different layout than the PC versions they were able to make the flashed ones have various limitations. (Boot screen on VGA only, PCIE 1.0 speed, etc)

Even back in the Radeon 9800 days, there were things done to slow the flashing of cards.

In any case, I can confirm that the unflashed cards will only run at PCIE 1.0 and it is quite likely even if flashing is figured out, the flashed cards will likely run at PCIE 1.0 speed as well.

So it is unlikely that it will be a simple thing to have a quick and easy flash to make an exact equivalent card. Or maybe Sapphire is run by a pack of fools, a couple Einsteins here have already assumed that Sapphire forgot to see if the cards actually fit in Mac Pros and for some reason have 3 inch drywall screws hanging out the back of the card for no reason.
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No I meant firmware flash 4,1 to 5,1..
 
Hey, if anyone is upgrading a 5770 to one of these new cards and wants to get something for it, I'm looking for a good deal on a pre-owned card so please PM me. 🙂
 
MacVidCards said:
I'm going to guess that AMD/Sapphire has put something in place to slow the spate of flashing, although won't know til someone tries.

A little remembered fact is that the 5770 and 5870 have a flash block in place.

If Netkas had not dug through the EFI and made various mods, there never would have been any flashed 5770s and 5870s.

By offering the Mac 5770 and 5870 in slightly different layout than the PC versions they were able to make the flashed ones have various limitations. (Boot screen on VGA only, PCIE 1.0 speed, etc)

Even back in the Radeon 9800 days, there were things done to slow the flashing of cards.

In any case, I can confirm that the unflashed cards will only run at PCIE 1.0 and it is quite likely even if flashing is figured out, the flashed cards will likely run at PCIE 1.0 speed as well.

So it is unlikely that it will be a simple thing to have a quick and easy flash to make an exact equivalent card. Or maybe Sapphire is run by a pack of fools, a couple Einsteins here have already assumed that Sapphire forgot to see if the cards actually fit in Mac Pros and for some reason have 3 inch drywall screws hanging out the back of the card for no reason.
Click to expand...
Hopefully, Apple had no influence in the design of this card and Sapphire is less interested in putting limitations against flashing. But it would make sense for them to do so, if they don't want regular PC card to be turned into "Mac Edition" cards.
 
spaz8 said:
OK Apple, now support PCI 3.0 and OpenGL 4.2 in the new pro's and os. Crossfire would be nice too 🙂
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Crossfire/SLI doesn't seem highly aligned with mac pro purchases. I have never heard of either being used outside of somewhat extreme gaming configurations, which isn't a real focus for the mac pro.
 
For those interested - Newegg is currently sold out. Amazon has added photos, but still not showing available inventory.
 
thekev said:
Crossfire/SLI doesn't seem highly aligned with mac pro purchases. I have never heard of either being used outside of somewhat extreme gaming configurations, which isn't a real focus for the mac pro.
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Who else but the Mac pro market would support it? If you do graphics work (3d, scientific visualization, VR, or run more than 2 monitors there is a need, has been for years with the poultry graphics cards available. ) A lot of photography and Video work can be done on a maxed out imac (though rendering/encoding video is time consuming)

I guess I'm also not sure how Crossfire/SLI support would affect people that don't need a strong GPU, Cuda, OPenCL support, or a big pool of Vram in an adverse way? Don't buy 2 matching GPU cards. The 7950's processing power and its 3gb of VRam is the bare minimum of what I would hope for in a MP 2013 gpu.
 
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