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Some thoughts on the Radeon 5870 vs Quadro 4000

MacsRgr8

MacsRgr8

macrumors G3
Original poster
Sep 8, 2002
8,377
1,945
The Netherlands
As I am waiting for Barefeats to have fun with the Quadro, some preliminary thoughts might be fun to think about.

- The Quadro 4000 is supported on the Mac Pro '08, the Radeon 5870 is not.
- X-Plane 9: the Radeon 5870 is not faster than the 4870 in the '08 Mac Pro. Maybe the Quadro 4000 will be faster?
- 2 GB VRAM on the Quadro... any chance gaming will benefit?
- Usually the "Pro-3D" card loses to good consumer 3D cards in gaming. Will this be true this time too?
 
MacsRgr8 said:
As I am waiting for Barefeats to have fun with the Quadro, some preliminary thoughts might be fun to think about.

- The Quadro 4000 is supported on the Mac Pro '08, the Radeon 5870 is not.
- X-Plane 9: the Radeon 5870 is not faster than the 4870 in the '08 Mac Pro. Maybe the Quadro 4000 will be faster?
- 2 GB VRAM on the Quadro... any chance gaming will benefit?
- Usually the "Pro-3D" card loses to good consumer 3D cards in gaming. Will this be true this time too?
Click to expand...

In my opinion buy a Radeon 5870, reflash it, it will work perfectly in the Mac Pro, play games very well and cost a quarter the price. As for a direct performance comparison I'm not sure but I'm willing to bet that the 5870 would win in gaming.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
- The Quadro 4000 is supported on the Mac Pro '08, the Radeon 5870 is not.
Click to expand...
The 5870 works fine in all Mac Pro's.

MacsRgr8 said:
- X-Plane 9: the Radeon 5870 is not faster than the 4870 in the '08 Mac Pro. Maybe the Quadro 4000 will be faster?
- 2 GB VRAM on the Quadro... any chance gaming will benefit?
- Usually the "Pro-3D" card loses to good consumer 3D cards in gaming. Will this be true this time too?
Click to expand...

It's not a game card.
 
I too am interested in this. I am getting more and more involved with Maya and ZBrush and have a Radeon 5870. I've always wondered if I would notice a huge difference in render times moving to a Quadro card.
 
chrono1081 said:
I too am interested in this. I am getting more and more involved with Maya and ZBrush and have a Radeon 5870. I've always wondered if I would notice a huge difference in render times moving to a Quadro card.
Click to expand...

We'll wait for benchmarks to say for certain, by I wouldn't get my hopes up. Nvidia's drivers have never been that great on OS X, nor have they been optimized for various 3D apps. The 5870 will probably do at least as much for you.

Not to mention, neither of those use the GPU for much besides drawing the viewport. Unless that is lagging for you on the 5870, you don't have anything to gain regardless.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
As I am waiting for Barefeats to have fun with the Quadro, some preliminary thoughts might be fun to think about.

- The Quadro 4000 is supported on the Mac Pro '08, the Radeon 5870 is not.
- X-Plane 9: the Radeon 5870 is not faster than the 4870 in the '08 Mac Pro. Maybe the Quadro 4000 will be faster?
- 2 GB VRAM on the Quadro... any chance gaming will benefit?
- Usually the "Pro-3D" card loses to good consumer 3D cards in gaming. Will this be true this time too?
Click to expand...

As said above 1) The 5870 works just fine in any Mac Pro (got one in my 08) and 2) The Quadro is not a gaming card, and will likely not run games as well.

2 GB of VRAM won't really benefit games right now. The most I've seen a game use is 1.
 
Cindori said:
The 5870 works fine in all Mac Pro's.
Click to expand...
True. But it still is nice to actually support a card. And the Quadro does it..


Cindori said:
It's not a game card.
Click to expand...

Again, true. But I can't believe that such a *huge* 3D card will not handle games well.
I understand 3D gaming cards vs. 3D Pro cards. But giving it good drivers, I assume all OpenGL tasks will run well..?
It might be overkill, but I just can't imaging it doing badly at most games.

I just wonder if the Quadro 4000 might be the fastest supported gaming card for the Mac Pro '08.

goMac said:
As said above 1) The 5870 works just fine in any Mac Pro (got one in my 08) and 2) The Quadro is not a gaming card, and will likely not run games as well.

2 GB of VRAM won't really benefit games right now. The most I've seen a game use is 1.
Click to expand...
I have the Radeon 4870 in my Mac Mac Pro '08 8 x 2.8, and it is superb. The game I play most is X-Plane 9 and TBO this game easily crushes any hardware you throw at it if you load all scenery and especially custom scenery.
I wanted the Radeon 5870, but after seeing Barefeats results, getting the 5870 wasn't going to help me alot... in X-Plane 9.x, IF you already have the 4870 in a Mac Pro from 2008.

Oh well, I'll just wait and see.
 
Last edited:
MacsRgr8 said:
I just wonder if the Quadro 4000 might be the fastest supported gaming card for the Mac Pro '08.
Click to expand...
It's the way the drivers are written. Professional cards have drivers that are meant to benefit specific applications (which doesn't seem to be well supported under OS X), as the GPU on it is shared with a consumer model (obviously not the same in this case, as they're different manufacturers).

But if your primary interest is gaming, I'd stick with the consumer grade card due to the cost difference (not worth the extra funds just to boost the memory capacity, and not run as well as expected due to drivers not optimized for games).

If your primary interest is for specific professional applications, wait for some test results and see if it's worth it (wouldn't hold my breath though, unless you're running it under Windows for this purpose - can actually find supported software that utilizes the drivers for the card).

But professional use doesn't seem to be your primary interest, given your posts so far. Hence the advice to skip it from those that have replied.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
I have the Radeon 4870 in my Mac Mac Pro '08 8 x 2.8, and it is superb. The game I play most is X-Plane 9 and TBO this game easily crushes any hardware you throw at it if you load all scenery and especially custom scenery.
I wanted the Radeon 5870, but after seeing Barefeats results, getting the 5870 wasn't going to help me alot... in X-Plane 9.x, IF you already have the 4870 in a Mac Pro from 2008.

Oh well, I'll just wait and see.
Click to expand...

X-Plane could be CPU dependent. You'd probably only see a speed increase with a processor boost.

It's also entirely possible this is an optimization issue with the drivers that will be worked out.

Either way, the 5870 is actually faster hardware than the Quadro 400, and has a larger number of cores. The reason the Quadro is more expensive is the 3D and some CAD optimizations. The 5870 is likely to be faster than the Quadro for things like X-Plane.
 
neckarb said:
So because it's not listed as a supported model on the website your thinking of not buying it?!
Click to expand...

Not everyone is comfortable with running something that the manfacturer dooesn't support. They either don't want the work involved in having to fix themselves, or maybe they haven't spent the time tinkering themselves and learnt the skills.

I remember the days of having to import water cooling parts, assemble, and run them for leak tests outside the case then try and fit into the cases which weren't water cooling freindly. These days I just pickup a Corsair H50 cooler and a case with a 120mm fan at the back as it is less hassle. Maybe not as good at cooling or overclocking, bit certainly damn site less effort.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
Not in the 2008 Mac Pro.
Apple support it in the '09 and '10 models.
Click to expand...


mcnallym said:
Not everyone is comfortable with running something that the manfacturer dooesn't support. They either don't want the work involved in having to fix themselves, or maybe they haven't spent the time tinkering themselves and learnt the skills.
Click to expand...

Apple lists it that way because they want to sell more machines.
There is no technical differences between the machines that prevent the use of 5870. No tinkering at all.


But sure, go with blindfold, pretend Apple is "the good guys" that never would put money before the customers interest. It's not true though.
 
mcnallym said:
Not everyone is comfortable with running something that the manfacturer dooesn't support. They either don't want the work involved in having to fix themselves, or maybe they haven't spent the time tinkering themselves and learnt the skills.

I remember the days of having to import water cooling parts, assemble, and run them for leak tests outside the case then try and fit into the cases which weren't water cooling freindly. These days I just pickup a Corsair H50 cooler and a case with a 120mm fan at the back as it is less hassle. Maybe not as good at cooling or overclocking, bit certainly damn site less effort.
Click to expand...

However I really don't think this minor inconvenience makes $1,000 dollars more for a Quadro 4000 make sense. It would be cheaper to buy 2 5870's incase one goes wrong.....
 
Cindori said:
Apple lists it that way because they want to sell more machines.
There is no technical differences between the machines that prevent the use of 5870. No tinkering at all.


But sure, go with blindfold, pretend Apple is "the good guys" that never would put money before the customers interest. It's not true though.
Click to expand...

Why is it going with a blindfold sticking with supported configuration? It has nothing to do with thinking Apple are the good guys and just making life easier for yourself.

Can you gaurantee that if a call logged with Apple Support with a Mac2008 and a 5870 that they will look at your issue and not just bounce back with a "not a supported configuration" answer. At which point who is going to fix the issue for the call logger?

Why is that some people on this forum are so negative towards people that don't need that sort of aggro. It is not that Apple are the good guys.

Personally I run a hackintosh and 8Gb in my Unbody MBPro2008 neither of which are supported configurations!
 
mcnallym said:
Why is it going with a blindfold sticking with supported configuration? It has nothing to do with thinking Apple are the good guys and just making life easier for yourself.

Can you gaurantee that if a call logged with Apple Support with a Mac2008 and a 5870 that they will look at your issue and not just bounce back with a "not a supported configuration" answer. At which point who is going to fix the issue for the call logger?

Why is that some people on this forum are so negative towards people that don't need that sort of aggro. It is not that Apple are the good guys.

Personally I run a hackintosh and 8Gb in my Unbody MBPro2008 neither of which are supported configurations!
Click to expand...

I don't understand it though, if you have a problem with something and your a member of this forum, post your problem here, the community will help rather than apple. If you need to return it to apple just tell them you've got a 2010 one.
 
goMac said:
X-Plane could be CPU dependent. You'd probably only see a speed increase with a processor boost.

It's also entirely possible this is an optimization issue with the drivers that will be worked out.

Either way, the 5870 is actually faster hardware than the Quadro 400, and has a larger number of cores. The reason the Quadro is more expensive is the 3D and some CAD optimizations. The 5870 is likely to be faster than the Quadro for things like X-Plane.
Click to expand...

Studying Barefeats results on X-Plane it does look like the Mac Pro '08's CPU's are ("is".. as the game only runs on one Core) the bottleneck.
So, getting any card faster than the 4870 is a bad investment for X-Plane.
Other games and DirectX 11 can justify getting the 5870.
I assume the Quadro 4000 won't help then, eh?

neckarb said:
So because it's not listed as a supported model on the website your thinking of not buying it?!
Click to expand...

No, no, no. I am just looking for a grfx card that will help the FPS in X-Plane. And it seems only getting a faster CPU will help in my case.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
No, no, no. I am just looking for a grfx card that will help the FPS in X-Plane. And it seems only getting a faster CPU will help in my case.
Click to expand...

Fair enough in that case if your happy to spend the money then I'd buy two 5870's and crossfire them, then play your game in windows, orrrrrr.... if you want more power crossfire a 5870 with a 5970 in windows, which when clocked to match 5870 speeds is effectively two 5870s so you have the power of 3 5870's for less than the cost of one Quadro 4000 :) (that's what I did btw)
 
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