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When will the ATI 4870 be available for the current Mac Pros?

J

jjahshik32

macrumors 603
Original poster
Sep 4, 2006
5,366
52
Its been way over the promised deadline or mentioned deadline from ATI hasnt it??

If ATI released a mac version for the mac pro I might as well just dive back into the 2.8ghz 8 core mac pro again right now. Also it wouldnt hurt to add a mini displayport onto the 4870 either.
 
I don't think ATI ever announced it. Would be nice, but with Apple going to Nvidia, it'll be interesting where ATI is going to be involved in the future.

And if going by history, it will come out some time when the 4870 is outdated :mad:
 
chewietobbacca said:
I don't think ATI ever announced it. Would be nice, but with Apple going to Nvidia, it'll be interesting where ATI is going to be involved in the future.

And if going by history, it will come out some time when the 4870 is outdated :mad:
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Apple going with nVIDIA? Apple has always remained partial.

They use both discrete and integrated options from ATi, Intel and nVIDIA.
 
I remember the article, but I've not seen any dates anywhere either.

In my experience a few months tends to be more like 6 to 12 lately due to complications of some sort (CalDigit comes to mind...). Otherwise it's released very prematurely, and is more trouble than it's worth, as it still takes just as long to get enough issues sorted to make it usable. :(

IIRC, I've also seen blogs/posts in other forums that seem to think drivers will be included in Snow Leopard. Though I hope this proves correct, I prefer to wait and see. ;)
 
Pressure said:
Apple going with nVIDIA? Apple has always remained partial.

They use both discrete and integrated options from ATi, Intel and nVIDIA.
Click to expand...

Somewhat, but adopting the Nvidia platform for notebooks might come with some strings attached and/or some benefits to adopting more Nvidia selection

But ATI writes far better drivers for Macs so I would prefer ATI by far
 
chewietobbacca said:
Somewhat, but adopting the Nvidia platform for notebooks might come with some strings attached and/or some benefits to adopting more Nvidia selection

But ATI writes far better drivers for Macs so I would prefer ATI by far
Click to expand...
The nVidia/Apple relations may become strong enough to effectively squeeze out ATI.

As I understand it, ATI writes their own drivers for Mac, while Apple writes the drivers for the nVidia based cards.

Perhaps nVidia will assume responsibility for the drivers. :eek: :p
 
I wonder what vid cards will be options with the new mac pro once it is released? Do you think they will even make it into the nvidia 2xx series by then? :rolleyes:
 
xgman said:
I wonder what vid cards will be options with the new mac pro once it is released? Do you think they will even make it into the nvidia 2xx series by then? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Low power (75W or less) would likely continue as a standard for the base model, as it is now. This could translate into say a 9600 series card.

Given the recent events between Apple and nVidia, it's possible, and even a 2xx as an option. Not extremely confident yet, as there's been little information. So I'm in "Wait and see" mode. ;)
 
nanofrog said:
Low power (75W or less) would likely continue as a standard for the base model, as it is now. This could translate into say a 9600 series card.

Given the recent events between Apple and nVidia, it's possible, and even a 2xx as an option. Not extremely confident yet, as there's been little information. So I'm in "Wait and see" mode. ;)
Click to expand...

It's either that or the Radeon HD 4670 which is only rated at 59 Watt and have a lower idle and load power consumption compared to the Geforce 9600 series.
 
Pressure said:
It's either that or the Radeon HD 4670 which is only rated at 59 Watt and have a lower idle and load power consumption compared to the Geforce 9600 series.
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Yes it is. ;) But I was just thinking in terms of the nVidia/Apple situation rather than lowest power consumption. :D

I doubt Apple really has any loyalty to any specific vendor, but there might be some agreement between them, particularly related to volume pricing.

If this isn't the case, and ATI can offer lower pricing than nVidia, kiss the 9600 good bye. Low power would be secondary to good old fashioned cash, as long as any card considered is under 75W I suspect. ;)

In the end, the bottom line rules...:p
 
nanofrog said:
Yes it is. ;) But I was just thinking in terms of the nVidia/Apple situation rather than lowest power consumption. :D

I doubt Apple really has any loyalty to any specific vendor, but there might be some agreement between them, particularly related to volume pricing.

If this isn't the case, and ATI can offer lower pricing than nVidia, kiss the 9600 good bye. Low power would be secondary to good old fashioned cash, as long as any card considered is under 75W I suspect. ;)

In the end, the bottom line rules...:p
Click to expand...

Yes but having Snow Leopard in mind, the Radeon HD 4670 will definitely be the wiser choice as it is much better at GPGPU (OpenCL) than the Geforce 9600 series.
 
It seems with the current best cards (8800GT and 3870) that the ATI is still the best all round option:

http://www.barefeats.com/harper22.html

Maybe the situation will change with the next range of cards but ATI seem to have really worked on their drivers to get the best performance where as the NVIDIA card really isn't reaching its full potential even after several updates.
 
Well supposedly ATI wites their own drivers for Mac's while Nvidia let's Apple do the work. And who would know their hardware best - the creators or the adopters?

That said, yeah ATI currently has the GPGPU advantage and was one of the first supporters of OpenCL so I would love to see ATI get a chance. The 4870 puts out more GPGPU FLOPS than the GTX 285 despite using less power and the mid-range cards are superior for ATI right now as well.
 
Mattww said:
It seems with the current best cards (8800GT and 3870) that the ATI is still the best all round option:

http://www.barefeats.com/harper22.html

Maybe the situation will change with the next range of cards but ATI seem to have really worked on their drivers to get the best performance where as the NVIDIA card really isn't reaching its full potential even after several updates.
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That's for ONE game. Check out his other articles and you'll see a different story.

If you're not going to be impartial you may as well not post the link in the first place.

The 3870 is better for Core Image-based work, the 8800 is better for gaming, especially under Windows. An example.
 
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