Will ATI ever make retail video cards for Macs again?

[pastrychef]

It's obvious that many 1st gen Mac Pro owners are longing for a video card upgrade. Seeing as how nVidia never released any retail video cards for any Macs, I see little to no hope in that regard. However, in the past ATI sold some very good Mac video cards. But, they haven't released any new ones in quite some time. Can we expect them to release any of their newer cards for use in Mac Pros or are users forced to upgrade to a new machine to get a more powerful video card?

 

[aLoC]

Apple sells the 2600XT from the 2nd gen Mac Pro separately, and it works in the 1st gen I believe.

As for ATI in general, I'm sure when Mac market share gets high enough (and it is growing every quarter) they will release more Mac products.

 

[Kosh66]

As long as Apple keeps releasing OEM ATI cards as upgrade kits, ATI won't likely produce anything. ATI only sells Mac retail cards, when it's worth it. As well, there should be an Nvidia 8800GT card coming from Apple for the "older" Mac Pros.

 

[Mattww]

As long as Apple keeps releasing OEM ATI cards as upgrade kits, ATI won't likely produce anything. ATI only sells Mac retail cards, when it's worth it. As well, there should be an Nvidia 8800GT card coming from Apple for the "older" Mac Pros.

To date Apple have only been offering the cards that were available at the time of purchase and I for one would want to buy at least one faster card than these options at a later date if I was a Mac Pro owner. Right now there is a market for a card offering similar performance to the 8800GT for owners of Mac Pro models that are running 7300GT or X1900XT cards. When I purchased my G5 I could have had the 6800 Ultra as a CTO option but instead I later swopped the stock Radeon 9600XT for an X800XT which was a great upgrade. If Apple hadn't switched to Intel and if AGP hadn't been succeeded by PCI-E I would no doubt have upgraded it again. With my old Sawtooth G4 I went from the stock Rage 128 16MB to a original Radeon 32MB and then a Radeon 8500 64MB. If I hadn't moved to the G5 I'd have put in a Radeon 9800. ATI got my money in each case.

I'm really am hoping that ATI/AMD haven't given up on us. Since the AMD take over it has been very, very quiet. They haven't even released the ATI Displays utility for Intel based Macs. If we are going to be dependent on Apple for faster cards then that is rather worrying.

 

[Topper]

Will ATI ever make retail video cards for Macs again?

"Accelerate your Mac" had a Q&A with AMD's Arturo Wong Chujoy.

In the Q&A Mr. Chujoy says that ATI has recently depleted their inventory of ATI Radeon 9800 and x800 gpus. The reason being is they have reached their eol (end of life). In addition, the ATI Radeon X1900 for G5s is also going through eol.

When asked if there will ever be any video cards available for AGP Macs, Mr. Chujoy said that it becomes very time consuming to apply new hardware to older platforms. That limits our ability to bring current products to the AGP Mac market, but we will continue to look at options.

When asked if the PCI Mac Edition 9200 card is the end of the road for Mac PCI video cards, Mr. Chujoy said, “Yes it is. We do not have any plans to introduce a Mac PCI graphics card.”

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/2007_QandA_with_AMD.html#start

I'm really am hoping that ATI/AMD haven't given up on us.

I don't really care a whole lot for ATI cards anyway.
The X800 XT was a good card but how long ago was that?
I wish a video card manufacturer would make nVidia cards for Macs.

 

[Eidorian]

1. PCI is dead, dead
2. It's not terribly difficult to support the Mac Pro

 

[newtech]

My personal conspiracy theory is that AMD/ATI does not want to be seen supporting a platform based around its main competitor's ( intel ) chips. Now if Apple were to base something on AMD chips I think you would see them getting enthusiastic about doing some retail boards again.

 

[GregPacker]

If ATI are in any way responsible for the summer iMac freezes and now the winter mac pro freezes then the real question is Will ATI ever be allowed to make stock video cards for Macs again?

 

[newtech]

If ATI are in any way responsible for the summer iMac freezes and now the winter mac pro freezes then the real question is Will ATI ever be allowed to make stock video cards for Macs again?

Much more likely it is Apple's firmware/drivers rather than ATI's hardware that is at fault. It is my opinion that Apple is struggling with a surfeit of hardware and software introductions over the last year.

 

[Mattww]

My personal conspiracy theory is that AMD/ATI does not want to be seen supporting a platform based around its main competitor's ( intel ) chips. Now if Apple were to base something on AMD chips I think you would see them getting enthusiastic about doing some retail boards again.

That thought crossed my mind as well but they do happily allow retail card for Intel boards in the PC market. The problem is unlike the PC market we don't have several third party companies building cards from ATI or NVIDIA reference designs so they can then sell us them in a retail box.

It was ATI themselves who arranged this is the past for the Mac market and we had ATI branded boxed cards. NVIDIA cards were only made for Apple (presumably by one of the third party companies not interested in Mac retail cards!). Apple only tended to then offer these separately if there was a particular need - for example support for the 30" Cinema display on early G5 models.

I would be happy if we had just one company supplying some retail Mac cards. Ideally two with one supplying ATI the other NVIDIA! Now Apple are using X86 processors and chipsets it takes us closer to cards that are Mac and PC in one (like ATI tried with the Radeon 9600) but PCs are still using BIOS rather than EFI and although I'm sure Intel would love to dump BIOS the manufacturers and Microsoft seem more concerned with legacy crap and the cost of implementation on their low margin or loss leader commodity stuff. Heck you still see things like floppy drives, parallel and serial ports on some of these things.

 

[Umbongo]

My personal conspiracy theory is that AMD/ATI does not want to be seen supporting a platform based around its main competitor's ( intel ) chips. Now if Apple were to base something on AMD chips I think you would see them getting enthusiastic about doing some retail boards again.

Maybe if AMD were both strong in finances and their offerings this would hold some weight. They will want their product used by as many companies as possible.

 

[newtech]

Maybe if AMD were both strong in finances and their offerings this would hold some weight. They will want their product used by as many companies as possible.

AMD's presumptive strategy in buying ATI is to not be marginalized out of the PC industry, however that does not mean at the corporate level they don't still have some plain wrong-headed thinking going on.