ATI... New PowerMac Graphics Card?

dr_holisticdr_holistic
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Hey, I was reading on ATI's website and they have a 256MB graphics card for the WinTel.



ATI 9800 XT - 256MB DDR



The current Mac 9800 card only offers 128MB DDR at 256-bit.



So I'm curious, do you think the next PowerMac Revesion is waiting for this new update to the Mac product line at ATI.



There would be no question that card could handel the new 30" Display!
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 27
    machemmachem Posts: 319member
    I think the PC card is 4-channel ("4x") and the Mac is 8x. There are some other differences (chip MHz?). Barefeats had some info on this in one of their recent shoot-outs. I think the differences made using one over the other a wash.
  • Reply 2 of 27
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    128MB is overkill as it is.



    The performance improvement of the Radeon 9800 XT over the Radeon 9800 Pro isn't related to the RAM, but the higher clock speed of the core and memory.



    It would be nice to see it in Macs. Not spectacular, but nice.



    Barto
  • Reply 3 of 27
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by machem

    I think the PC card is 4-channel ("4x") and the Mac is 8x. There are some other differences (chip MHz?). Barefeats had some info on this in one of their recent shoot-outs. I think the differences made using one over the other a wash.



    The number rating on AGP doesn't refer to the number of channels, but the number of times data is transmitted per clock beat. The G5 has AGP 8X.
  • Reply 4 of 27
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    A 4x AGP 9800 XT? You guys are funny!
  • Reply 5 of 27
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    The PowerMac is not held up waiting for a 256MB version of the video card. If Apple placed an order then ATI would supply them. The benefits of that much VRAM are marginal and not worth the cost for most users. Apple could always add it to the BTO store after the fact for the few users that do want it.
  • Reply 6 of 27
    stingermanstingerman Posts: 154member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Programmer

    The PowerMac is not held up waiting for a 256MB version of the video card. If Apple placed an order then ATI would supply them. The benefits of that much VRAM are marginal and not worth the cost for most users. Apple could always add it to the BTO store after the fact for the few users that do want it.



    Yep, maybe it will come in handy with the rumored 30" Cinema Display. The PC hobbyists are crazed over VRAM and FPS, though they will do very little for them after a certain point. With a LCD that has a 40 FPS refresh rate (25ms), what good is quake III at 380FPS? Absolutely useless, 40FPS is all the screen can handle, and how many CRT's handle more than 85FPS (85Hz refresh)? Not many and if they do its not more than that. It's like the MHz Myth.
  • Reply 7 of 27
    myahmacmyahmac Posts: 222member
    As is said many times, the FPS is high so that when you start turning aorund wwith lots of hig poly models when it does drop it is stil fluid like. Or take a game like falcon 4.0. It can go from around 50 FPS+ to 2fps when you get to a certain area of the game.
  • Reply 8 of 27
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stingerman

    Yep, maybe it will come in handy with the rumored 30" Cinema Display. The PC hobbyists are crazed over VRAM and FPS, though they will do very little for them after a certain point. With a LCD that has a 40 FPS refresh rate (25ms), what good is quake III at 380FPS? Absolutely useless, 40FPS is all the screen can handle, and how many CRT's handle more than 85FPS (85Hz refresh)? Not many and if they do its not more than that. It's like the MHz Myth.



    If the FPS is higher than the screen can handle, you can increase the graphics without a noticable drop. The MHz myth refers to the fact that MHZ isn't equal to CPU performance. Don't twist it around into saying "increased performance doesn't matter," because it does.



    Barto
  • Reply 9 of 27
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stingerman

    Yep, maybe it will come in handy with the rumored 30" Cinema Display.



    I'll leave the FPS comments to the other guys.



    As for the 30" display, even if the screen resolution was 3Kx2K, that is "only" a 6 megapixel buffer. At 32-bits deep this requires 24 megabytes of VRAM for each buffer (front & back + Z if you're doing 3D), for a total of 72 megabytes maximum. That leaves a plentiful 56 MB for textures, fonts, and Quartz Extreme's VRAM cache.



    Now if Apple is going to price these low enough that everybody is going to buy TWO, and this is a double headed card that supports 2 x 3K x 2K... then I could see them shipping a 256 MB card as standard equipment. But that's a little unlikely, and I suspect they'd have to rework their GUI a little so that it is usable at 6K x 2K or 3K x 4K resolutions.
  • Reply 10 of 27
    smalmsmalm Posts: 677member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Programmer

    Now if Apple is going to price these low enough that everybody is going to buy TWO ...



  • Reply 11 of 27
    smalmsmalm Posts: 677member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Dr_Holistic

    ATI 9800 XT - 256MB DDR



    The heck with the 9800 XT !

    Where is the 9600 Pro for the rest of us (for me!) ?
  • Reply 12 of 27
    smirclesmircle Posts: 1,035member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Programmer

    As for the 30" display, even if the screen resolution was 3Kx2K, that is "only" a 6 megapixel buffer. At 32-bits deep this requires 24 megabytes of VRAM for each buffer (front & back + Z if you're doing 3D), for a total of 72 megabytes maximum. That leaves a plentiful 56 MB for textures, fonts, and Quartz Extreme's VRAM cache.



    I don't think this is necessarily true. Each window with 1024 x 768 will consume around 2.4MB additional VRAM, so if you have 10 Finder windows, 10 browser windows and some programs running, you are going to reach the 128MB limit.



    Of course, windows 1024 pixels wide sound a bit much, but you have to remember that one automatically makes windows wider on larger displays. Some windows convertite might even make each window fullscreen...
  • Reply 13 of 27
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Smircle

    I don't think this is necessarily true. Each window with 1024 x 768 will consume around 2.4MB additional VRAM, so if you have 10 Finder windows, 10 browser windows and some programs running, you are going to reach the 128MB limit.



    Of course, windows 1024 pixels wide sound a bit much, but you have to remember that one automatically makes windows wider on larger displays. Some windows convertite might even make each window fullscreen...



    Quartz Extreme will normally store those windows in main memory and access them across the AGP bus (or, in the future, the PCI-Express bus). The VRAM is primarily used for things which never need to be changed by the CPU.



    256MB VRAM is usable, but not generally of noticable benefit to most users.
  • Reply 14 of 27
    drboardrboar Posts: 477member
    To veer back to new ATI cards. ATI have made some rather strange things the last couple of years.



    1.The original Radeon was replaced by the inferior R 7000

    2. They intoduced two largely overlapping cards the R8500 and R 9000 and kept them side my side for a long time



    3. The intorudced the 9800 but have a huge gap between the killer card and the now low end 9000
  • Reply 15 of 27
    oldmacfanoldmacfan Posts: 501member
    We are on the verge of a new technology in video cards. 8X AGP is dead and every OEM knows this. 16 channel PCI-Express is taking over this year, and Apple could be awaiting these cards. Why you ask?



    1. Future expandability

    2. Reduced heat

    3. Lower power consumption

    4. Better bandwidth



    I mean why put in an 8X AGP slot that will be dead in three months or less, Apple is involved in the PCI-Express working group, and HyperTransport 2.0 was just released to include PCI-Express support. I believe Apple is wanting to be the first to release this Technology.



    Steve did talk about coming out with some great new stuff this year.
  • Reply 16 of 27
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by oldmacfan

    Steve did talk about coming out with some great new stuff this year.



    Huh? This is what he says ALL THE TIME! You can't possibly ready ANYTHING from a comment like that. Especially coming from Steve! Would you really expect him to say, "To be honest folks and from where I'm sitting, 2004 just ain't gonna be too exciting. We got nothing right now... But hey, who knows! Maybe somebody will think of something at some point... And if they do, I'll be sure to let ya know. Oh yea and have a great MacWorld!"







    Dave
  • Reply 17 of 27
    stingermanstingerman Posts: 154member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by oldmacfan

    We are on the verge of a new technology in video cards. 8X AGP is dead and every OEM knows this. 16 channel PCI-Express is taking over this year, and Apple could be awaiting these cards. Why you ask?



    1. Future expandability

    2. Reduced heat

    3. Lower power consumption

    4. Better bandwidth



    I mean why put in an 8X AGP slot that will be dead in three months or less, Apple is involved in the PCI-Express working group, and HyperTransport 2.0 was just released to include PCI-Express support. I believe Apple is wanting to be the first to release this Technology.



    Steve did talk about coming out with some great new stuff this year.



    Better yet, with the GPU handling more OS work as in the case of the QE, why wouldn't you want to have your GPU even closer to your CPU. Maybe even on the North side of the ASIC chipset. PCI Express resolves the issue of transferring data from the GPU to RAM, whereas AGP seems to be more on sided, getting the data from RAM is fast, writing is not as fast.
  • Reply 18 of 27
    oldmacfanoldmacfan Posts: 501member
    Here is an article that gives us an idea of when to expect



    http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_...fm?NewsID=7887



    PCI-Express in the mac
  • Reply 19 of 27
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
    Kickaha and Amorph couldn't moderate themselves out of a paper bag. Abdicate responsibility and succumb to idiocy. Two years of letting a member make personal attacks against others, then stepping aside when someone won't put up with it. Not only that but go ahead and shut down my posting priviledges but not the one making the attacks. Not even the common decency to abide by their warning (afer three days of absorbing personal attacks with no mods in sight), just shut my posting down and then say it might happen later if a certian line is crossed. Bullshit flag is flying, I won't abide by lying and coddling of liars who go off-site, create accounts differing in a single letter from my handle with the express purpose to decieve and then claim here that I did it. Everyone be warned, kim kap sol is a lying, deceitful poster.



    Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.



    Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
  • Reply 20 of 27
    stingermanstingerman Posts: 154member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by oldmacfan

    Here is an article that gives us an idea of when to expect



    http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_...fm?NewsID=7887



    PCI-Express in the mac



    Apple always have had multiple busses in their system. Hypertransport integrates with many different bus technologies. The point is that when PCI Express becomes important, Apple can always add it on. I am more excited about future generations of FireWire. I think there is a lot more potential there than in the PCI bus world. If PCI Express is mainly going to be used as a replacement for AGP, we have barely maxed 4X just yet. And there are more exciting ways Apple can integrate a GPU into a Mac.
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