Nvidia announces high-end Fermi GPU for Apple's Mac Pro

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Nvidia has announced the Fermi-powered Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac Pro upgraders, while Apple has begun sale of the ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card for the Mac desktop.



Nvidia announces Quadro 4000 for Mac



The new Nvidia Quadro 4000 brings the company's Fermi architecture to Mac Pro users. With a suggested retail price of $1,199, it will be available later this month at Apple's website and authorized resellers, as well as other distribution partners.



Film and video professionals running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard can take advantage of the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, as the software leverages Nvidia CUDA parallel processing technology. Other software that takes advantage of the high-end GPU are effects and image processing applications NUKE and STORM from The Foundry, as well as MATLAB from MathWorks.



"Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, accelerated by Nvidia Quadro GPUs, have redefined the non-linear editing workflow, delivering huge productivity gains," said Ginna Baldassarre, senior product manager at Adobe.



"Adobe looks forward to working with Nvidia to help more Mac users reap the benefits of real-time performance and the ability to create compelling, multi-layer projects with multiple HD or higher resolution video clips, all while instantly viewing results."







Officials from MathWorks and The Foundry praised the power that the Fermi architecture brings to the Mac platform. Minimum system requirements include Mac OS X 10.6.5 with early 2008, early 2009 and mid-2010 Mac Pro models.



The high-end Nvidia Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac, with 256 NVIDIA CUDA processing cores and 2GB of fast GDDR5 memory, delivers exceptional graphics performance across a broad range of design, animation and video applications, the company said. With new Nvidia Scalable Geometry Engine technology, the Quadro 4000 for Mac can process up to 890 million triangles per second, enabling professionals to design, iterate and deliver higher quality results in less time.



Apple now selling ATI Radeon HD 5870



This week the ATI Radeon HD 5870 became available for sale in the Apple Store. The card sports 1GB of GDDR5 memory and costs $449.



Though listed requirements state that the card will only work with a mid-2010 or early 2009 Mac Pro with a PCI Express 2.0 slot, reports have indicated that the ATI Radeon HD5870 will also work with the early 2008 Mac Pro desktop.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 32
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Very nice to see that AMD and Apple are on the ball here with new product and that we are seeing competition from NVidia. It is just to bad that we need a Mac Pro to use these cards.
  • Reply 2 of 32
    In related news, a Mac Pro just tore a hole in the space-time continuum.
  • Reply 3 of 32
    The 5870 is a $200 upgrade option on all current Mac Pro models.
  • Reply 4 of 32
    No mention of Open CL. Does CUDA cover that or is it program specific like it only works with Adobe Premiere?
  • Reply 5 of 32
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by elliots11 View Post


    No mention of Open CL. Does CUDA cover that or is it program specific like it only works with Adobe Premiere?



    http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_opencl_new.html



    "OpenCL? (Open Computing Language) is a new cross-vendor standard for heterogeneous computing that runs on the CUDA architecture. "



    So in a word, yes, it is built in.
  • Reply 6 of 32
    I love that the Mac Pro still has options out there.

    I just wish that you could still pick one (even a stripped down version) up for $1799-$1999 like the old PM G4/G5 days and then add things to it over the years to make it a beast.
  • Reply 7 of 32
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Nvidia has announced the Fermi-powered Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac Pro upgraders, while Apple has begun sale of the ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card for the Mac desktop....



    So ... a whole article on the latest two video cards for the Mac Pro without any kind of indication as to which one is best or how they compare to the cards already out there.



    Greeeaaattt!



    I mean I know it's too early for detailed comparisons, but here's a news flash, most folks don't care about that anyway. The details of video cards are too arcane and complicated for the average reader or consumer and have been for ages. How about a quick "this one rocks!" or "this is the one to get"?



    This article is meaningless to anyone not already deeply immersed in the details of the cards, and pretty much a useless addenda to those who already have that knowledge.
  • Reply 8 of 32
    Yeah I would definitely recommend doing your homework before purchasing because the Radeon 5870 states it will have OpenCL support in an sdk release.
  • Reply 9 of 32
    The Radeon is best for games and the Quadro for Pros. There. Does it hurt to consult Wiki for a few seconds and see what family is best for what?



    I say, AMD is too late. They should have released the 6870 for the Mac Pro by now
  • Reply 10 of 32
    kpluckkpluck Posts: 500member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    Very nice to see that AMD and Apple are on the ball here with new product and that we are seeing competition from NVidia. It is just to bad that we need a Mac Pro to use these cards.



    "On the ball"?? LOL You are kidding right?



    AMD is in the process of releasing new cards based on their latest GPU. Some low/mid range cards are already available and the replacement for the 5870 is just a few weeks away.



    Just as in the iMac line, Apple is asking users to pay a premium for outdated GPU technology.



    That being said I would soooo love a Mac Pro with a 5870!



    -kpluck
  • Reply 11 of 32
    I don't know crap about Quadros, but figuring the awesomeness factor for a Radeon is quite easily, actually:



    First number indicates the generation of the card.

    Second number indicates the level of the card. 8 or 9 normally means enthusiasts.

    Third number splits the card level into two sub-levels

    Fourth number is always (AFAIK) Zero.



    Example:



    5870 Belongs to the 5K family (new but the 6Ks are almost out), is high-end and top of the line (as in, 5870>5850).

    The 5670 in the mid models of iMacs is mid-range, top of it.

    The 4850 of the older iMac models is still better, because that generation of difference is obscured by the raw power of the 800 range.
  • Reply 12 of 32
    What's funny is that the mac version costs $1200 while the identical PC version is less than $800. Yikes, that's some serious Apple Tax!!



    http://www.nvidia.com/object/buy_now...html?id=QD4000
  • Reply 13 of 32
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lukeskymac View Post


    The Radeon is best for games and the Quadro for Pros. There. Does it hurt to consult Wiki for a few seconds and see what family is best for what?



    Um, kinda. The wiki article just might be written by, say, the vendors. And at least in Windows those Quadro cards offer 5 times the cost and ZERO performance benefit for many "Professionals". AutoCAD and Revit both see jack squat for the extra thousand dollars you pay over a similarly spec'd GeForce. So I wouldn't trust everything I read on the web, and I am bummed that all we get on the Mac side is Quadro cards, with no proof that in fact this isn't just nVidia @%#$ Mac users because we are used to paying a lot. I am happy to pay extra for some more, but to pay nVidia an extra grand for @%#$ nothing is just a slap in the face. Maybe OS X actually uses all those CUDA cores, and all the FP units on the Quadro that are turned off on the GeForce. Or the ECC RAM that the Quadro comes with. Maybe. And maybe someone could bother to actually research this and publish it? Maybe Ars, certainly not AI.

    But hey, I can rationalize everything by reading Wikipedia, so I guess there is actually no problem.



    Gordon
  • Reply 14 of 32
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by danielsmi View Post


    What's funny is that the mac version costs $1200 while the identical PC version is less than $800. Yikes, that's some serious Apple Tax!!



    http://www.nvidia.com/object/buy_now...html?id=QD4000



    What is the identical PC version?
  • Reply 15 of 32
    For many applications, of course, these GPUs give little or no performance boost. It will be interesting to see benchmarks of the next release of Final Cut with various GPU options.
  • Reply 16 of 32
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Onhka View Post


    What is the identical PC version?



    the Quadro 4000, the one I posted in the link.



    PC

    http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...o-4000-us.html



    Mac

    http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...00-mac-us.html
  • Reply 17 of 32
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by danielsmi View Post


    the Quadro 4000, the one I posted in the link.



    PC

    http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...o-4000-us.html



    Mac

    http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...00-mac-us.html



    They're not exactly the same cards. The Mac version has a OpenGL 4.1 vs 4.0 on the PC version.



    That is clearly an insignificant difference, but it leads to an important one. The Mac version is sold in much, much lower volume, so the cost of developing drivers, packaging, etc must be spread over a smaller number of units. In addition, the cost of setting up support (overhead) must be spread over a smaller number of units.
  • Reply 18 of 32
    dacloodacloo Posts: 890member
    Cool!



    If only the Pro Apps were modern applications that could benefit of this kick-ass hardware, that be nice. For now, it makes Half-Life 2 run reeeeal fast.
  • Reply 19 of 32
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member
    The rest of the world not so much.



    What's that? You say it will make "hard core gamers" happy?



    Well frankly Apple doesn't care. They're such a tiny minority of Mac users that their population rounds down to zero. Sure, there will be many popular games on the Mac App Store and on iOS devices. But none of them will really need a $1200 GPU.



    Nvidia cares a whole lot about "hard core gamers" since GPUs are their bread and butter. But really, in 5 years even built-in SoC graphics will be good enough to render photo-realistic games at high resolution with no massive bolt-on GPU. The Nvidias and ATIs of the world milking the suckers, er, high-end gaming market for all they can. Making hay while the sun still shines.
  • Reply 20 of 32
    dacloodacloo Posts: 890member
    I was being ironic (meaning that it's about time Apple makes pro software available that uses this kind of hardware, and that it makes run a game even faster which isn't really neccessary at this price-point)



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SockRolid View Post


    The rest of the world not so much.



    What's that? You say it will make "hard core gamers" happy?



    Well frankly Apple doesn't care. They're such a tiny minority of Mac users that their population rounds down to zero. Sure, there will be many popular games on the Mac App Store and on iOS devices. But none of them will really need a $1200 GPU.



    Nvidia cares a whole lot about "hard core gamers" since GPUs are their bread and butter. But really, in 5 years even built-in SoC graphics will be good enough to render photo-realistic games at high resolution with no massive bolt-on GPU. The Nvidias and ATIs of the world milking the suckers, er, high-end gaming market for all they can. Making hay while the sun still shines.



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