OK guys. I just got off the phone with Apple and they have NO IDEA when the 7800 will be available. No idea. It could be two months. So, to cancel my order and two months for the 7800 at $400 more isn't something that sounds appealing.
So my question- I do photoshop 90% of the time, I don't really play games and I only watch video. So, I know the 7800 kills the 6600, but would I see any or enough of the benefit that warrant the wait and $400?
A 6600 card is perfectly fine for any 2D work.
Just to clear this up.
All of these cards are competing on the 3D level, not the 2D level. 2D requires very little from the GPU these days, as the GPU is pretty powerful even on low end cards. As long as you have enough memory and aren't using two 30" monitors at once, you can rest easy.
I already corrected my self on this, but I'll say it more clearly. It's not that they are using 8x in the second slot, they have 8x in both slots because the SLI bridge will match the input speed of the matching cards so SLI will function properly. It's a bottleneck.
I would much rather just have one 16x ( 1- 16X vs. 2- 8x) slot, instead of the minor improvment of 2 matching cards running at 8x, and save the cash until Apple releases one later with 2x full speed 16x slots.
I wouldn't mind seeing what matching two 6600's using an SLI bridge perform like compared to the single one in the 16X slot for comparason, or 2 7800GTX's for that matter. I'd bet that someone like bear feats, or toms hardware will try it out for us sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
Only AMD processor driven machines (and it's a select few motherboards that have it) have dual FULL speed 16X PCI-E expressways, and that is how it should have been from the beginning, but nobody could get it working.
But on a side note. I do think yesterday answered the question that I will finally be able to use a Quadro in a PowerMac at the very beginning of next year though. (if not sooner, because I'm totally excited about this) And that Apple does intend on keeping the Pro line. Unlike those idiots that kept saying Apple will drop the PowerMac. F*ck! those @ss holes had me scared for a little while.
The SLI mobo's are special. They aren't regulat boards with two 8x slots. They are design to work with SLI just as boards are coming out designed to work with just Crossfire.
I'm pretty sure that this will not work with either.
don't tell me people are buying these new PM's with the major intent to play 3-5 year old pc games on them. Oh, wow, you can play Halo at a slightly higher resolution with the new nvidia's via pci-e. Guess what... the enjoyment of that game goes up about 2% because of this. we are in serious need of new software to show off these systems.
so are people freaked-out w/ liquid cooling now or are they beginning to accept it? I haven't seen the failure reports that so many worry about, myself, but we'll see what happens.
don't tell me people are buying these new PM's with the major intent to play 3-5 year old pc games on them. Oh, wow, you can play Halo at a slightly higher resolution with the new nvidia's via pci-e. Guess what... the enjoyment of that game goes up about 2% because of this. we are in serious need of new software to show off these systems.
so are people freaked-out w/ liquid cooling now or are they beginning to accept it? I haven't seen the failure reports that so many worry about, myself, but we'll see what happens.
I think it's more along the lines that people buying 3k dollar machines want graphics card that cost more than 50 dollars in them. I don't know for sure but i'm pretty sure it's something like that.
don't tell me people are buying these new PM's with the major intent to play 3-5 year old pc games on them. Oh, wow, you can play Halo at a slightly higher resolution with the new nvidia's via pci-e. Guess what... the enjoyment of that game goes up about 2% because of this. we are in serious need of new software to show off these systems.
And we have it in things like Aperture. Motion. Final Cut.
Doom 3. Lightwave 8-9. Poser 6.
These aren't 3-5 years old.
There's plenty of good stuff on the Mac that could do with a 7800GT.
I think it's more along the lines that people buying 3k dollar machines want graphics card that cost more than 50 dollars in them. I don't know for sure but i'm pretty sure it's something like that.
Damn straight.
£2300 inc Vat for a 'flag ship' Quad Cpu Workstation with medicore GPU? THAT SUCKS!
Yeesh, adding the 6600GT is only £104. And performs the nuts off a 6600 vanilla. For an extra £50, the GT6600 would have been a really 'okay' card to include.
Honestly, Apple why inc' a card half way behind the curve all the time.
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. I'm glad the 7800 GT had merely been 'delayed'...
Anyone know how the 2 GHz boxes compare, and to the various other Dual 2GHz models? I have a rev a dualie and am getting anxious to upgrade. Although at this point, I think I'd wait for the quads to trickle down the line a bit more and wait for the next gen screens.
Anyone know how the 2 GHz boxes compare, and to the various other Dual 2GHz models? I have a rev a dualie and am getting anxious to upgrade. Although at this point, I think I'd wait for the quads to trickle down the line a bit more and wait for the next gen screens.
I think the best bet for upgrading is to get an older 2.5Ghz machine from macmall for 2,200 and sell your current machine on ebay. I have been thinking about doing such a thing myself.
As they state in their own marketing drivel on the Apple website, the second Gigabit Ethernet port on the new PowerMac is for Xsan users...
Duh...
Ah, I hadnt seen that they had added another port... This is nice, since it is saves having to take up 2 slots just to run Xsan. What would have been super cool would have been to build in an Fibre Channel HBA so that all Power Macs would be Xsan ready out of the box (in terms of hardware). Just wishful thinking
Anyone know how the 2 GHz boxes compare, and to the various other Dual 2GHz models? I have a rev a dualie and am getting anxious to upgrade. Although at this point, I think I'd wait for the quads to trickle down the line a bit more and wait for the next gen screens.
it's hard to think you'd see the quads trickle down now. The next revision is probably going to be from Intel. There may be a 3rd party upgrade after-market replacement processor later.
Although, it is possible Apple will squeeze these one more time just to keep the updates coming before the revision to meet demand, and give them time for other projects before the intel transition.
hi lemon bon bon, just a side note, there is no 3ds max for mac. anyway i'm with the lightwave camp because its renders are simply beautiful. 3ds max renders always look like, well, 3ds max renders. but that is quite a separate debate i don't want to get into (max vs lightwave) since i haven't done 3d stuff for a little while now.
i agree that the 7800 gt can handle a lot of openGL stuff in lightwave, say cinema4d, etc... quite well. quadro is probably when you are doing some serious "workstation" 3d graphics and very high resolutions/ multiple monitors etc. for creative motion graphics, animation type 3d work and lower-poly (eg games modelling) the 7800 gt would offer a lot of openGL goodness. 256mb vram would be sweet as well.
but again, like you said, benchmarks and models, polygon counts, texture size etc... would be the key to really work out whether one might want a 7800gt or Quadro. it's great that there is a Quadro option though, as many people on Ai have been commenting about this past year.
ati is behind the curve. the x1---- lines are not really shipping in quantity even to the gaming /pc world.
which is surprising for the 7800gt, either nvidia can't supply them for whatever reason or the drivers are not ready or something else is holding them up. which makes me think, how come apple doesn't get the 7800gts from say Asus? less of a profit margin but 3rd parties have been shipping 7800-series cards for many many months in good quantities now... hmmm i'm sure apple has a reason to only use pure-nvidia-branded 7800gt s?
PS> anyway i have a very personal bias towards lightwave on the mac so mad props to the Quad, hopefully a lot of lightwave users in games, creative, motion, vfx, animation, etc... will get onto the Quad with either the 7800gt (if it ever comes out!!) or Quadro....
Well, with Mac's improving sales figures...ask the obvious question.
Will ATI take it with the 'bend over' from Nvidia?
When will ATI retort?
Nvidia have already hosed ATI in delivery and bang for buck this year.
How long before before ATI come back at them?
I'm guessing not that long...
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Remember the dark days of Quickdraw 3D and no 3D competitionn on the Mac? Competition...a beautiful thing...
I'm sure ATI will respond. But they're having so many problems of their own getting the 1000 series out the door as it is that this is probably on the backburner for now.
I'm sure ATI will respond. But they're having so many problems of their own getting the 1000 series out the door as it is that this is probably on the backburner for now.
We had the opportunity to try one of the new quad G5s with modo 201 and I must say I was impressed with its speed. As an example, it rendered the global illumination test image shown above in 17 seconds flat. The scene includes 244,000 polygons with 8 sample antialiasing and 200 indirect rays. Brad's dual 2.5 G5 takes 38 seconds to render the same scene, so it looks like the new machines can render over twice as fast.
OK guys. I just got off the phone with Apple and they have NO IDEA when the 7800 will be available. No idea. It could be two months. So, to cancel my order and two months for the 7800 at $400 more isn't something that sounds appealing.
So my question- I do photoshop 90% of the time, I don't really play games and I only watch video. So, I know the 7800 kills the 6600, but would I see any or enough of the benefit that warrant the wait and $400?
Ok, to answer this again.
Maybe this will give you some idea.
The 6600 LE - the lower end board, will let you run 1 30" display and 1 23" display at the same time. that's pushing a lot of pixels around.
Comments
I bet in a few months if they update the other PowerMacs as quads as well, they will add it.
There's absolutely NO WAY Apple is going to offer a £80 card or a £1100 card.
That's wide field. Even for Apple.
NO WAY!
It's got to be a. Glitch at store or b. Supply problem for now.
Option is there or will be added. It WAS with the Ati cards over time.
Hell, ATI aren't even shipping their X whatever cards yet... *(....)*
They'll be along shortly as well. They going to let Nvidia do all the Mac-ing?
No. My guess is we'll have the 7800GT, Quadro.
Ati will respond with? x1800 and a FireGl workstation card.
As Mac sales climb the rivalry to have the best Mac card will increase.
This should not be overlooked.
Think about it. Apple have not just moved to PCI-Express to have a pretty average 6600 or an extreme Quadro and nothing else.
PCI EX Nvidia and Ati options will come...it wouldn't make sense otherwise.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by KidRed
OK guys. I just got off the phone with Apple and they have NO IDEA when the 7800 will be available. No idea. It could be two months. So, to cancel my order and two months for the 7800 at $400 more isn't something that sounds appealing.
So my question- I do photoshop 90% of the time, I don't really play games and I only watch video. So, I know the 7800 kills the 6600, but would I see any or enough of the benefit that warrant the wait and $400?
A 6600 card is perfectly fine for any 2D work.
Just to clear this up.
All of these cards are competing on the 3D level, not the 2D level. 2D requires very little from the GPU these days, as the GPU is pretty powerful even on low end cards. As long as you have enough memory and aren't using two 30" monitors at once, you can rest easy.
Originally posted by onlooker
I already corrected my self on this, but I'll say it more clearly. It's not that they are using 8x in the second slot, they have 8x in both slots because the SLI bridge will match the input speed of the matching cards so SLI will function properly. It's a bottleneck.
I would much rather just have one 16x ( 1- 16X vs. 2- 8x) slot, instead of the minor improvment of 2 matching cards running at 8x, and save the cash until Apple releases one later with 2x full speed 16x slots.
I wouldn't mind seeing what matching two 6600's using an SLI bridge perform like compared to the single one in the 16X slot for comparason, or 2 7800GTX's for that matter. I'd bet that someone like bear feats, or toms hardware will try it out for us sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
Only AMD processor driven machines (and it's a select few motherboards that have it) have dual FULL speed 16X PCI-E expressways, and that is how it should have been from the beginning, but nobody could get it working.
But on a side note. I do think yesterday answered the question that I will finally be able to use a Quadro in a PowerMac at the very beginning of next year though. (if not sooner, because I'm totally excited about this) And that Apple does intend on keeping the Pro line. Unlike those idiots that kept saying Apple will drop the PowerMac. F*ck! those @ss holes had me scared for a little while.
The SLI mobo's are special. They aren't regulat boards with two 8x slots. They are design to work with SLI just as boards are coming out designed to work with just Crossfire.
I'm pretty sure that this will not work with either.
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
There had better be a 7800gt option. That can't be true....
lbb
That's nonsense. I asked Apple about that today. He said that there was a delay.
Remember when they came out with the 6800Ultra? There was a delay there as well.
so are people freaked-out w/ liquid cooling now or are they beginning to accept it? I haven't seen the failure reports that so many worry about, myself, but we'll see what happens.
Originally posted by dirk gently
don't tell me people are buying these new PM's with the major intent to play 3-5 year old pc games on them. Oh, wow, you can play Halo at a slightly higher resolution with the new nvidia's via pci-e. Guess what... the enjoyment of that game goes up about 2% because of this. we are in serious need of new software to show off these systems.
so are people freaked-out w/ liquid cooling now or are they beginning to accept it? I haven't seen the failure reports that so many worry about, myself, but we'll see what happens.
I think it's more along the lines that people buying 3k dollar machines want graphics card that cost more than 50 dollars in them. I don't know for sure but i'm pretty sure it's something like that.
don't tell me people are buying these new PM's with the major intent to play 3-5 year old pc games on them. Oh, wow, you can play Halo at a slightly higher resolution with the new nvidia's via pci-e. Guess what... the enjoyment of that game goes up about 2% because of this. we are in serious need of new software to show off these systems.
And we have it in things like Aperture. Motion. Final Cut.
Doom 3. Lightwave 8-9. Poser 6.
These aren't 3-5 years old.
There's plenty of good stuff on the Mac that could do with a 7800GT.
Lemon Bon Bon
I think it's more along the lines that people buying 3k dollar machines want graphics card that cost more than 50 dollars in them. I don't know for sure but i'm pretty sure it's something like that.
Damn straight.
£2300 inc Vat for a 'flag ship' Quad Cpu Workstation with medicore GPU? THAT SUCKS!
Yeesh, adding the 6600GT is only £104. And performs the nuts off a 6600 vanilla. For an extra £50, the GT6600 would have been a really 'okay' card to include.
Honestly, Apple why inc' a card half way behind the curve all the time.
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. I'm glad the 7800 GT had merely been 'delayed'...
About time that they got Quadros onboard, these have been out for what, four years? FireGLs would be nice as well.
Well, with Mac's improving sales figures...ask the obvious question.
Will ATI take it with the 'bend over' from Nvidia?
When will ATI retort?
Nvidia have already hosed ATI in delivery and bang for buck this year.
How long before before ATI come back at them?
I'm guessing not that long...
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Remember the dark days of Quickdraw 3D and no 3D competitionn on the Mac? Competition...a beautiful thing...
Originally posted by Xool
Anyone know how the 2 GHz boxes compare, and to the various other Dual 2GHz models? I have a rev a dualie and am getting anxious to upgrade. Although at this point, I think I'd wait for the quads to trickle down the line a bit more and wait for the next gen screens.
I think the best bet for upgrading is to get an older 2.5Ghz machine from macmall for 2,200 and sell your current machine on ebay. I have been thinking about doing such a thing myself.
Originally posted by MacRonin
As they state in their own marketing drivel on the Apple website, the second Gigabit Ethernet port on the new PowerMac is for Xsan users...
Duh...
Ah, I hadnt seen that they had added another port... This is nice, since it is saves having to take up 2 slots just to run Xsan. What would have been super cool would have been to build in an Fibre Channel HBA so that all Power Macs would be Xsan ready out of the box (in terms of hardware). Just wishful thinking
Originally posted by Xool
Anyone know how the 2 GHz boxes compare, and to the various other Dual 2GHz models? I have a rev a dualie and am getting anxious to upgrade. Although at this point, I think I'd wait for the quads to trickle down the line a bit more and wait for the next gen screens.
it's hard to think you'd see the quads trickle down now. The next revision is probably going to be from Intel. There may be a 3rd party upgrade after-market replacement processor later.
Although, it is possible Apple will squeeze these one more time just to keep the updates coming before the revision to meet demand, and give them time for other projects before the intel transition.
i agree that the 7800 gt can handle a lot of openGL stuff in lightwave, say cinema4d, etc... quite well. quadro is probably when you are doing some serious "workstation" 3d graphics and very high resolutions/ multiple monitors etc. for creative motion graphics, animation type 3d work and lower-poly (eg games modelling) the 7800 gt would offer a lot of openGL goodness. 256mb vram would be sweet as well.
but again, like you said, benchmarks and models, polygon counts, texture size etc... would be the key to really work out whether one might want a 7800gt or Quadro. it's great that there is a Quadro option though, as many people on Ai have been commenting about this past year.
ati is behind the curve. the x1---- lines are not really shipping in quantity even to the gaming /pc world.
which is surprising for the 7800gt, either nvidia can't supply them for whatever reason or the drivers are not ready or something else is holding them up. which makes me think, how come apple doesn't get the 7800gts from say Asus? less of a profit margin but 3rd parties have been shipping 7800-series cards for many many months in good quantities now... hmmm
PS> anyway i have a very personal bias towards lightwave on the mac so mad props to the Quad, hopefully a lot of lightwave users in games, creative, motion, vfx, animation, etc... will get onto the Quad with either the 7800gt (if it ever comes out!!) or Quadro....
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Well, with Mac's improving sales figures...ask the obvious question.
Will ATI take it with the 'bend over' from Nvidia?
When will ATI retort?
Nvidia have already hosed ATI in delivery and bang for buck this year.
How long before before ATI come back at them?
I'm guessing not that long...
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Remember the dark days of Quickdraw 3D and no 3D competitionn on the Mac? Competition...a beautiful thing...
I'm sure ATI will respond. But they're having so many problems of their own getting the 1000 series out the door as it is that this is probably on the backburner for now.
Originally posted by melgross
I'm sure ATI will respond. But they're having so many problems of their own getting the 1000 series out the door as it is that this is probably on the backburner for now.
agreed.
From the Luxology forums:
Quote from Allen Hastings :
We had the opportunity to try one of the new quad G5s with modo 201 and I must say I was impressed with its speed. As an example, it rendered the global illumination test image shown above in 17 seconds flat. The scene includes 244,000 polygons with 8 sample antialiasing and 200 indirect rays. Brad's dual 2.5 G5 takes 38 seconds to render the same scene, so it looks like the new machines can render over twice as fast.
Originally posted by KidRed
OK guys. I just got off the phone with Apple and they have NO IDEA when the 7800 will be available. No idea. It could be two months. So, to cancel my order and two months for the 7800 at $400 more isn't something that sounds appealing.
So my question- I do photoshop 90% of the time, I don't really play games and I only watch video. So, I know the 7800 kills the 6600, but would I see any or enough of the benefit that warrant the wait and $400?
Ok, to answer this again.
Maybe this will give you some idea.
The 6600 LE - the lower end board, will let you run 1 30" display and 1 23" display at the same time. that's pushing a lot of pixels around.