I'd be willing to bet intel has something in the works for this. Otherwise that's a serious feature missing from their chipset that allt he other chipsets have. Sure they could promote the 7950 g2... but everyone else can promote 2 7950 g2's. *shrugs* I don't really care personally. But I konw many professionals who do.
In PC-land news is that 2 7950g2s (quad SLI) is not officially supported by nVidia. Something to do with the bridging the two cards which individually have a bridge in there already.
Anyway if you wanted 2 7950g2s, it would really only be for gaming PC titles at really high resolutions. Otherwise for Mac Pros you'd just go Quadro. For those seriously into Mac gaming, a single high-end 7series nVidia card would be enough.
Do you think anybody is going to be playing Mac games on their Woodcrest PCI-e rig that can boot into Windows? I know I'm going to be a pretty heavy Boot Camper on my Mac Pro.
Do you think anybody is going to be playing Mac games on their Woodcrest PCI-e rig that can boot into Windows? I know I'm going to be a pretty heavy Boot Camper on my Mac Pro.
*bangs head on desk* *bangs everyone else's head on the desk that keeps jumping to the game conclusion*
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Is everyone mocking me? We can all agree that the mac is NOT 1 thing..... and that is a gaming rig.
If you would read back, you would NOTICE that I was referring to the Mac Pro being used for 3d modeling. Where SLI TRULY SHINES.
Next person that says anything about SLI and gaming and referring to my post, i'm ignoring. I could care less about SLI and games and many many mac professionals could care less about games. There is an urgent need for it in the 3d modeling area though.
so, Apple - a biiig Pro Box with a *highly* expandible line from 1 x Woodcrest (with a spare socket) through to 2 x fastest available, [/B]
Heh -- I love when wishful thinking takes over, as it so often does here. I don't think you're ever going to see an official processor expansion/upgrade path from Apple, they make too damn much money from that jump to two sockets. Although if you're lucky they'll slip in the BIOS support for an unoffical CPU upgrade path. If you're lucky.
And shipping a single Woodcrest on a dual motherboard makes no financial sense ... the Conroe would be cheaper and 99% of buyers would never fill that second CPU slot anyway.
Heh -- I love when wishful thinking takes over, as it so often does here. I don't think you're ever going to see an official processor expansion/upgrade path from Apple, they make too damn much money from that jump to two sockets.
A retail install of Leopard will work fine with different processors, probably. Especially since Leopard will be out around the same time as the upgraded Mac Pros. Apple doesn't need to support it officially, but it'll work. Some guy dropped a Merom into a dual-core Mini and it worked fine apparently.
A retail install of Leopard will work fine with different processors, probably. Especially since Leopard will be out around the same time as the upgraded Mac Pros. Apple doesn't need to support it officially, but it'll work. Some guy dropped a Merom into a dual-core Mini and it worked fine apparently.
That was unusual on Apple's part. They didn't offer a socket in the G4 mini. I don't know if they ever offered a PowerMac Gx with an empty second socket, even though they could have easily done so. Supposedly the dual socket G5 machines were upgradeable, but I really haven't heard of anyone doing that.
Wow, there is a first time for everything. We actually agree on something for once. That independent producer sure isn't going to be buying an Xserve RAID or SDI card. I think there's a serious misconception on the part of some here, including JeffDM, that I'm saying all Pro machines should be downsized. I have no problems with the top of the line machines needing to be humongous. But what about your average Photoshop maven who needs more speed than an iMac provides but wouldn't need more than one PCI slot in a million years? Surely the heavy duty video users can afford to buy the top of the line. Indeed, let those buyers have six slots, like the old 9500 (which also had an amazing 12 RAM slots). They're willing to pay for it. Now that would help distinguish the Pro line from the iMacs. All Pros could have four cores to beat the iMacs, but the best model could have internal expansion galore to distinguish it from the "low end" Pro models.
I agree more than you think, I just don't always post.
That's the point. there needs to be a range. I've been saying that myself for quite a while. I started with the 950, then the 9500, the 9600, several G4 towers, and a dual G5. We seem to have gone backwards. Apple is producing what seems to be mid-range machines at a high range price, and is ignoring both ends of the range.
*yells* I don't want SLI or Crossfire or dual pci-e cards for gaming!!! *spits on games* hehe.
It's funny, everyone immediately jumps on the gaming bandwagon when sli is brought up. I want it for modeling and real time rendering on those models i'm working with. Why can't anyone see how much more beneficial it is to have this stuff in the studio as opposed to adding 30fps on your games *rolls eyes*.
Because, sadly, games seem to rule the graphics card market.
[BYou can't tell me Apple's engineers couldn't squeeze four HD bays and a couple of PCIe slots into that form factor. Heck, with a little imagination, you could pack six bays in there (say three vertically on edge on each side of the optical bay, with the PCI slots below the optical drive, which could let this thing be as little as 8" tall). Add black anodized versions of the aluminum Cinema Displays, and the Cube system of the 80s would be back! [/B]
Sure they could, if they wanted to. Look at all of the third party solutions for doing just that. The reviews of those products say that they only raise case temp a few degrees ? and that's with them being right in the cpu cooling path! There's a lot of extra cooling capacity in the water cooled case. I think Apple wanted it that way, anticipating faster (and hotter) chips that never materialized. There is also a half height space for a drive on top that Apple has never used, but that others have. Again, with no penalty.
*bangs head on desk* *bangs everyone else's head on the desk that keeps jumping to the game conclusion*
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Is everyone mocking me? We can all agree that the mac is NOT 1 thing..... and that is a gaming rig.
If you would read back, you would NOTICE that I was referring to the Mac Pro being used for 3d modeling. Where SLI TRULY SHINES.
Next person that says anything about SLI and gaming and referring to my post, i'm ignoring. I could care less about SLI and games and many many mac professionals could care less about games. There is an urgent need for it in the 3d modeling area though.
It's true. But, don't forget that Alien and Voodoo machines, expensive beasts, are mostly bought by gamers. I've read gamers say on other sites that if the Mac does games as well as a gaming PC, they'll switch. I believe that.
That was unusual on Apple's part. They didn't offer a socket in the G4 mini. I don't know if they ever offered a PowerMac Gx with an empty second socket, even though they could have easily done so. Supposedly the dual socket G5 machines were upgradeable, but I really haven't heard of anyone doing that.
No, Apple never did offer a machine with an empty socket.
One reason why we never saw G5 upgrades was because the chips were always in tight supply. The upgrade companies couldn't get them at a low enough price for the market. Changing cpu's on the G5's was a bear as well.
I will never buy an all-in-one desktop or a completely unexpandable repackaged notebook like the mini.
Your loss.
Quote:
You'll also start a really nice trend of getting me to buy new Macs.
Hardly, since those people are the same ones unwilling to pay any margin whatsoever. And since they'll be able to easily upgrade single components (which, mind you, is a complete waste of money, but that doesn't stop them), which is to Apple's loss (no revenues at all), why would Apple possibly allow that?
Am I the only one who thought that the beige-done-right look of the first PMG3 towers was actually pretty appealing?
David
i did say above-average ? i had an 8600 years ago ? and the internal accessibility was great - even tho it was a beigebox it was ahead of the pack @the time, both in terms of internals and the external appearance
tend to disagree with those who blast the cheese-grater - outside & in it's beautifully designed IMHO (trust me, i'm a designer ) ? but pragmatically speaking it needs a lot more bays for its intended market...
the G5 line has tried to cater for too broad a range of users (as stated by others here) ? if Apple wants to sell more on the high-end the Pro Box has got to be Pro & a Midi machine will really sell well to the existing user base & all those contemplating the switch, but wanting more than a mini and better value/less cuteness than the iMac...
Heh -- I love when wishful thinking takes over, as it so often does here. I don't think you're ever going to see an official processor expansion/upgrade path from Apple, they make too damn much money from that jump to two sockets. Although if you're lucky they'll slip in the BIOS support for an unoffical CPU upgrade path. If you're lucky.
And shipping a single Woodcrest on a dual motherboard makes no financial sense ... the Conroe would be cheaper and 99% of buyers would never fill that second CPU slot anyway.
hmm. this is an extremely wishful sentiment, i admit (adjusting my tinfoil hat )
but Apple does seem to be following a long path from the proprietry/closed box for people who want a computer that doesn't ever seem like a piece of hardware, to more industry-standard hardware & better upgrade options for a newer generation of users who aren't afraid to tinker with the innards, @least a bit...
eg: from adopting PCI in the early 90's, all the way to the Intel switch itself - the last milestone in this journey... the latest promising example is the easily swappable MacBook HD ? i'm not a tech expert & swopping my old iBook G4 drive out is the most complex MacSurgery i've ever performed - it was a mammoth task, for me @least...
don't laugh too loud, but PC vendors from Dell to AlienWare have offered systems with common motherboards and a spare CPU slot on the lower-end for a DP upgrade at a later date. while Apple will never be a Dell (they really do represent the polar opposites of the hardware spectrum), a few value-tips could be taken that make the machines more appealing to tech-savvy users...
this is great for the ever-increasing numbers of those who make their income from their own machines ? and they are not the techno-phobic generation of designers Apple captured with the mac in the late 80's, but a generation who have entered an already digital design & video world...
offering a single motherboard across the line cuts development costs (which in a small market are high relative to the actual price of production - even more so with the case, which is why the world's-coolest-cheesegrater has contained everything from a single 1.6 970 for $1800 to dual 970MP's for $3300)
more serious & tech-savvy users (ie: from existing prosumer users to a lot of potential switchers from PC background) will gladly choose a low-end single Woodcrest in a fairly empty Pro case above a top-of-the-midrange decked-out compact with a Conroe Extreme, even if the price-tags are around $2000 & $1800, respectively ? IF the $2000 machine has the potential to be upgraded to the level of a $3000 machine in time...
this would both get more Pro machines moving out the door of the Apple Store itself (agreeing with what others have said here: most needing @least a prosumer machine for starting out independently in the design/video worlds do tend to shop on eBay first, then finally head for a new machine from Apple a few years later, provided that their income has grown sufficiently) - AND provide additional revenue from upgrades - there's room for a generous installation markup here (well, not quite as much as Apple RAM price mark-ups) that'd still make the upgrades much more reasonable & attractive than the torturous & expensive process of selling a machine, buying a new one & re-locating one's life, work & data...
still, knowing Apple all too well the past 20 yrs, this is probably still wishful thinking... \
The Mac Pro will be a PC, therefore it will be just as upgradeable as an Alienware or Dell provided that Apple doesn't try to intentionally hinder that.
*bangs head on desk* *bangs everyone else's head on the desk that keeps jumping to the game conclusion*
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Is everyone mocking me? We can all agree that the mac is NOT 1 thing..... and that is a gaming rig.
If you would read back, you would NOTICE that I was referring to the Mac Pro being used for 3d modeling. Where SLI TRULY SHINES.
Next person that says anything about SLI and gaming and referring to my post, i'm ignoring. I could care less about SLI and games and many many mac professionals could care less about games. There is an urgent need for it in the 3d modeling area though.
You can use a graphics card for whatever you want. I was just noting that the Mac Pro is a high-end PC and will run Windows as such. I know what you 3D artists do; great for you. I don't care what you want the Mac Pro to be and not to be used for.
*yells* I don't want SLI or Crossfire or dual pci-e cards for gaming!!! *spits on games* hehe....It's funny, everyone immediately jumps on the gaming bandwagon when sli is brought up. I want it for modeling and real time rendering on those models i'm working with. Why can't anyone see how much more beneficial it is to have this stuff in the studio as opposed to adding 30fps on your games *rolls eyes*.
Good luck with getting Mac SLI drivers though
muah aha hah haha hh aaha
The money you spend on Two cards in SLI you might as well put into ONE kickass card. This is well known in the gaming world already.
If you're thinking, Oh, I can upgrade later by adding in another card for SLI, by that time, again, you might as well buy ONE NEW kickass card.
SLI is a bit of a gimmick in the gaming world with enthusiast/ branding/ marketing purposes mainly. Enthusiast gamers normally use SLI so that they can put together two nVidia 7900s or something like that to get ridiculously high frame rates.
DON'T GET SUCKED INTO IT if you are doing 3D work on a Mac. Just get a decent ONE 3D CARD (I guess from the look of it the only option is a Quadro FX 4500).
Unless you want to run TWO Quadro FX 4500s in SLI or something like that???? Wow, that would be beastly...is that the kind of power you're after?
It's true. But, don't forget that Alien and Voodoo machines, expensive beasts, are mostly bought by gamers. I've read gamers say on other sites that if the Mac does games as well as a gaming PC, they'll switch. I believe that.
(Placebo this means you as well)
Yes, BootCamp is great now you can run PC games! I think that's a good step. But graphics card options are the reall deal-killer here. x1600 is not that great*. mobility x1600 is not that great. underclocking them in the Mac is not cool (pun intended, I guess). G5 towers - 6600 plain is not great. The only reasonable graphics card for serious gamers who would consider Mac is those that get the G5 towers and the nVidia 7800GT.
so there's only 1 reasonable option for gamers to switch to Mac and run their PC games in bootcamp
*Running at low-medium settings with x1600 is really not that appealing to those that go Alien/ Voodoo.
[i]DON'T GET SUCKED INTO IT if you are doing 3D work on a Mac. Just get a decent ONE 3D CARD (I guess from the look of it the only option is a Quadro FX 4500).
Unless you want to run TWO Quadro FX 4500s in SLI or something like that???? Wow, that would be beastly...is that the kind of power you're after?
Personally I'm not after that power. I have a 7900gt in my pc and it does just fine. I'm just a hobbiest though. I do know professionals that yearn for that power. While I do feel it is a bit of a gimmick, try explaining that to the every day modelers that need that extra umph. I'm still stuck on a pb 1.25ghz g4 15"... so I hardly do any modeling on this book. Definitely waiting for something better than an underclocked x1600m before I get another laptop though.
While I feel SLI / Crossfire isn't all it's cracked up to be... it sure is easier to add another card than upgrade to the top line card.
Comments
Originally posted by sunilraman
Originally posted by emig647
I'd be willing to bet intel has something in the works for this. Otherwise that's a serious feature missing from their chipset that allt he other chipsets have. Sure they could promote the 7950 g2... but everyone else can promote 2 7950 g2's. *shrugs* I don't really care personally. But I konw many professionals who do.
In PC-land news is that 2 7950g2s (quad SLI) is not officially supported by nVidia. Something to do with the bridging the two cards which individually have a bridge in there already.
Anyway if you wanted 2 7950g2s, it would really only be for gaming PC titles at really high resolutions. Otherwise for Mac Pros you'd just go Quadro. For those seriously into Mac gaming, a single high-end 7series nVidia card would be enough.
Do you think anybody is going to be playing Mac games on their Woodcrest PCI-e rig that can boot into Windows? I know I'm going to be a pretty heavy Boot Camper on my Mac Pro.
Originally posted by Placebo
Do you think anybody is going to be playing Mac games on their Woodcrest PCI-e rig that can boot into Windows? I know I'm going to be a pretty heavy Boot Camper on my Mac Pro.
*bangs head on desk* *bangs everyone else's head on the desk that keeps jumping to the game conclusion*
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Is everyone mocking me? We can all agree that the mac is NOT 1 thing..... and that is a gaming rig.
If you would read back, you would NOTICE that I was referring to the Mac Pro being used for 3d modeling. Where SLI TRULY SHINES.
Next person that says anything about SLI and gaming and referring to my post, i'm ignoring. I could care less about SLI and games and many many mac professionals could care less about games. There is an urgent need for it in the 3d modeling area though.
Originally posted by moloko
so, Apple - a biiig Pro Box with a *highly* expandible line from 1 x Woodcrest (with a spare socket) through to 2 x fastest available, [/B]
Heh -- I love when wishful thinking takes over, as it so often does here. I don't think you're ever going to see an official processor expansion/upgrade path from Apple, they make too damn much money from that jump to two sockets. Although if you're lucky they'll slip in the BIOS support for an unoffical CPU upgrade path. If you're lucky.
And shipping a single Woodcrest on a dual motherboard makes no financial sense ... the Conroe would be cheaper and 99% of buyers would never fill that second CPU slot anyway.
Originally posted by IntlHarvester
Heh -- I love when wishful thinking takes over, as it so often does here. I don't think you're ever going to see an official processor expansion/upgrade path from Apple, they make too damn much money from that jump to two sockets.
A retail install of Leopard will work fine with different processors, probably. Especially since Leopard will be out around the same time as the upgraded Mac Pros. Apple doesn't need to support it officially, but it'll work. Some guy dropped a Merom into a dual-core Mini and it worked fine apparently.
Originally posted by ZachPruckowski
A retail install of Leopard will work fine with different processors, probably. Especially since Leopard will be out around the same time as the upgraded Mac Pros. Apple doesn't need to support it officially, but it'll work. Some guy dropped a Merom into a dual-core Mini and it worked fine apparently.
That was unusual on Apple's part. They didn't offer a socket in the G4 mini. I don't know if they ever offered a PowerMac Gx with an empty second socket, even though they could have easily done so. Supposedly the dual socket G5 machines were upgradeable, but I really haven't heard of anyone doing that.
Originally posted by Kolchak
Wow, there is a first time for everything. We actually agree on something for once. That independent producer sure isn't going to be buying an Xserve RAID or SDI card. I think there's a serious misconception on the part of some here, including JeffDM, that I'm saying all Pro machines should be downsized. I have no problems with the top of the line machines needing to be humongous. But what about your average Photoshop maven who needs more speed than an iMac provides but wouldn't need more than one PCI slot in a million years? Surely the heavy duty video users can afford to buy the top of the line. Indeed, let those buyers have six slots, like the old 9500 (which also had an amazing 12 RAM slots). They're willing to pay for it. Now that would help distinguish the Pro line from the iMacs. All Pros could have four cores to beat the iMacs, but the best model could have internal expansion galore to distinguish it from the "low end" Pro models.
I agree more than you think, I just don't always post.
That's the point. there needs to be a range. I've been saying that myself for quite a while. I started with the 950, then the 9500, the 9600, several G4 towers, and a dual G5. We seem to have gone backwards. Apple is producing what seems to be mid-range machines at a high range price, and is ignoring both ends of the range.
Originally posted by emig647
*yells* I don't want SLI or Crossfire or dual pci-e cards for gaming!!! *spits on games* hehe.
It's funny, everyone immediately jumps on the gaming bandwagon when sli is brought up. I want it for modeling and real time rendering on those models i'm working with. Why can't anyone see how much more beneficial it is to have this stuff in the studio as opposed to adding 30fps on your games *rolls eyes*.
Because, sadly, games seem to rule the graphics card market.
Originally posted by Kolchak
[BYou can't tell me Apple's engineers couldn't squeeze four HD bays and a couple of PCIe slots into that form factor. Heck, with a little imagination, you could pack six bays in there (say three vertically on edge on each side of the optical bay, with the PCI slots below the optical drive, which could let this thing be as little as 8" tall). Add black anodized versions of the aluminum Cinema Displays, and the Cube system of the 80s would be back! [/B]
Sure they could, if they wanted to. Look at all of the third party solutions for doing just that. The reviews of those products say that they only raise case temp a few degrees ? and that's with them being right in the cpu cooling path! There's a lot of extra cooling capacity in the water cooled case. I think Apple wanted it that way, anticipating faster (and hotter) chips that never materialized. There is also a half height space for a drive on top that Apple has never used, but that others have. Again, with no penalty.
Originally posted by emig647
*bangs head on desk* *bangs everyone else's head on the desk that keeps jumping to the game conclusion*
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Is everyone mocking me? We can all agree that the mac is NOT 1 thing..... and that is a gaming rig.
If you would read back, you would NOTICE that I was referring to the Mac Pro being used for 3d modeling. Where SLI TRULY SHINES.
Next person that says anything about SLI and gaming and referring to my post, i'm ignoring. I could care less about SLI and games and many many mac professionals could care less about games. There is an urgent need for it in the 3d modeling area though.
It's true. But, don't forget that Alien and Voodoo machines, expensive beasts, are mostly bought by gamers. I've read gamers say on other sites that if the Mac does games as well as a gaming PC, they'll switch. I believe that.
Originally posted by JeffDM
That was unusual on Apple's part. They didn't offer a socket in the G4 mini. I don't know if they ever offered a PowerMac Gx with an empty second socket, even though they could have easily done so. Supposedly the dual socket G5 machines were upgradeable, but I really haven't heard of anyone doing that.
No, Apple never did offer a machine with an empty socket.
One reason why we never saw G5 upgrades was because the chips were always in tight supply. The upgrade companies couldn't get them at a low enough price for the market. Changing cpu's on the G5's was a bear as well.
Originally posted by Bregalad
I will never buy an all-in-one desktop or a completely unexpandable repackaged notebook like the mini.
Your loss.
You'll also start a really nice trend of getting me to buy new Macs.
Hardly, since those people are the same ones unwilling to pay any margin whatsoever. And since they'll be able to easily upgrade single components (which, mind you, is a complete waste of money, but that doesn't stop them), which is to Apple's loss (no revenues at all), why would Apple possibly allow that?
Originally posted by iMacfan
Am I the only one who thought that the beige-done-right look of the first PMG3 towers was actually pretty appealing?
David
tend to disagree with those who blast the cheese-grater - outside & in it's beautifully designed IMHO (trust me, i'm a designer
the G5 line has tried to cater for too broad a range of users (as stated by others here) ? if Apple wants to sell more on the high-end the Pro Box has got to be Pro & a Midi machine will really sell well to the existing user base & all those contemplating the switch, but wanting more than a mini and better value/less cuteness than the iMac...
Originally posted by IntlHarvester
Heh -- I love when wishful thinking takes over, as it so often does here. I don't think you're ever going to see an official processor expansion/upgrade path from Apple, they make too damn much money from that jump to two sockets. Although if you're lucky they'll slip in the BIOS support for an unoffical CPU upgrade path. If you're lucky.
And shipping a single Woodcrest on a dual motherboard makes no financial sense ... the Conroe would be cheaper and 99% of buyers would never fill that second CPU slot anyway.
hmm. this is an extremely wishful sentiment, i admit (adjusting my tinfoil hat
but Apple does seem to be following a long path from the proprietry/closed box for people who want a computer that doesn't ever seem like a piece of hardware, to more industry-standard hardware & better upgrade options for a newer generation of users who aren't afraid to tinker with the innards, @least a bit...
eg: from adopting PCI in the early 90's, all the way to the Intel switch itself - the last milestone in this journey... the latest promising example is the easily swappable MacBook HD ? i'm not a tech expert & swopping my old iBook G4 drive out is the most complex MacSurgery i've ever performed - it was a mammoth task, for me @least...
don't laugh too loud, but PC vendors from Dell to AlienWare have offered systems with common motherboards and a spare CPU slot on the lower-end for a DP upgrade at a later date. while Apple will never be a Dell (they really do represent the polar opposites of the hardware spectrum), a few value-tips could be taken that make the machines more appealing to tech-savvy users...
this is great for the ever-increasing numbers of those who make their income from their own machines ? and they are not the techno-phobic generation of designers Apple captured with the mac in the late 80's, but a generation who have entered an already digital design & video world...
offering a single motherboard across the line cuts development costs (which in a small market are high relative to the actual price of production - even more so with the case, which is why the world's-coolest-cheesegrater has contained everything from a single 1.6 970 for $1800 to dual 970MP's for $3300)
more serious & tech-savvy users (ie: from existing prosumer users to a lot of potential switchers from PC background) will gladly choose a low-end single Woodcrest in a fairly empty Pro case above a top-of-the-midrange decked-out compact with a Conroe Extreme, even if the price-tags are around $2000 & $1800, respectively ? IF the $2000 machine has the potential to be upgraded to the level of a $3000 machine in time...
this would both get more Pro machines moving out the door of the Apple Store itself (agreeing with what others have said here: most needing @least a prosumer machine for starting out independently in the design/video worlds do tend to shop on eBay first, then finally head for a new machine from Apple a few years later, provided that their income has grown sufficiently) - AND provide additional revenue from upgrades - there's room for a generous installation markup here (well, not quite as much as Apple RAM price mark-ups) that'd still make the upgrades much more reasonable & attractive than the torturous & expensive process of selling a machine, buying a new one & re-locating one's life, work & data...
still, knowing Apple all too well the past 20 yrs, this is probably still wishful thinking...
Originally posted by emig647
*bangs head on desk* *bangs everyone else's head on the desk that keeps jumping to the game conclusion*
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Is everyone mocking me? We can all agree that the mac is NOT 1 thing..... and that is a gaming rig.
If you would read back, you would NOTICE that I was referring to the Mac Pro being used for 3d modeling. Where SLI TRULY SHINES.
Next person that says anything about SLI and gaming and referring to my post, i'm ignoring. I could care less about SLI and games and many many mac professionals could care less about games. There is an urgent need for it in the 3d modeling area though.
You can use a graphics card for whatever you want. I was just noting that the Mac Pro is a high-end PC and will run Windows as such. I know what you 3D artists do; great for you. I don't care what you want the Mac Pro to be and not to be used for.
Hell, I didn't even say anything about SLI.
Originally posted by melgross
Because, sadly, games seem to rule the graphics card market.
Sadly, the use of a product typically dictates what the product is designed to be used for.
Funny, that.
*yells* I don't want SLI or Crossfire or dual pci-e cards for gaming!!! *spits on games* hehe....It's funny, everyone immediately jumps on the gaming bandwagon when sli is brought up. I want it for modeling and real time rendering on those models i'm working with. Why can't anyone see how much more beneficial it is to have this stuff in the studio as opposed to adding 30fps on your games *rolls eyes*.
Good luck with getting Mac SLI drivers though
muah aha hah haha hh aaha
The money you spend on Two cards in SLI you might as well put into ONE kickass card. This is well known in the gaming world already.
If you're thinking, Oh, I can upgrade later by adding in another card for SLI, by that time, again, you might as well buy ONE NEW kickass card.
SLI is a bit of a gimmick in the gaming world with enthusiast/ branding/ marketing purposes mainly. Enthusiast gamers normally use SLI so that they can put together two nVidia 7900s or something like that to get ridiculously high frame rates.
DON'T GET SUCKED INTO IT if you are doing 3D work on a Mac. Just get a decent ONE 3D CARD (I guess from the look of it the only option is a Quadro FX 4500).
Unless you want to run TWO Quadro FX 4500s in SLI or something like that???? Wow, that would be beastly...is that the kind of power you're after?
nVidia has a page on SLI Quadros:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_sli.html
It's true. But, don't forget that Alien and Voodoo machines, expensive beasts, are mostly bought by gamers. I've read gamers say on other sites that if the Mac does games as well as a gaming PC, they'll switch. I believe that.
(Placebo this means you as well)
Yes, BootCamp is great now you can run PC games! I think that's a good step. But graphics card options are the reall deal-killer here. x1600 is not that great*. mobility x1600 is not that great. underclocking them in the Mac is not cool (pun intended, I guess). G5 towers - 6600 plain is not great. The only reasonable graphics card for serious gamers who would consider Mac is those that get the G5 towers and the nVidia 7800GT.
so there's only 1 reasonable option for gamers to switch to Mac and run their PC games in bootcamp
*Running at low-medium settings with x1600 is really not that appealing to those that go Alien/ Voodoo.
Originally posted by sunilraman
[i]DON'T GET SUCKED INTO IT if you are doing 3D work on a Mac. Just get a decent ONE 3D CARD (I guess from the look of it the only option is a Quadro FX 4500).
Unless you want to run TWO Quadro FX 4500s in SLI or something like that???? Wow, that would be beastly...is that the kind of power you're after?
nVidia has a page on SLI Quadros:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_sli.html
Personally I'm not after that power. I have a 7900gt in my pc and it does just fine. I'm just a hobbiest though. I do know professionals that yearn for that power. While I do feel it is a bit of a gimmick, try explaining that to the every day modelers that need that extra umph. I'm still stuck on a pb 1.25ghz g4 15"... so I hardly do any modeling on this book. Definitely waiting for something better than an underclocked x1600m before I get another laptop though.
While I feel SLI / Crossfire isn't all it's cracked up to be... it sure is easier to add another card than upgrade to the top line card.