LOL... all new games optimized for SLI? Only in nVidia's dreams.
You're probably right that the SLI-all-on-one-card devices have likely eliminated the cases where it runs slower. It used to be that the CPU had to submit everything twice and transfer data across the bus twice, but now both GPUs likely read the same data.
Optimized was a bad choice of words, but there are no games that show lesser performance with 2 cards than they do with one anymore.
Needless to say it was simple to turn SLI off in the 2 games that didn't perform better with it.
But wouldnt 4 GPU works faster in rendering games for example compared to 1 GPU? ( Sorry, for asking this question, I always wondered how this more then 1 GPU works)
There's an excellent article in Maximum PC magazine this month (may be last month by now) on this topic. It applies to Mac or PC given their testing criteria. It was a VERY good read that answered all of your questions in your posts here. Basically, there is little difference between 4 ATI cards and a single nVidia ultra card. Bottom line though is a single power house card still beats 4 cards of lower quality even if SLI.
I would HIGHLY recommend this article for anyone with interest in either gaming or pure graphics display regardless of application use.
If you're gonna play games you need XP. Vista runs games significantly worse.
I just built a system using 64bit Vista and everything runs fine and fast.
Lian-li alum Case
1000w PS
ASUS 780i
intel core2 duo 3ghz
8gigs ram OCZ with HS and pipe
2 WD 750 HD Raid0
2 plextor DL DVD SATA
2 nvidia G92 512 SLI latest ref drivers for 64bit
Dell 30 inch LCD
My old Logitech THX 5.1 speakers
Vista64 with SP1 beta
Oc'ed to around 3.5Ghz very stable--rock...
I remember everyone say to stay away from XP when it was first released becuase thats what they heard when it was in beta. People tend to remember the first 3 months of a OS release and forget that new drivers, hardware, and expertise make it better than what it replaced.
All my adobe and sound recording software work great on Vista64, not to mention all my games.
you'll get a 10fps speed boost if you use XP while playing game man. .
Anyway will Vista improve?
Yes.
How long?
Well only time will tell but it wont be soon. Maybe in the middle of the year.
Why I hate Vista?
Cause Msoft didn supply drivers for my hardwares and software incompatibility, oh yeah and did I forgot to mention the high system requirement to run Vista? It needs 2GB of ram to run fast with a empty hard drive. I cant imagine once your hard disk starts becoming full with datas.
It's not that new of news, but it's news, and it pisses me off! A few days ago Toms hardware scored some exclusive PIctures of the Nvidia 9800GX2 which is basically 2x Nvidia G92 GPU's SLI'd together on one card. It's about 30% faster than the 8800 Ultra so reports say. I don't even want to think about it. Other than hoping Apple offers one before my Mac Ships so I can change my order. \
I feel your pain, but consider this:
You ordered the Mac that you did with a setup that should work for you for now. Would it be possible to upgrade to the new card in six months when the price has dropped?
You ordered the Mac that you did with a setup that should work for you for now. Would it be possible to upgrade to the new card in six months when the price has dropped?
Probably not because of SLI issues. I'll probably have to buy the next Mac Pro and sell the one I just got. That's why I say "Damn it Apple!" They are 5 to 6 years behind the other leading manufacturers.
If you're gonna play games you need XP. Vista runs games significantly worse.
Looks like we found where some of the "slowness" in OSX comes from. Its amazing how many resources quartz extreme and Aero3D take to give you that good looking GUI.
Looks like we found where some of the "slowness" in OSX comes from. Its amazing how many resources quartz extreme and Aero3D take to give you that good looking GUI.
You need to elaborate because that is a blanket statement that could mean many things. The only graphics performance issue Mac's have IMO is the fact that there is not the same array of high end video cards available to users as there is on the PC side. By high end I mean cards that you probably can not afford. Like Quadro FX SDI options, SLI options, QuadroFX X2 card options which are not for average users or even gamers. Even the Geforce card I'm talking about in this thread isn't for the faint of heart or the small on wallet. But just knowing it's not an option, especially because I would have bought one, does not mean the Mac has graphics performance issues. Because the Mac OS itself is far superior to windows in graphics performance.
Yeh. I'm still 'dreaming' of my killer 'dream' set up.
Plus. Die shrunk technology isn't sexy. AKA Penryn and the 'year old plus' 8800 series. That's all the 9800x2 is.
If word on the street is true about the performance of the r700 and the g100? You'd be crazy to buy 9800x2 now.
And what's the chance of a Penryn processor bump before Dec 2008/Nehalem?
I'm also fancying the idea of an iMac Quad with GT level performance re: June-ish? Around the time of the next(?) ATI card update.
Yeh. 8 lemons and counting or years if you prefer. I will buy one this year. Honest.
*Crickets chirping*. No...really..ahem...*blush.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Still Desperately wanting his dream Mac. Will Apple find him?
#1 you're never going to buy a new Mac. Every time a new processor is announced you say your waiting for the next one.
#2 ATI says their cards are going to be faster than Nvidia every year, and they never are. They still say it when the cards are released, and then Toms hardware, and everybody else runs tests on them and guess what. They still suck! And Nvidias old card is running circles around it. So quit crying about it, and shit or get off the pot.
does not mean the Mac has graphics performance issues. Because the Mac OS itself is far superior to windows in graphics performance.
In many ways this is true, but there are issues with the MacOSX OpenGL implementation as there are with any OpenGL implementation. If an application doesn't hit the right path through the graphics pipeline, performance can suffer compared to the performance on Windows (at least XP). The OpenGL implementations on Windows can be entirely provided by the GPU vendor, and they can get maximum performance by ensuring that the shortest path exists from application to hardware. Under MacOSX (and Vista) the system software contributes part of the pipeline and the driver contributes part so you have more pieces of software involves, which generally means more overhead... or at the very least more complications in trying to understand performance and how to optimize the application to maximize it. Since some (many? most?) Mac games are ports from Windows, the developer is often limited in how much adjustment can be done to make things as efficient as possible (and their knowledge & budget are often limitations as well).
As a result you may often see the same application/game perform worse on MacOSX than its WindowsXP equivalent. Nonetheless the MacOSX OpenGL implementation is actually quite respectable and can outperform the Windows version if wielded appropriately.
#1 you're never going to buy a new Mac. Every time a new processor is announced you say your waiting for the next one.
Well. The cpu isn't too bad. 8 core. PRetty damn good. But it's still alot of lolly for a rig that doesn't have a top end gpu included as standard or as an option. ie No GTX.
The monitors are out of date. And pricey compared to the opposition.
You've ordered your rig. And I can see that an octo and GT will make you happy.
I nearly pulled the trigger.
However, I'll wait until the true next gen gpus come out, and hopefully the tower will have a skin refresh with new LCDs.
Either that or I'll get the quad core iMac...with a decent gpu me hopes.
It's nearly there.
But like you, I have to feel I'm getting what I wanted when I'm spending £1500-2500 quid. And in dollars it's a whole lot more...
Well. The cpu isn't too bad. 8 core. PRetty damn good. But it's still alot of lolly for a rig that doesn't have a top end gpu included as standard or as an option. ie No GTX.
The monitors are out of date. And pricey compared to the opposition.
You've ordered your rig. And I can see that an octo and GT will make you happy.
I nearly pulled the trigger.
However, I'll wait until the true next gen gpus come out, and hopefully the tower will have a skin refresh with new LCDs.
Either that or I'll get the quad core iMac...with a decent gpu me hopes.
It's nearly there.
But like you, I have to feel I'm getting what I wanted when I'm spending £1500-2500 quid. And in dollars it's a whole lot more...
Best,
Lemon Bon Bon.
The statement in red really shows how much research you do on GPU speeds.
Looks like those cores do the job on 3d rendering...
Quote:
The statement in red really shows how much research you do on GPU speeds.
A presumptious statement. Anandtech is one of my favourite haunts.
Yes. The GT performs quite close to the GTX in all but the highest resolutions. Yes. I've seen the link and many other reviews for the amazing GT. More amazing still is Apple is beating many PC vendors on price...
Still. How are the drivers on the Mac holding up this time? I know Nvidia haven't always had the best Mac drivers. Or ATI for that matter...
Ah...and if Anandtech can air cool Penryn to a mega 4 gig...are Intel sand bagging or what?
Looks like those cores do the job on 3d rendering...
A presumptious statement. Anandtech is one of my favourite haunts.
Yes. The GT performs quite close to the GTX in all but the highest resolutions. Yes. I've seen the link and many other reviews for the amazing GT. More amazing still is Apple is beating many PC vendors on price...
Still. How are the drivers on the Mac holding up this time? I know Nvidia haven't always had the best Mac drivers. Or ATI for that matter...
Ah...and if Anandtech can air cool Penryn to a mega 4 gig...are Intel sand bagging or what?
Lemon Bon Bon.
In Red. WTF are you talking about? I swear you pull this shit straight out of your ass. Nvidia gives apple the same source code they give everyone else. All Apple does is compile the drivers and that's it. The Nvidia drivers holding up? When have they ever done anything but they were supposed to?
Comments
LOL... all new games optimized for SLI? Only in nVidia's dreams.
You're probably right that the SLI-all-on-one-card devices have likely eliminated the cases where it runs slower. It used to be that the CPU had to submit everything twice and transfer data across the bus twice, but now both GPUs likely read the same data.
Optimized was a bad choice of words, but there are no games that show lesser performance with 2 cards than they do with one anymore.
Needless to say it was simple to turn SLI off in the 2 games that didn't perform better with it.
But wouldnt 4 GPU works faster in rendering games for example compared to 1 GPU? ( Sorry, for asking this question, I always wondered how this more then 1 GPU works)
There's an excellent article in Maximum PC magazine this month (may be last month by now) on this topic. It applies to Mac or PC given their testing criteria. It was a VERY good read that answered all of your questions in your posts here. Basically, there is little difference between 4 ATI cards and a single nVidia ultra card. Bottom line though is a single power house card still beats 4 cards of lower quality even if SLI.
I would HIGHLY recommend this article for anyone with interest in either gaming or pure graphics display regardless of application use.
Well, Apple should offer it or the new Ati Card. See latest PC websites for details. But the true non-die shrink next gen' will be G100 and Ati R700?
ETA June? In time for Nehalem Mac Pros? And new displays..?
And a sexy case redesign?
WWDC?
We shall see.
Lemon Bon Bon.
This is at least 6 months too soon (for Nehalem, we just got penryn!!!).
Man, YOU dream. But that's all good.
This is at least 6 months too soon (for Nehalem, we just got penryn!!!).
Man, YOU dream. But that's all good.
Yeh. I'm still 'dreaming' of my killer 'dream' set up.
Plus. Die shrunk technology isn't sexy. AKA Penryn and the 'year old plus' 8800 series. That's all the 9800x2 is.
If word on the street is true about the performance of the r700 and the g100? You'd be crazy to buy 9800x2 now.
And what's the chance of a Penryn processor bump before Dec 2008/Nehalem?
I'm also fancying the idea of an iMac Quad with GT level performance re: June-ish? Around the time of the next(?) ATI card update.
Yeh. 8 lemons and counting or years if you prefer. I will buy one this year. Honest.
*Crickets chirping*. No...really..ahem...*blush.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Still Desperately wanting his dream Mac. Will Apple find him?
If you're gonna play games you need XP. Vista runs games significantly worse.
I just built a system using 64bit Vista and everything runs fine and fast.
Lian-li alum Case
1000w PS
ASUS 780i
intel core2 duo 3ghz
8gigs ram OCZ with HS and pipe
2 WD 750 HD Raid0
2 plextor DL DVD SATA
2 nvidia G92 512 SLI latest ref drivers for 64bit
Dell 30 inch LCD
My old Logitech THX 5.1 speakers
Vista64 with SP1 beta
Oc'ed to around 3.5Ghz very stable--rock...
I remember everyone say to stay away from XP when it was first released becuase thats what they heard when it was in beta. People tend to remember the first 3 months of a OS release and forget that new drivers, hardware, and expertise make it better than what it replaced.
All my adobe and sound recording software work great on Vista64, not to mention all my games.
Anyway will Vista improve?
Yes.
How long?
Well only time will tell but it wont be soon. Maybe in the middle of the year.
Why I hate Vista?
Cause Msoft didn supply drivers for my hardwares and software incompatibility, oh yeah and did I forgot to mention the high system requirement to run Vista? It needs 2GB of ram to run fast with a empty hard drive. I cant imagine once your hard disk starts becoming full with datas.
It's not that new of news, but it's news, and it pisses me off! A few days ago Toms hardware scored some exclusive PIctures of the Nvidia 9800GX2 which is basically 2x Nvidia G92 GPU's SLI'd together on one card. It's about 30% faster than the 8800 Ultra so reports say. I don't even want to think about it. Other than hoping Apple offers one before my Mac Ships so I can change my order.
I feel your pain, but consider this:
You ordered the Mac that you did with a setup that should work for you for now. Would it be possible to upgrade to the new card in six months when the price has dropped?
I feel your pain, but consider this:
You ordered the Mac that you did with a setup that should work for you for now. Would it be possible to upgrade to the new card in six months when the price has dropped?
Probably not because of SLI issues. I'll probably have to buy the next Mac Pro and sell the one I just got. That's why I say "Damn it Apple!" They are 5 to 6 years behind the other leading manufacturers.
If you're gonna play games you need XP. Vista runs games significantly worse.
Looks like we found where some of the "slowness" in OSX comes from. Its amazing how many resources quartz extreme and Aero3D take to give you that good looking GUI.
Looks like we found where some of the "slowness" in OSX comes from. Its amazing how many resources quartz extreme and Aero3D take to give you that good looking GUI.
What slowness are you fantasizing about?
What slowness are you fantasizing about?
Uh, graphics performance.
Yeh. I'm still 'dreaming' of my killer 'dream' set up.
Plus. Die shrunk technology isn't sexy. AKA Penryn and the 'year old plus' 8800 series. That's all the 9800x2 is.
If word on the street is true about the performance of the r700 and the g100? You'd be crazy to buy 9800x2 now.
And what's the chance of a Penryn processor bump before Dec 2008/Nehalem?
I'm also fancying the idea of an iMac Quad with GT level performance re: June-ish? Around the time of the next(?) ATI card update.
Yeh. 8 lemons and counting or years if you prefer. I will buy one this year. Honest.
*Crickets chirping*. No...really..ahem...*blush.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Still Desperately wanting his dream Mac. Will Apple find him?
#1 you're never going to buy a new Mac. Every time a new processor is announced you say your waiting for the next one.
#2 ATI says their cards are going to be faster than Nvidia every year, and they never are. They still say it when the cards are released, and then Toms hardware, and everybody else runs tests on them and guess what. They still suck! And Nvidias old card is running circles around it. So quit crying about it, and shit or get off the pot.
does not mean the Mac has graphics performance issues. Because the Mac OS itself is far superior to windows in graphics performance.
In many ways this is true, but there are issues with the MacOSX OpenGL implementation as there are with any OpenGL implementation. If an application doesn't hit the right path through the graphics pipeline, performance can suffer compared to the performance on Windows (at least XP). The OpenGL implementations on Windows can be entirely provided by the GPU vendor, and they can get maximum performance by ensuring that the shortest path exists from application to hardware. Under MacOSX (and Vista) the system software contributes part of the pipeline and the driver contributes part so you have more pieces of software involves, which generally means more overhead... or at the very least more complications in trying to understand performance and how to optimize the application to maximize it. Since some (many? most?) Mac games are ports from Windows, the developer is often limited in how much adjustment can be done to make things as efficient as possible (and their knowledge & budget are often limitations as well).
As a result you may often see the same application/game perform worse on MacOSX than its WindowsXP equivalent. Nonetheless the MacOSX OpenGL implementation is actually quite respectable and can outperform the Windows version if wielded appropriately.
#1 you're never going to buy a new Mac. Every time a new processor is announced you say your waiting for the next one.
Well. The cpu isn't too bad. 8 core. PRetty damn good. But it's still alot of lolly for a rig that doesn't have a top end gpu included as standard or as an option. ie No GTX.
The monitors are out of date. And pricey compared to the opposition.
You've ordered your rig. And I can see that an octo and GT will make you happy.
I nearly pulled the trigger.
However, I'll wait until the true next gen gpus come out, and hopefully the tower will have a skin refresh with new LCDs.
Either that or I'll get the quad core iMac...with a decent gpu me hopes.
It's nearly there.
But like you, I have to feel I'm getting what I wanted when I'm spending £1500-2500 quid. And in dollars it's a whole lot more...
Best,
Lemon Bon Bon.
Well. The cpu isn't too bad. 8 core. PRetty damn good. But it's still alot of lolly for a rig that doesn't have a top end gpu included as standard or as an option. ie No GTX.
The monitors are out of date. And pricey compared to the opposition.
You've ordered your rig. And I can see that an octo and GT will make you happy.
I nearly pulled the trigger.
However, I'll wait until the true next gen gpus come out, and hopefully the tower will have a skin refresh with new LCDs.
Either that or I'll get the quad core iMac...with a decent gpu me hopes.
It's nearly there.
But like you, I have to feel I'm getting what I wanted when I'm spending £1500-2500 quid. And in dollars it's a whole lot more...
Best,
Lemon Bon Bon.
The statement in red really shows how much research you do on GPU speeds.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140&p=9 Why don't you read up on it here.
Looks like those cores do the job on 3d rendering...
The statement in red really shows how much research you do on GPU speeds.
A presumptious statement.
Yes. The GT performs quite close to the GTX in all but the highest resolutions. Yes. I've seen the link and many other reviews for the amazing GT. More amazing still is Apple is beating many PC vendors on price...
Still. How are the drivers on the Mac holding up this time? I know Nvidia haven't always had the best Mac drivers. Or ATI for that matter...
Ah...and if Anandtech can air cool Penryn to a mega 4 gig...are Intel sand bagging or what?
Lemon Bon Bon.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3216&p=8
Looks like those cores do the job on 3d rendering...
A presumptious statement.
Yes. The GT performs quite close to the GTX in all but the highest resolutions. Yes. I've seen the link and many other reviews for the amazing GT. More amazing still is Apple is beating many PC vendors on price...
Still. How are the drivers on the Mac holding up this time? I know Nvidia haven't always had the best Mac drivers. Or ATI for that matter...
Ah...and if Anandtech can air cool Penryn to a mega 4 gig...are Intel sand bagging or what?
Lemon Bon Bon.
In Red. WTF are you talking about? I swear you pull this shit straight out of your ass. Nvidia gives apple the same source code they give everyone else. All Apple does is compile the drivers and that's it. The Nvidia drivers holding up? When have they ever done anything but they were supposed to?