Mac Pro Video Benchmarks

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Has anyone seen some benchmarks on the video card options available for the Mac Pro?



I just saw a British Magazine that compared the stock GeForce 7300 GT and the Quadro FX 4500. What I'd like to see, however, is some specs on the GeForce 7300 versus dual 7300's versus the Radeon x1900 XT, etc.



Anyone know where I can find them?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Not Mac Pro benchmarks but relative performance of cards can be found here:



    http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html
  • Reply 2 of 15
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by csi95


    Has anyone seen some benchmarks on the video card options available for the Mac Pro?



    I just saw a British Magazine that compared the stock GeForce 7300 GT and the Quadro FX 4500. What I'd like to see, however, is some specs on the GeForce 7300 versus dual 7300's versus the Radeon x1900 XT, etc.



    Anyone know where I can find them?



    You do realize the Mac Pro doesn't support SLI in MacOS X. Dual 7300's will only support multiple monitors. You can only get SLI in windows on the Mac Pro.



    The Radeon X1900XT is about the same as the Quadro FX4500. The Quadro just has workstation features.
  • Reply 3 of 15
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Leonard


    You do realize the Mac Pro doesn't support SLI in MacOS X. Dual 7300's will only support multiple monitors. You can only get SLI in windows on the Mac Pro.



    I did not know that, and it makes a big difference in my decision process -- thank you. Looks like it's the x1900 for me.



    The lack of SLI seems very short sighted on Apple's part. Letting two cheaper cards work together seems like a great solution to me.
  • Reply 4 of 15
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    I'm wondering which OS X application requires SLI video.



    Did a developer actually code an application that requires a hardware feature that does not exist on the target platform?
  • Reply 5 of 15
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy


    I'm wondering which OS X application requires SLI video.



    Did a developer actually code an application that requires a hardware feature that does not exist on the target platform?



    I thought SLI was like dual CPUs but for graphics cards in which case it should never be a requirement for any software and likewise software shouldn't need to be modified but it seems that each program needs to be coded to support it:



    http://www.igniq.com/2005/01/nvidias...es-gamers.html



    ATI's Crossfire doesn't however so to me it looks like the better option.



    I never really saw the big deal about SLI or Crossfire because you have to pay for two cards, you have more heat, more noise but at most double the framerate. If people are that eager to bump up the frame rate, why not just wait a couple of months to get a newer card?



    I think people need to learn to be content with the graphics power they have instead of just throwing hardware at the problem all the time. Sure, hardware needs to improve but software needs to improve a whole lot more first. Multi-threaded OpenGL has shown this to be the case.
  • Reply 6 of 15
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy


    I'm wondering which OS X application requires SLI video.



    Did a developer actually code an application that requires a hardware feature that does not exist on the target platform?



  • Reply 7 of 15
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by csi95


    I did not know that, and it makes a big difference in my decision process -- thank you. Looks like it's the x1900 for me.



    The lack of SLI seems very short sighted on Apple's part. Letting two cheaper cards work together seems like a great solution to me.



    Until you look at the benchmarks, and realize that SLI offers no cost/performance benefit.
  • Reply 8 of 15
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gregmightdothat


    Until you look at the benchmarks, and realize that SLI offers no cost/performance benefit.



    But gamers and high-end 3D graphics people don't really care how much they have to pay as long as there is a performance benefit, and there is a great performance benefit, especially with graphics being the bottleneck in today's machines.
  • Reply 9 of 15
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin


    I think people need to learn to be content with the graphics power they have instead of just throwing hardware at the problem all the time. Sure, hardware needs to improve but software needs to improve a whole lot more first. Multi-threaded OpenGL has shown this to be the case.



    This GPU-mania really clogs up a lot of threads that could have had a good discussion about the original topic. I wish there was a way to send all these GPU-wars to Tom's Hardware or something, as I am way past being sick and tired of them.



    If Apple released a new desktop machine tomorrow, it would not matter what GPUs they offered, the thread here at AI about the new machine would get derailed off into the GPU wars again. They are NEVER satisfied. To them, a computer is a graphics card with various other chips connected to it.
  • Reply 10 of 15
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy


    To them, a computer is a graphics card with various other chips connected to it.



    Have you seen the 8800GTX? It may actually be bigger than a Mac mini.
  • Reply 11 of 15
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy


    If Apple released a new desktop machine tomorrow, it would not matter what GPUs they offered, the thread here at AI about the new machine would get derailed off into the GPU wars again. They are NEVER satisfied.



    It's so true. Even if they put an 8800GTX in the Mac Pro, ATI would release some other chip or some PC people would find a way to SLI two 8800s and the GPU fanatics would be like OMG, Apple is soooo slow at updating their products. I mean the X1600 may not be the fastest chip but it runs most of the latest games at maximum and silently.



    The thing is, I bet most people wouldn't buy it if Apple did offer it and what's the point when you can buy some PC cards and use them in the Mac Pro anyway?
  • Reply 12 of 15
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    That's what I keep telling these guys. I have one guy over at DSLR's All Things Mac forum who, get this .. for SIX YEARS has been posting that he would "get a Mac" because he "really likes OS X" but every machine that Apple puts out, he is not happy with the choice of video cards. He will write paragraph after paragraph about all these different cards and which games require which cards and which anti-aliasing settings and on and on.



    And as you say, if by some miracle Apple released a machine with the exact video card that he wanted, he'd say it was too expensive or didn't have enough USB ports or couldn't hold more than 2 optical drives, or only had 7 PCIe slots, not 8, or something.
  • Reply 13 of 15
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by csi95


    I did not know that, and it makes a big difference in my decision process -- thank you. Looks like it's the x1900 for me.



    The lack of SLI seems very short sighted on Apple's part. Letting two cheaper cards work together seems like a great solution to me.



    It doesn't work that way, the 7300 is about a third as fast at 3D as the x1900 and a little more than a third of the price. With the inefficiency of SLI, even four of them together won't beat the x1900. It's not a good value to SLI that card. Maybe Apple's 7300 is fanless but for max performance, SLI isn't worth it.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    You know what I would do ?

    get a X1900 for OSX, and get a 8800GTX for gaming in Windows (YES, the 8800 has been confirmed to work and fully function under bootcamp)
  • Reply 15 of 15
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM


    It doesn't work that way, the 7300 is about a third as fast at 3D as the x1900 and a little more than a third of the price. With the inefficiency of SLI, even four of them together won't beat the x1900. It's not a good value to SLI that card. Maybe Apple's 7300 is fanless but for max performance, SLI isn't worth it.



    Thank you, Jeff. That's exactly what I was trying to figure out.



    I'm not a "specs are everything" kind of guy, but I do tend to push my machines from time to time, and I also tend to keep them for 3 to 4 years. What I really want is the best bang for the buck.



    The 7300 might be perfectly fine for what I do today. To protect my investment, however, I have to be concerned with tomorrow. What will Leopard (and beyond) require? How about Photoshop CS3? Maybe even Vista (...and I just lost all of you, right? )?



    From what I've seen, the x1900 sounds like it will be excellent perfomance now, and plenty for a few years to come. That's ultimately what I need to know.
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