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.
actually, both card support 4.1 with the latest drivers.
..if you're running windows, that is! on mac os x you're stuck with 3.1...
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.
Perhaps, but until multi-gpu soc exists, I can run quad SLI for my applications.
Whether it's custom cuda code computations or for my own rendering or a simple game of call of duty.
A 12 core Sandybridge with a single soc gpu? Compared to a 12core SB with quad 580's....
Suckers? Instead of being ignorant and all to Nvidia, ATI, and the sucker gamers that support them (myself included with a 460), maybe it will someday save your life.,
Apple's practice is to write the video drivers. By some ATI and nVidia accounts I've read, it's a long and frustrating process.
(sorry, I don't have links handy)
That's what I mean. nVidia refuses to write their own drivers, and then Apple has to write them and they're wretched. For the two nVidia cards that exist for which Apple didn't write the drivers, the performance was lackluster at best.
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
Actually, the 5870 is still faster than the 6870. The 6870 runs on the same nm process so aside from some tweaks, the 5870 is still one of the fastest single-GPU ATI offerings out there. Just being a 5 instead of a 6 doesn't make things "too late".
It would be great if Apple gives you the choice to buy the Nvidia card during the MacPro configuring process in the Apple store.
Who want's to buy a Mac Pro with a graphics card they are not going to use/want? I'm waiting to buy a Mac Pro for that specific reason... That and usb 3.0 or lightspeed. Sometimes technology can feel so slow...
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.
Identical card, except PC-OSX users have to pay $1200 instead of PC-Win $800. Apple Tax hehe.
*add
Anyway this card has only 256 stream processors, even $200 460gtx has 336 of those.
>> Anyone know if it's possible to get the PC version and just Flash the ROM to make it work on a Mac? -- my guess is, that MOST of it is about the software drivers.
>> Anyone know if it's possible to get the PC version and just Flash the ROM to make it work on a Mac? -- my guess is, that MOST of it is about the software drivers.
Any 2008-current Mac Pro will work with a PC version of the ATI Radeon HD5870. I installed a PC Sapphire Vapor-X in my 2009 Mac Pro a few weeks ago. You will need to flash the card (in windows or DOS) with a new ROM (see netkas.org for examples, ROMs, and instructions) to get the machine to boot with the card in the Mac OS.
Two things to be aware of:
1) Current ROMs are fully functional, with the exception of not being able to view the bootloader screen during reboot without a VGA monitor attached (not a problem generally, as you can select startup drives in both Windows and MacOSX if you are into switching startup draves a lot).
2) the 5870 requires two s-ATA power cables. I think all mac pros have two coming off of the motherboard, but this card will want both of them. So your options for other powered S-ATA cards are non-existent if you use a 5870.
And why would you do this? Well, prices of the PC 5870s have been dropping of late. They are readily available for under $300 now. AFAIK there are not yet any working ROMs for the Quadro 4000 GPUs that you could flash to the PC version of the card.
Comments
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.
Awesome, thanks! Since its introduction I haven't been hearing as much about Open CL as I would like to.
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.
actually, both card support 4.1 with the latest drivers.
..if you're running windows, that is! on mac os x you're stuck with 3.1...
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.
Perhaps, but until multi-gpu soc exists, I can run quad SLI for my applications.
Whether it's custom cuda code computations or for my own rendering or a simple game of call of duty.
A 12 core Sandybridge with a single soc gpu? Compared to a 12core SB with quad 580's....
Suckers? Instead of being ignorant and all to Nvidia, ATI, and the sucker gamers that support them (myself included with a 460), maybe it will someday save your life.,
http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/201...onference.html
PC version: $799
$400 for a driver. Thanks, nVidia. You're no good at writing drivers for OS X, anyway.
Mac version: $1,199
PC version: $799
$400 for a driver. Thanks, nVidia. You're no good at writing drivers for OS X, anyway.
Apple's practice is to write the video drivers. By some ATI and nVidia accounts I've read, it's a long and frustrating process.
(sorry, I don't have links handy)
Apple's practice is to write the video drivers. By some ATI and nVidia accounts I've read, it's a long and frustrating process.
(sorry, I don't have links handy)
That's what I mean. nVidia refuses to write their own drivers, and then Apple has to write them and they're wretched. For the two nVidia cards that exist for which Apple didn't write the drivers, the performance was lackluster at best.
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
Actually, the 5870 is still faster than the 6870. The 6870 runs on the same nm process so aside from some tweaks, the 5870 is still one of the fastest single-GPU ATI offerings out there. Just being a 5 instead of a 6 doesn't make things "too late".
Who want's to buy a Mac Pro with a graphics card they are not going to use/want? I'm waiting to buy a Mac Pro for that specific reason... That and usb 3.0 or lightspeed. Sometimes technology can feel so slow...
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.
Not true.
http://www3.pny.com/NVIDIA-Quadro-40...P2948C409.aspx
http://www3.pny.com/NVIDIA-Quadro-4000-P2903C365.aspx
Identical card, except PC-OSX users have to pay $1200 instead of PC-Win $800. Apple Tax hehe.
*add
Anyway this card has only 256 stream processors, even $200 460gtx has 336 of those.
Not true.
http://www3.pny.com/NVIDIA-Quadro-40...P2948C409.aspx
http://www3.pny.com/NVIDIA-Quadro-4000-P2903C365.aspx
Identical card, except PC-OSX users have to pay $1200 instead of PC-Win $800. Apple Tax hehe.
*add
Anyway this card has only 256 stream processors, even $200 460gtx has 336 of those.
>> Anyone know if it's possible to get the PC version and just Flash the ROM to make it work on a Mac? -- my guess is, that MOST of it is about the software drivers.
>> Anyone know if it's possible to get the PC version and just Flash the ROM to make it work on a Mac? -- my guess is, that MOST of it is about the software drivers.
Any 2008-current Mac Pro will work with a PC version of the ATI Radeon HD5870. I installed a PC Sapphire Vapor-X in my 2009 Mac Pro a few weeks ago. You will need to flash the card (in windows or DOS) with a new ROM (see netkas.org for examples, ROMs, and instructions) to get the machine to boot with the card in the Mac OS.
Two things to be aware of:
1) Current ROMs are fully functional, with the exception of not being able to view the bootloader screen during reboot without a VGA monitor attached (not a problem generally, as you can select startup drives in both Windows and MacOSX if you are into switching startup draves a lot).
2) the 5870 requires two s-ATA power cables. I think all mac pros have two coming off of the motherboard, but this card will want both of them. So your options for other powered S-ATA cards are non-existent if you use a 5870.
And why would you do this? Well, prices of the PC 5870s have been dropping of late. They are readily available for under $300 now. AFAIK there are not yet any working ROMs for the Quadro 4000 GPUs that you could flash to the PC version of the card.