The link above contain benchmarks of 2GHz G5. Considering that 2.5GHz G5's are about 25% faster, we still have a way to go on some applications. The G5 is a photoshop king, but not by much. Don't forget we have 3.2GHz Xeons and 2.4GHz ("3800+") Opterons out too so factor that into these benchmarks. But it should give one an idea of where the G5 stands.
Apple, we really needed that 3GHz mac.
Nice link. I think it really points out how weak Apple is in 3D right now. Having a lack of GPUs with certified drivers is causal. The PS7 bench shows the Dual 2Ghz 970 equal to the Opteron. All the 3D benches sucked for Apple. They did ok on the Mathematica. For some reason the Athlon64 did excellent on that bench. Perhaps larger cache?
Nice link. I think it really points out how weak Apple is in 3D right now. Having a lack of GPUs with certified drivers is causal. The PS7 bench shows the Dual 2Ghz 970 equal to the Opteron. All the 3D benches sucked for Apple. They did ok on the Mathematica. For some reason the Athlon64 did excellent on that bench. Perhaps larger cache?
The Athlon64/Opteron has a really strong FPU and an on-die memory controller (plus the larger cache as you pointed out).
I think the reason there are not more powerful graphics cards is mainly because of ADC. Apple is currently locked into ADC because of their monitors. The new flat panels with DVI will come out at WWDC and then 4 or 5 months later, when IBM gets their yields up, you will see two new powermacs with the current machine going to the middle of the lineup. The current machines are just their to bridge the gap before the real update. Apple can't help that IBM screwed up but they will set things right as soon as they can.
When IBM gets their act together you will see 2.2, 2.5, 2.8 or perhaps 3.0Ghz. They just are not ready. However, the fact that the 2.5Ghz machine is shipping in august means that they are getting somewhere or at least believe they are. Lets put it this way a 500Mhz speed boost in a year is more than we ever got from motorola, so we are doing better. And in one year we have gone from dual 1.42Ghz G4s to dual 2.5 Ghz G5s. If we were with moto we would still be at 1.4ghz lol
What the h3ll are you talking about?
There is way more to the graphics card thing than just monitor output, #1. I have an Nvidia card in my Mac, and it has DVI, and ADC. ..So ADC is obviously not the problem. #2 There is an adapter for DVI to ADC connection, and Apple has sold them bundled with other products from the Apple store before. So again I still don't see the ADC connection as a problem.(Algol, Pull head out here please). Not having the cards available is the problem.
Apple seems intent in using second rated always #2 ATI cards in the Mac's anyways. But if you can figure this out you deserve a prize. All of ATI's products are not cross-platform, and ready to go in a Mac right off the line. Nvidia's GPU's are. Why does Apple stick with ATI when they cant even offer us all the same products available to them at the same time that the PC get's them like Nvidia does? Because ATI makes their cards. Nvidia Makes only GPU's. Apple would have to partner up with Gainward or someone again to make Nvidia cards that work in Mac hardware.
The link above contain benchmarks of 2GHz G5. Considering that 2.5GHz G5's are about 25% faster, we still have a way to go on some applications. The G5 is a photoshop king, but not by much. Don't forget we have 3.2GHz Xeons and 2.4GHz ("3800+") Opterons out too so factor that into these benchmarks. But it should give one an idea of where the G5 stands.
Apple, we really needed that 3GHz mac.
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
Also none os those 3D tests tested working performance. Just rendering. Even though the G5's got spanked. It's a lot worse than that in Maya when you have an optional Pro 3D card installed. Which I doubt any of those PC systems did.
And last. How do you know the new G5 is gong too perform 25% better at 2.5GHz than it did at 2.0GHz. I have yet to see any independent testing.
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
No Apple is not the Photoshop King but the tests show that Photoshop on Macs still run pretty damn good. Adobe has been recommending PCs for a while...it's the key to profits. They've done this since roughly 1998(promoting their products heavily on Windows) not because they feel PCs are so fast but because they have a bottom line.
Quote:
Also none os those 3D tests tested working performance. Just rendering. Even though the G5's got spanked. It's a lot worse than that in Maya when you have an optional Pro 3D card installed. Which I doubt any of those PC systems did.
Yup this is likely the case. Apple has mucho work to do for 3D. They just don't seem to be taking it seriously IMO.
Quote:
And last. How do you know the new G5 is gong too perform 25% better at 2.5GHz than it did at 2.0GHz. I have yet to see any independent testing.
Peter Glaskowsky states that users should see a real world %5 improvement. He probably knows his stuff and his findings seem plausible. I don't even know if performance increases of 10% or less are even perceptible to most people under normal use.
Longtime semiconductor analyst Peter Glaskowsky said that a 20 percent difference in CPU clock speed would generally translate into a five percent feeling in performance of the machine. However, this will only be evident to the high-end user working on 200MB images, according to Glaskowsky. In fact, for most users, he said that the network performance and graphics card would influence overall performance more than the CPU does.
"From a practical perspective, they are still getting a really good deal," said Glaskowsky. "2.5GHz on this processor is a really excellent level of performance compared to where the Pentium 4 is because it's not as efficient a CPU and it's not running that much faster right now."
Add better card options and Apple can affect the real world performance more than just bumping up the megahurts
Add better card options and Apple can affect the real world performance more than just bumping up the megahurts
First of all, 2.5GHz PowerMacs aren't shipping yet. I suspect, Apple won't have enough of them to begin shipments in a month or two. So, it seems that the current lack of BTO options is explained by the lack of computers themselves. When there are boxes to install other GPUs in, I expect, there will be GPUs. No sooner.
Exactly. That's the only real major gripe I have with this speedbump round of revisions. The low-end (low priced) desktop market has not been addressed.
I think Apple believes that only creative professionals with deep pockets want expandability. I admit, I personally don't but I'm guessing a large segment of users want that option, but don't want to spend megabucks.
Perhaps Apple will surprise us and introduce a single processor G5 consumer tower for under a thousand ( I doubt it). Or maybe this market will be soon be addressed by a somewhat expandable 3rd gen iMac (crossess fingers) at WWDC.
(Sorry for the late reply to this!)
The low-end market certainly has not been addressed, and the iMac does not count at all. There are many people willing to spend $1000-2000 (Canadian, obviously) on a good computer so long as they know they can update some of its components, it will get their work done quickly, and allow them to game well. It is too much to ask of people to pay over $4000 just for the 2.5ghz computer without a monitor when, performance-wise, they can get a PC for much less.
I know... quality, Mac OS X, etc. Hey, I've been a Mac user all my life and always will be, but people should not have to pay over $2000 or $2500 at the most for a computer + monitor that will be used for semi-professional work, the odd game, and the ability to upgrade a few components.
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
Apple is the photoshop king, period. Those tests, it should be noted, were run with a very small file (50MB) and the Mac is still on top. As the file size increases so does the G5's lead... when working on 300 or 400MB files the Athlon 64s I've used just choke, while the G5s scale almost linearly. Adobe's recommendations are irrelevant, only results count.
Quote:
It's a lot worse than that in Maya when you have an optional Pro 3D card installed. Which I doubt any of those PC systems did.
The Boxx systems had 128MB nVidia Quadro FX1100 graphics cards.
Quote:
Peter Glaskowsky states that users should see a real world %5 improvement.
I don't buy it. Look at the difference in performance between the dual 1.8 and the dual 2.0... a mere 11% difference in clock speed, and interestingly enough, a full 11% difference in performance. I seriously doubt that somehow the next 25% clock boost is only worth 5%.
Re. the Maya scores, it should also be noted that these were obtained using version 5 of Maya. Maya 6 reportedly has extensive PowerPC optimizations that bring it more in line with the PC version.
Re. the Maya scores, it should also be noted that these were obtained using version 5 of Maya. Maya 6 reportedly has extensive PowerPC optimizations that bring it more in line with the PC version.
I can vouch for the speed improvements in Maya 6. It's very noticeably faster.
I always get a laugh at how most reviewers define Photoshop performance...
Remember that Photoshop productivity, for most, rely very little on filter speed. It is far more important to have a large fast disk subsystem (loading/saving/scratch space) and lots of fast ram (5x the file size you're working on is ideal). Faster processer speed and video cards are definitely good to have, but tertiary in importance.
A lot of places where Macs lag in performance is simply due to bad coding for the platform or just special attention to coding on the PC side of things (taking advantage of hyperthreading, SSE2/3, etc.). As it's been pointed out, Maya is continually getting better on the Mac and hopefully the other major players will follow suit.
Maybe few people know this, but even Photoshop CS cannot access more than 2GB of RAM.
There is not much point in putting 4+GB RAM in a PowerMac hoping to speed up Photoshop.
Most people who work in PS know about the 2GB limit. But more ram in your machine is still desirable for pros who want to have multiple apps running at the same time. For example, I often have PS, AI, Acrobat, Quark, ID, Classic, Terminal, Suitcase and Outlook all running at once. Hell, I wouldn't mind 4+ GB of ram...
I think your conversation is fine from one point of view... but i need help in one question.., go to the thread GEFORCE 2 MX and help me in this problem... than you can continue the BIG problem... but you should think more about it... Apple never was cheap...
Most people who work in PS know about the 2GB limit. But more ram in your machine is still desirable for pros who want to have multiple apps running at the same time. For example, I often have PS, AI, Acrobat, Quark, ID, Classic, Terminal, Suitcase and Outlook all running at once. Hell, I wouldn't mind 4+ GB of ram...
C.
That's why we add 2GB to all our G5 machines to bump them to 2.5GB of RAM. Allocate 100% in PS (about 1.8GB), leaving over 500MB for all other apps. Even PS rarely uses the max all the time, so applications may have an even bigger slice of the pie. The most RAM we have in any of our G5s is 3GB.
Interesting that when G4s had L3 cache added, it was considered a last ditch effort to get out some more speed, while with intel, it's an amazing feat of engineering that has added noticable performance.
Most of you guys have to realize, all tests are biased no matter what, my Dual 1Ghz with 10.3 is faster in OS functions than my friends 3200 XP windows 2000 due to all the crap he has out it, I'm sorry, I mean windows.
The watercooling unit is likely to be a future proof design for future G5 processors, I imagine Dual core G5s would get pretty hot.
Professional video card wise, aren't these mostly just gaming cards except with certified drivers? Isn't the main reason why Apple's 3d performance lags is due to the video card drivers on the windows side being designed specifically to work in 3d apps?
Professional video card wise, aren't these mostly just gaming cards except with certified drivers?
On the PC side, yes.
On the Mac side things are a bit muddled. Video cards are hybrids, neither fish nor flesh if you want.
Presumably due to OS X's OpenGL fondation 'gaming cards' are better tuned (image quality wise - not necessarily speed wise) than their PC counterparts. This is largely due to the fact that Apple itself is contributing to the drivers.
(As can be seen if you try to download a Mac driver from the nVidia website. They simply refer you to the Apple website. That suggests Apple has more to do with the nVidia drivers than nVidia itself.)
(As for ATI, it seems that ATI is putting a lot of pro features into their Mac drivers of their 'gaming cards'. Perhaps that's why they are always late on the Mac market. And perhaps to make them at least somewhat suitable for applications like Maya, due to the total lack of pro cards.
For example Maya's hardware rendering is not supported on any PC 'gaming card', you must have a pro card, yet it is somewhat supported (with restrictions) on Mac 'gaming cards'.)
The drawback of this seems to be that since Apple is doing a lot of work for them, there is not much incentive (and probably knowhow) to do Mac pro drivers themselves (at least in the case of nVidia it seems). So Apple might have to do the whole thing - if they ever want Mac pro cards to appear.
But that's a political issue too: a $500 'gaming card' + Apple pro drivers = $2000 pro card? nVidia would rather sell the $2000 pro cards, I suspect than have people buy cheaper 'gaming cards' and download the pro drivers from Apple.
Interesting as isn't the Quadro 3000 a FX5900? I think the only hardware difference is that it's designed to last longer and be more stable.
The 9800 is comparable to what ATi pro cards though? Fire GLs or are they different? So in reality all what would really be needed to label these cards pro is the appropiate drivers?
Comments
Originally posted by Existence
Actually, it's a pretty mixed bag.
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/
The link above contain benchmarks of 2GHz G5. Considering that 2.5GHz G5's are about 25% faster, we still have a way to go on some applications. The G5 is a photoshop king, but not by much. Don't forget we have 3.2GHz Xeons and 2.4GHz ("3800+") Opterons out too so factor that into these benchmarks. But it should give one an idea of where the G5 stands.
Apple, we really needed that 3GHz mac.
Nice link. I think it really points out how weak Apple is in 3D right now. Having a lack of GPUs with certified drivers is causal. The PS7 bench shows the Dual 2Ghz 970 equal to the Opteron. All the 3D benches sucked for Apple. They did ok on the Mathematica. For some reason the Athlon64 did excellent on that bench. Perhaps larger cache?
Originally posted by hmurchison
Nice link. I think it really points out how weak Apple is in 3D right now. Having a lack of GPUs with certified drivers is causal. The PS7 bench shows the Dual 2Ghz 970 equal to the Opteron. All the 3D benches sucked for Apple. They did ok on the Mathematica. For some reason the Athlon64 did excellent on that bench. Perhaps larger cache?
The Athlon64/Opteron has a really strong FPU and an on-die memory controller (plus the larger cache as you pointed out).
Originally posted by Algol
I think the reason there are not more powerful graphics cards is mainly because of ADC. Apple is currently locked into ADC because of their monitors. The new flat panels with DVI will come out at WWDC and then 4 or 5 months later, when IBM gets their yields up, you will see two new powermacs with the current machine going to the middle of the lineup. The current machines are just their to bridge the gap before the real update. Apple can't help that IBM screwed up but they will set things right as soon as they can.
When IBM gets their act together you will see 2.2, 2.5, 2.8 or perhaps 3.0Ghz. They just are not ready. However, the fact that the 2.5Ghz machine is shipping in august means that they are getting somewhere or at least believe they are. Lets put it this way a 500Mhz speed boost in a year is more than we ever got from motorola, so we are doing better. And in one year we have gone from dual 1.42Ghz G4s to dual 2.5 Ghz G5s. If we were with moto we would still be at 1.4ghz lol
What the h3ll are you talking about?
There is way more to the graphics card thing than just monitor output, #1. I have an Nvidia card in my Mac, and it has DVI, and ADC. ..So ADC is obviously not the problem. #2 There is an adapter for DVI to ADC connection, and Apple has sold them bundled with other products from the Apple store before. So again I still don't see the ADC connection as a problem.(Algol, Pull head out here please). Not having the cards available is the problem.
Apple seems intent in using second rated always #2 ATI cards in the Mac's anyways. But if you can figure this out you deserve a prize. All of ATI's products are not cross-platform, and ready to go in a Mac right off the line. Nvidia's GPU's are. Why does Apple stick with ATI when they cant even offer us all the same products available to them at the same time that the PC get's them like Nvidia does? Because ATI makes their cards. Nvidia Makes only GPU's. Apple would have to partner up with Gainward or someone again to make Nvidia cards that work in Mac hardware.
Originally posted by Existence
Actually, it's a pretty mixed bag.
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/
The link above contain benchmarks of 2GHz G5. Considering that 2.5GHz G5's are about 25% faster, we still have a way to go on some applications. The G5 is a photoshop king, but not by much. Don't forget we have 3.2GHz Xeons and 2.4GHz ("3800+") Opterons out too so factor that into these benchmarks. But it should give one an idea of where the G5 stands.
Apple, we really needed that 3GHz mac.
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
Also none os those 3D tests tested working performance. Just rendering. Even though the G5's got spanked. It's a lot worse than that in Maya when you have an optional Pro 3D card installed. Which I doubt any of those PC systems did.
And last. How do you know the new G5 is gong too perform 25% better at 2.5GHz than it did at 2.0GHz. I have yet to see any independent testing.
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
No Apple is not the Photoshop King but the tests show that Photoshop on Macs still run pretty damn good. Adobe has been recommending PCs for a while...it's the key to profits. They've done this since roughly 1998(promoting their products heavily on Windows) not because they feel PCs are so fast but because they have a bottom line.
Also none os those 3D tests tested working performance. Just rendering. Even though the G5's got spanked. It's a lot worse than that in Maya when you have an optional Pro 3D card installed. Which I doubt any of those PC systems did.
Yup this is likely the case. Apple has mucho work to do for 3D. They just don't seem to be taking it seriously IMO.
And last. How do you know the new G5 is gong too perform 25% better at 2.5GHz than it did at 2.0GHz. I have yet to see any independent testing.
Peter Glaskowsky states that users should see a real world %5 improvement. He probably knows his stuff and his findings seem plausible. I don't even know if performance increases of 10% or less are even perceptible to most people under normal use.
Longtime semiconductor analyst Peter Glaskowsky said that a 20 percent difference in CPU clock speed would generally translate into a five percent feeling in performance of the machine. However, this will only be evident to the high-end user working on 200MB images, according to Glaskowsky. In fact, for most users, he said that the network performance and graphics card would influence overall performance more than the CPU does.
"From a practical perspective, they are still getting a really good deal," said Glaskowsky. "2.5GHz on this processor is a really excellent level of performance compared to where the Pentium 4 is because it's not as efficient a CPU and it's not running that much faster right now."
Add better card options and Apple can affect the real world performance more than just bumping up the megahurts
Originally posted by hmurchison
Add better card options and Apple can affect the real world performance more than just bumping up the megahurts
First of all, 2.5GHz PowerMacs aren't shipping yet. I suspect, Apple won't have enough of them to begin shipments in a month or two. So, it seems that the current lack of BTO options is explained by the lack of computers themselves. When there are boxes to install other GPUs in, I expect, there will be GPUs. No sooner.
Originally posted by satchmo
Exactly. That's the only real major gripe I have with this speedbump round of revisions. The low-end (low priced) desktop market has not been addressed.
I think Apple believes that only creative professionals with deep pockets want expandability. I admit, I personally don't but I'm guessing a large segment of users want that option, but don't want to spend megabucks.
Perhaps Apple will surprise us and introduce a single processor G5 consumer tower for under a thousand ( I doubt it). Or maybe this market will be soon be addressed by a somewhat expandable 3rd gen iMac (crossess fingers) at WWDC.
(Sorry for the late reply to this!)
The low-end market certainly has not been addressed, and the iMac does not count at all. There are many people willing to spend $1000-2000 (Canadian, obviously) on a good computer so long as they know they can update some of its components, it will get their work done quickly, and allow them to game well. It is too much to ask of people to pay over $4000 just for the 2.5ghz computer without a monitor when, performance-wise, they can get a PC for much less.
I know... quality, Mac OS X, etc. Hey, I've been a Mac user all my life and always will be, but people should not have to pay over $2000 or $2500 at the most for a computer + monitor that will be used for semi-professional work, the odd game, and the ability to upgrade a few components.
Originally posted by Existence
The Athlon64/Opteron has a really strong FPU and an on-die memory controller (plus the larger cache as you pointed out).
We can "blame" the strong performance on the on-die memory controller and large cache. The G5 has stronger FPUs than the Athlon.
I wonder why the G5 did so weak in that test, really. I suspect the app isn't optimized, but that "excuse" is getting a bit long in the tooth.
Originally posted by onlooker
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
Apple is the photoshop king, period. Those tests, it should be noted, were run with a very small file (50MB) and the Mac is still on top. As the file size increases so does the G5's lead... when working on 300 or 400MB files the Athlon 64s I've used just choke, while the G5s scale almost linearly. Adobe's recommendations are irrelevant, only results count.
It's a lot worse than that in Maya when you have an optional Pro 3D card installed. Which I doubt any of those PC systems did.
The Boxx systems had 128MB nVidia Quadro FX1100 graphics cards.
Peter Glaskowsky states that users should see a real world %5 improvement.
I don't buy it. Look at the difference in performance between the dual 1.8 and the dual 2.0... a mere 11% difference in clock speed, and interestingly enough, a full 11% difference in performance. I seriously doubt that somehow the next 25% clock boost is only worth 5%.
G5 vs xeon/opteron after effects tests... surprise!! The G5 is, once again, about 30% slower.
Re. the Maya scores, it should also be noted that these were obtained using version 5 of Maya. Maya 6 reportedly has extensive PowerPC optimizations that bring it more in line with the PC version.
Originally posted by Fluffy
Re. the Maya scores, it should also be noted that these were obtained using version 5 of Maya. Maya 6 reportedly has extensive PowerPC optimizations that bring it more in line with the PC version.
I can vouch for the speed improvements in Maya 6. It's very noticeably faster.
Remember that Photoshop productivity, for most, rely very little on filter speed. It is far more important to have a large fast disk subsystem (loading/saving/scratch space) and lots of fast ram (5x the file size you're working on is ideal). Faster processer speed and video cards are definitely good to have, but tertiary in importance.
A lot of places where Macs lag in performance is simply due to bad coding for the platform or just special attention to coding on the PC side of things (taking advantage of hyperthreading, SSE2/3, etc.). As it's been pointed out, Maya is continually getting better on the Mac and hopefully the other major players will follow suit.
Cheers,
C.
Originally posted by Concord
Lots of fast ram (5x the file size you're working on is ideal).
Maybe few people know this, but even Photoshop CS cannot access more than 2GB of RAM.
There is not much point in putting 4+GB RAM in a PowerMac hoping to speed up Photoshop.
Faster HDs or RAID 0 arrays are the way to go.
Originally posted by hobBIT:
Maybe few people know this, but even Photoshop CS cannot access more than 2GB of RAM.
There is not much point in putting 4+GB RAM in a PowerMac hoping to speed up Photoshop.
Most people who work in PS know about the 2GB limit. But more ram in your machine is still desirable for pros who want to have multiple apps running at the same time. For example, I often have PS, AI, Acrobat, Quark, ID, Classic, Terminal, Suitcase and Outlook all running at once. Hell, I wouldn't mind 4+ GB of ram...
C.
I think your conversation is fine from one point of view... but i need help in one question.., go to the thread GEFORCE 2 MX and help me in this problem... than you can continue the BIG problem... but you should think more about it... Apple never was cheap...
Thank's for your time.
Murdock
Think different, worry not... master Yoda...
Originally posted by ryukyu
I can vouch for the speed improvements in Maya 6. It's very noticeably faster.
I don't see any difference in speed other than it takes all day to start up now. .
Originally posted by Concord
Most people who work in PS know about the 2GB limit. But more ram in your machine is still desirable for pros who want to have multiple apps running at the same time. For example, I often have PS, AI, Acrobat, Quark, ID, Classic, Terminal, Suitcase and Outlook all running at once. Hell, I wouldn't mind 4+ GB of ram...
C.
That's why we add 2GB to all our G5 machines to bump them to 2.5GB of RAM. Allocate 100% in PS (about 1.8GB), leaving over 500MB for all other apps. Even PS rarely uses the max all the time, so applications may have an even bigger slice of the pie. The most RAM we have in any of our G5s is 3GB.
By the looks of those images, IBM is have serious troubles at 90 nm.
Most of you guys have to realize, all tests are biased no matter what, my Dual 1Ghz with 10.3 is faster in OS functions than my friends 3200 XP windows 2000 due to all the crap he has out it, I'm sorry, I mean windows.
The watercooling unit is likely to be a future proof design for future G5 processors, I imagine Dual core G5s would get pretty hot.
Professional video card wise, aren't these mostly just gaming cards except with certified drivers? Isn't the main reason why Apple's 3d performance lags is due to the video card drivers on the windows side being designed specifically to work in 3d apps?
Originally posted by mattyj
Professional video card wise, aren't these mostly just gaming cards except with certified drivers?
On the PC side, yes.
On the Mac side things are a bit muddled. Video cards are hybrids, neither fish nor flesh if you want.
Presumably due to OS X's OpenGL fondation 'gaming cards' are better tuned (image quality wise - not necessarily speed wise) than their PC counterparts. This is largely due to the fact that Apple itself is contributing to the drivers.
(As can be seen if you try to download a Mac driver from the nVidia website. They simply refer you to the Apple website. That suggests Apple has more to do with the nVidia drivers than nVidia itself.)
(As for ATI, it seems that ATI is putting a lot of pro features into their Mac drivers of their 'gaming cards'. Perhaps that's why they are always late on the Mac market. And perhaps to make them at least somewhat suitable for applications like Maya, due to the total lack of pro cards.
For example Maya's hardware rendering is not supported on any PC 'gaming card', you must have a pro card, yet it is somewhat supported (with restrictions) on Mac 'gaming cards'.)
The drawback of this seems to be that since Apple is doing a lot of work for them, there is not much incentive (and probably knowhow) to do Mac pro drivers themselves (at least in the case of nVidia it seems). So Apple might have to do the whole thing - if they ever want Mac pro cards to appear.
But that's a political issue too: a $500 'gaming card' + Apple pro drivers = $2000 pro card? nVidia would rather sell the $2000 pro cards, I suspect than have people buy cheaper 'gaming cards' and download the pro drivers from Apple.
The 9800 is comparable to what ATi pro cards though? Fire GLs or are they different? So in reality all what would really be needed to label these cards pro is the appropiate drivers?