FireGL X3 Converted To A Radeon X800 for G4 Power Macs

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
http://www.barefeats.com/firegl.html



Can this be done with other workstation cards?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    rhumgodrhumgod Posts: 1,289member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hopeful

    http://www.barefeats.com/firegl.html



    Can this be done with other workstation cards?




    Only for AGP slots. PCI Express is the wave of the (near) future, so I wouldn't even bother. Now, Apple, get with the program. These cards have been out for a good 6 months (some longer) via retail channels. Christ, Intel released a chipset last summer. What is the hold up?
  • Reply 2 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    It's funny that when the FW800 model came out I was saying that Apple was holding back technology so people would not want to buy used Macs, and they would choose to upgrade to faster new ones. That is exactly what is happening right now with PCI-E. THe best G4 you can put this card in is the FW800 which is 4x AGP (which I complained about) And this card supports 8x AGP which would make for a nice upgrade for someone that cant afford a new PowerMac, but Apple plays their game, and the user gets stiffed. That is exactly what I see with the recent G5 update. You'll be stuck technologically behind in the future when it comes time to upkeep your system. It's crap like this that makes Apple the d*ckheads they are.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by onlooker

    It's crap like this that makes Apple the d*ckheads they are.



    wow
  • Reply 4 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tink

    wow



    Wow what? What does one expect a person to say when Apple is continually holding back on things that are of importance to the systems longevity so Apple can make huge profits on over charging on old tech that has gotten considerably cheaper? This helps Apple, but it screws the Mac users bigger than it helps Apple. Apple is tipping the scales so far ahead in their own favor vs. the consumer on purpose. IMO It's bad business to knowingly screw your own customers.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by onlooker

    Wow what? What does one expect a person to say when Apple is continually holding back on things that are of importance to the systems longevity so Apple can make huge profits on over charging on old tech that has gotten considerably cheaper? This helps Apple, but it screws the Mac users bigger than it helps Apple. Apple is tipping the scales so far ahead in their own favor vs. the consumer on purpose. IMO It's bad business to knowingly screw your own customers.



    I completely agree. We're hardly talking about bleeding edge hardware here. For example, PCIe has been out for months now. PC manufacturers were developing the parts for it long before the the hardware even came out. Long before even the previous G5 rev was released. There's just no excuse. I'm pissed as a Mac user, and I'm especially pissed as an Apple shareholder. Sure iPods, iMacs, and such are great. But I'd really like to see the relatively high margin PowerMacs get in the game too. I'm afraid the latest update wasn't enough to satisfy those waiting for a new machine. The sales figures for new PowerMacs appear to be atrocious for the last 4-5 months.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    jasenj1jasenj1 Posts: 923member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Arty50

    I completely agree.



    Agreed. Apple has really dropped the ball on the PCI Express issue. To be a leader they should have had PCIe when the liquid cooled machines came out. To not update the mobos with this latest release tells me:

    a) They have something better coming out Real Soon Now. The 2.7 upgrade was very quiet, like they knew it wasn't much and nobody would care.

    b) The CPU speed wall has frazzled them. They lost momentum focusing on the liquid cooling and dropped the ball keeping up with the competition on the PCIe front.

    c) They're greedy bastards.



    - Jasen.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    jasenj1, Arty50, I know, it's also one thing if they did it once by chance, but they are now seemingly using it as part of their strategy. It's grown into their speed bump cycle. They barely bump the processor, and leave the graphics options alone. Graphics are continually in need of strengthening. Everybody knows that. Apple knew it too. They are just choosing to forget about the user, and concentrate on every stinking penny any way they can get it. Apple has become "The Man."
  • Reply 8 of 18
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    I agree that it is long overdue and an embarassment that there is no pci express, but this conspiracy theory, that Apple is out to screw it's end user is complete BS. Does everyone here think Apple should have produced a new MB with the 200 mhz speed bump?
  • Reply 9 of 18
    rhumgodrhumgod Posts: 1,289member
    While I agree that Apple screwed the pooch, and a lot of loyal Power Mac users, with this latest upgrade, I also see that the 970GX and 970MP will fit somewhere in their pro lineups soon. If they do redesign the logic board and do NOT include PCI-Express, well then that is just wrong. I think they are developing for the future, and taking the cheapest way in doing so. Why release the latest 2.7 bumps and redesign the system only to have to do it again in, say, 6 months.



    I agree they are behind in a lot of ways, but you have to look at the big picture. It wouldn't make economic sense to do otherwise. And as a shareholder you should be happy of that.



    I am in no way apologizing for their lack of current technology, however. I think that Apple has been behind for a while and with the 970fx heat/speed issues, they have been caught off guard.



    If they were to produce their own systems, lock, stock and barrel, they would be ok, but they have to rely on the "word" of others such as IBM that things will go as planned. Bumps in the road have obviously detoured a lot of what they had planned.



    Could be worse. They could be relying on Intel. AMD is pretty innovative the last few years, and I would not want to be stuck relying on Intel solely. Motorola just plains sucks and has for years. IBM is the much better choice, but even they have their own issues.



    Things will work out. They always do.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Rhumgod

    While I agree that Apple screwed the pooch, and a lot of loyal Power Mac users, with this latest upgrade, I also see that the 970GX and 970MP will fit somewhere in their pro lineups soon. If they do redesign the logic board and do NOT include PCI-Express, well then that is just wrong. I think they are developing for the future, and taking the cheapest way in doing so. Why release the latest 2.7 bumps and redesign the system only to have to do it again in, say, 6 months.



    I agree they are behind in a lot of ways, but you have to look at the big picture. It wouldn't make economic sense to do otherwise. And as a shareholder you should be happy of that.




    Excellent point. On the PC side of things, mobo manufacturers can afford to re-engineer the mobo for things like PCIe when the processor hasn't changed drastically. That's basically what they're doing. They sell enough machines to justify it.



    So for Apple it doesn't necessarily make sense to include PCIe with a minor processor bump. Unless of course you have a lot of people waiting for PCIe...which seems to be the case at least in this forum and others...and thus your machine sales will suffer.



    I've got two concerns with Apple's SOP right now:

    1) Are things like PCIe really that expensive to implement? If so, then I understand. If not, then they're being really stupid. Being behind on relatively simple tech like this can kill sales.

    2) The Secrecy. It's insane. I'm sick of it. People in enterprise got sick of it a long time ago. Buying an expensive computer is a huge budgetary decision. People and companies should be allowed to plan for it.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    buccibucci Posts: 100member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Arty50

    I've got two concerns with Apple's SOP right now:

    1) Are things like PCIe really that expensive to implement? If so, then I understand. If not, then they're being really stupid. Being behind on relatively simple tech like this can kill sales.




    The benefits of PCIe have yet to be seen. To redesign and entire [propriatary] motherboard takes a good deal of time and money. (question: does apple even produce their own motherboards? Or are they a reference design?) From what I've seen, PCIe cards are slightly more expensive than their AGP counterparts. This probably has to do with supply and demand. At the end of the day, if Apple offered PCIe with their latest PM offering, we'd all be paying more money, for the same performance. So who exactly does that benefit?



    Quote:



    2) The Secrecy. It's insane. I'm sick of it. People in enterprise got sick of it a long time ago. Buying an expensive computer is a huge budgetary decision. People and companies should be allowed to plan for it.




    Marketing. Plain and simple. If Apple released their latest PM line, and then the next day showed off their dual core technology, that would absolutely murder the currently weak PM sales. Intel and these other big companies can do it because they pump out new hardware all the time.



    I'm not singling anyone out, but if you're going to complain about what PC's have over Apple's, then perhaps you'd just be happier with a PC.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    buccibucci Posts: 100member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hopeful

    http://www.barefeats.com/firegl.html



    Can this be done with other workstation cards?




    From what I've read, it is possible to do this with other ATI cards. Sometimes it involves physically changing the EEPROM. Apparently the Mac equivalent cards use a bigger EEPROM. I'm not too keen on the procedure, but you can go here for more info:



    http://www.amacapart.com/images/xtres.jpg



    http://mapage.noos.fr/campahunta/rad...wVTceYvEWjF1Ar



    and



    http://www.techseekers.net/modules.p...wcontent&id=72



    Some of the articles go into more depth than others. It must be noted, however, that now-a-days, the Mac versions of the cards are normally only $50 more than their PC equivalents. So... it may not be worth a possible botched job. Up to you.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by onlooker

    It's crap like this that makes Apple the d*ckheads they are.



    I hate to break it to you, but when it comes to making motherboards, Apple is fighting an uphill battle. They don't have the reference design to work with, nor do they have as large of a staff as many of the board makers on the PC side. Then there's Q&A, FCC, UL, and the like all on top of getting the project done in the first place.



    PCI-Express still hasn't come out in a big way, and if you're trying to keep a sensible R&D budget, you won't be making fairly major changes to the board design whenever some new chip comes out. . . You'll wait until a few new technologies come out, and then get started.



    While it's entirely possible that Apple is holding back for market reasons, it's more likely that the big driver of the fad-gap is the fact that hardware development takes time. I would know, since that's what I do. Take a look at the industrial electronics industry, and see how far it is behind the consumer industry. This is entirely analogue to Apple vs. the rest of the industry.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Excuses are for the guilty.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by onlooker

    Excuses are for the guilty.



    Perhaps, but calling people "dickwads" when you have no idea is just plain ignorant. You might be right, but I don't think Apple's known policies of secrecy and market manipulation are the big culripts in this case.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    Perhaps, but calling people "dickwads" when you have no idea is just plain ignorant. You might be right, but I don't think Apple's known policies of secrecy and market manipulation are the big culripts in this case.



    You can think what you want, but I never said anyone was a "dickwad" I don't even know what that is... Is that like foreskin?
  • Reply 17 of 18
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Any sort of hardware interface (like the various forms of PCI) is inherently legacy: The whole point is to work with things that are, or have been, for sale. In the PC world, it doesn't matter if a few boards have PCIe on board: People who need nothing but plain old PCI can get a board that uses that. Every slot that Apple dedicates to PCIe is a slot that doesn't work with AGP or PCI—which is, in other words, incompatible with every card released for the Mac since the death of NuBus. It would be one thing if Apple still had a (relatively) slot-rich machine like the old 9600. But they don't. What kind of flagship pro machine—the sort of machine that a pro would buy today, to do work tomorrow—would come with two usable PCI slots? Or three, but no usable AGP slot (sorry about that NV6800U you spent so much money on, sir...)?



    If "forward compatibility" interferes with current usability, forward compatibility will, and should, lose. Apple will release a PCIe-enabled machine when there are useful, desirably PCIe cards to use with them. They don't have to fill their boards with all kinds of early-adopter tech to differentiate their products from a sea of compatible boards like the PC board makers do. They do have to serve their customers, and that means making a machine that is fully useful the day it's set up and used.



    GPUs are going to PCIe first (although not nearly as quickly as talking heads thought they would). Apple works closely with ATI and NVIDIA. They know what's coming, and when. When it makes sense, you'll see a PowerMac with PCIe and a PCIe card sitting in the slot, across the line (except possibly for the $1499 runt PowerMac...).
  • Reply 18 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Amorph

    Any sort of hardware interface (like the various forms of PCI) is inherently legacy: The whole point is to work with things that are, or have been, for sale. In the PC world, it doesn't matter if a few boards have PCIe on board: People who need nothing but plain old PCI can get a board that uses that. Every slot that Apple dedicates to PCIe is a slot that doesn't work with AGP or PCI—which is, in other words, incompatible with every card released for the Mac since the death of NuBus. It would be one thing if Apple still had a (relatively) slot-rich machine like the old 9600. But they don't. What kind of flagship pro machine—the sort of machine that a pro would buy today, to do work tomorrow—would come with two usable PCI slots? Or three, but no usable AGP slot (sorry about that NV6800U you spent so much money on, sir...)?



    If "forward compatibility" interferes with current usability, forward compatibility will, and should, lose. Apple will release a PCIe-enabled machine when there are useful, desirably PCIe cards to use with them. They don't have to fill their boards with all kinds of early-adopter tech to differentiate their products from a sea of compatible boards like the PC board makers do. They do have to serve their customers, and that means making a machine that is fully useful the day it's set up and used.



    GPUs are going to PCIe first (although not nearly as quickly as talking heads thought they would). Apple works closely with ATI and NVIDIA. They know what's coming, and when. When it makes sense, you'll see a PowerMac with PCIe and a PCIe card sitting in the slot, across the line (except possibly for the $1499 runt PowerMac...).




    [edit]-(i didn't fully read your post before replying, and I do agree with it for the most part. )





    How many people keep their graphics card from a Mac anyway? If it were a PC I would tend to agree, but with a Mac you sell with the starting price-point reflecting the card that is in there, and upgrade to the next card that is it's equivalent which would probably be 6800 Ultra PCI-E.
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