PCI-e/retail video card query

chopper3chopper3
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Just a quick one, mac users have had to use mac-specific video cards for ages now - often paying premium prices. With the introduction of PCI-e will this change? as far as I know the specs for PCI-e are a lot more rigid than the AGP specs, could this mean less reliance on Apple to support new hardware? Any thoughts?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    smalmsmalm Posts: 677member
    The firmware on the cards still has to be mac specific, regardless of the interface to the system controller (be it PCI, PCI-X, AGP, or PCIe).
  • Reply 2 of 5
    chopper3chopper3 Posts: 293member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by smalM

    The firmware on the cards still has to be mac specific, regardless of the interface to the system controller (be it PCI, PCI-X, AGP, or PCIe).



    Really? that's a shame, why is that? will that change with the intels do you think?
  • Reply 3 of 5
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that at least ATI was now making dual ROM cards from now on. So the only issue would be driver availability.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    jherrlingjherrling Posts: 80member
    Looking at the specs on Nivida's site it has listed Mac OS X support for a long time so I'm curious if this is true. I would love to test it out but I don't have $500 kicking around.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    There are still some things that need to be addressed even on ATI cards, because people are still hardware hacking, and ROM updating various pro level ATI cards. I have a site/message board bookmarked somewhere in here, but after reading what these guys were doing to get these working, and how much money they were throwing away I decided against trying it. But they were willing to do it for you if you sent them the card.
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