I want the ATI Radeon 9700 now!

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
It says on techbargains.com that J&R is getting the ATI Radeon 9700 video card any day now.



I whipped out my credit card and called them but damn! the version they're getting is only for PC's, the Mac version is not even in their system.



I hope its not only going to be sold through the Apple Store as the nVidia Geforce 4Ti is.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    bodhibodhi Posts: 1,424member
    Technically it's Future Hardware cause technically it's not in our hands yet but I think this is better off over in Current Hardware, we knows specs and pricing, etc..



    [ 09-04-2002: Message edited by: Bodhi ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 18
    The 9700 is a AGP8X card. There aint no macs with AGP8X only AGP4X. We probably wont se a AGP8X mac until PC has moved to AGP16X or AGP32X
  • Reply 3 of 18
    You really aren't going to see any real performance hits using it on an AGP4x bus, due to the fact that current graphics cards don't even max out the AGP4x. Besides, the ATI Radeon 9700 is AGP8x/4x, which means it will work fine on 4x.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    Any idea when it will be released? Or when the new nividia card will be released?
  • Reply 5 of 18
    I suspect a fall release, in a month or two for the Radeon 9700. nVidia's next generation product probably won't come until around Christmas time or early next year, so maybe it will be in the new Macs for MWSF.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    So should I get the 9700 or wait for nividia's next card? I do mostly photoshop work and have the GF4MX inmmy dual gig.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    ATI
  • Reply 8 of 18
    I'm going the 9700 route (same setup as you have), and by the time we can get hold of Mac drivers for the card, the PC versions will have dropped in price. Plus I'm sure there will be other cards with better specs than the Mac version.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    I think we might see the ATI 9700 as a BTO option for the PowerMac line by October or November.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    [quote]Originally posted by KidRed:

    <strong>So should I get the 9700 or wait for nividia's next card? I do mostly photoshop work and have the GF4MX inmmy dual gig.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    If you're doing mostly Photoshop work, the card you have is more than adequate.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    The 9700 will be available directly from ATI as a retail product. nVidia doesn't sell retail so Apple will be the only source of the NV30 for the Mac (unless some sort of flashable hack is available), and it may or may not be available as a separate upgrade.



    The NV30 will be better than the 9700, but it will be like comparing the 4Ti to the 8500... yes its better in most ways, but not enough better to really make a difference. Both the 9700 and NV30 are significantly faster than the 4Ti and 8500, however. They support both AGP 4x and 8x so current Macs can use them.



    As for using these cards with Photoshop: the speed improvement won't be that significant since PS does all of its real work on the CPU. I wonder, however, if they will eventually implement some of their algorithms using the OpenGL shaders (the 9700 & NV30 have the necessary capability)... then you will see a big speed boost on those cards. I don't know if Adobe is looking at that, but they should be.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    Would using the ATI 9700 or new nVidia card increase speed on OS X 10.2 in general?
  • Reply 13 of 18
    Programmer,



    "The NV30 will be better than the 9700, but it will be like comparing the 4Ti to the 8500... yes its better in most ways, but not enough better to really make a difference. Both the 9700 and NV30 are significantly faster than the 4Ti and 8500, however. They support both AGP 4x and 8x so current Macs can use them."



    Sorry to butt in, but how can you compare the 9700, a shipping product, to the nv30, a paper product that nobody knows when it will ship? Just because the nv30 is to be a .13 micron chip means nothing in terms of competitive performance. Internal design plays as much a part in the final performance as does the actual fabrication technology. The fact ATI hasn't announced the MAC version may mean that ATI is letting Jobs' ego get first crack at announcing it.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    [quote]Originally posted by DVD_Junkie:

    <strong>Programmer,



    "The NV30 will be better than the 9700, but it will be like comparing the 4Ti to the 8500... yes its better in most ways, but not enough better to really make a difference. Both the 9700 and NV30 are significantly faster than the 4Ti and 8500, however. They support both AGP 4x and 8x so current Macs can use them."



    Sorry to butt in, but how can you compare the 9700, a shipping product, to the nv30, a paper product that nobody knows when it will ship? Just because the nv30 is to be a .13 micron chip means nothing in terms of competitive performance. Internal design plays as much a part in the final performance as does the actual fabrication technology. The fact ATI hasn't announced the MAC version may mean that ATI is letting Jobs' ego get first crack at announcing it.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Sometimes people have information about products before they ship.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    Just read the preview from Tom's hardware.



    Jesus....the card requires EXTERNAL power supply! :eek: :eek:
  • Reply 16 of 18
    [quote]Originally posted by Leonis:

    <strong>Just read the preview from Tom's hardware.



    Jesus....the card requires EXTERNAL power supply! :eek: :eek: </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Nice, eh? The power spec on the standard AGP bus isn't particularly high, that's why AGP Pro was introduced. Unfortunately the Pro variant isn't too common so for the consumer market (which the 9700 and NV30 are targeted at) they have to resort to ugly hacks like powering the cards externally. &gt;sigh&lt; yet another AC converter in the powerbar. I figure its for cards like these that the new PowerMacs have their heavy duty cooling capability.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    Excuse me for this rather mundane comment but ...



    I noticed that the ATI 9000 Pro card HAS NO FAN. In fact the heat sink on it looks exactly like the small heat sink ATI was putting on the old 16MB 128 Pro cards 2 years ago. Not that a card's fan would make any difference in the volume of the MDD wind tunnel. But just that's one less fan to worry about failing ? expecially on a video card that you wouldn't know had failed until after the processor had MELTED.



    I think any time you can get a video card without a fan, you're ahead of the game. Perhaps this is the last of the fanless video cards. I don't pretend to know. But I think anytime engineering can figure out how to cool a card without a fan it's a good thing.



    [ 09-08-2002: Message edited by: Multimedia ]</p>
  • Reply 18 of 18
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    No I actually think it makes sense that the "budget" cards manage to work without fan, while the high end cards nowadays always boast at least one of them.

    As chip processes shrink continuously, I also see this going on for at least another year.

    The release of the NV30 shall be interesting.



    G_News
Sign In or Register to comment.