Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition Pictured

[btarunr]

Sapphire unveiled the Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card for Apple Mac Pro workstations. Featuring lateral-flow cooling assembly akin to AMD's reference design, and a glossy, curvy white cooler shroud, the card features a custom design, pitch-black PCB with the firmware required to get the card running on a Mac Pro.

The card features older Radeon HD 7950 ASIC, which lacks PowerTune with Boost; and features clock speeds of 800 MHz core, 5.00 GHz memory. It packs 3 GB of memory across a 384-bit GDDR5 interface. It draws power from two 6-pin PCIe connectors. Display outputs include a dual-link DVI, an HDMI, and two mini-DisplayPorts. The card is expected to be priced in the range of €400 and €500, a hefty premium over the roughly €250 common HD 7950 cards charge today.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

So I've always wondered, do the vid card manufacturers have to license the firmware code required to make these cards compatible with the Mac OS? This isn't even a FirePro version of the card which would then make a little sense for the mark up in price. Or is it simply an example of supply and demand.... go ahead and try to get a Mac compatible card from somewhere / someone else (I know you used to be able to flash "normal" vid cards to work with Macs, not sure if it's still possible).

 

[EzioAs]

So, what makes it significantly more expensive? Firmware? Driver? Support? Reliability? I'd really like to know

 

[las]

So, what makes it significantly more expensive? Firmware? Driver? Support? Reliability? I'd really like to know

Demand

 

[Steve-007UK]

It probs cost more because its for a mac and i bet that is the only reason cause anything you buy for apple products is a rip off.

I do know one thing though, They need to make this into a 7970ghz pc edition so i can buy one to match my nzxt case.

 

[TheMailMan78]

The cost of this thing will be INSANE. Mac GPU's have always carried a 30%+ premium over their PC counterparts.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Imagine the cost of a GTX Titan for Mac.

 

[Steve-007UK]

Imagine the cost of a GTX Titan for Mac.

£1500 minimum? lol

 

[Kaynar]

It probs cost more because its for a mac and i bet that is the only reason cause anything you buy for apple products is a rip off.

I do know one thing though, They need to make this into a 7970ghz pc edition so i can buy one to match my nzxt case.

If the card you want also has the Mac logo, its gonna cost more than GTX Titan lol.

BTW I think Galaxy makes a full white GTX680 card (white cooler and even white PCB).

 

[Steve-007UK]

If the card you want also has the Mac logo, its gonna cost more than GTX Titan lol.

BTW I think Galaxy makes a full white GTX680 card (white cooler and even white PCB).

No the one i would want would be a pc version in the same color but a 7970Ghz edition

 

[dj-electric]

I want one!!!

 

[patrico]

high prices but looks nices

 

[lobsterrock]

So, what makes it significantly more expensive? Firmware? Driver? Support? Reliability? I'd really like to know

The fact that it's for apple products, obviously

 

[EzioAs]

It seems like most people said the high price is because it's for Mac.

And I'd thought they'd be some other factors beside it.

 

[Animalpak]

So, what makes it significantly more expensive? Firmware? Driver? Support? Reliability? I'd really like to know

off course the Mac label name... Like all the rest capitalist shit by apple

Imagine the cost of a GTX Titan for Mac.

much more 2000$

 

[PatoRodrigues]

Let me guess... They're introducing this just to let the world know Apple's next step is to get the current formats of a GPU as their intellectual property too?

(j/k... just a bad idea. :shadedshu)

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Hmm yeah I am not completely clear on the exact nature of the "firmware differences" but I can tell that since they went Intel you can take a "Mac GPU" and use it in a PC--but not the other way around (which makes me a little suspicious that this is another Apple-imposed 'limitation'; I don't see why you can't use a 'regular' video card in a Mac as well...).

I borrowed an 8800GT from a Mac at work back in the day to try out the NV drivers with a few titles and later some other low end card for use in my server box until my 5450 arrived (6 watts and passive woo).

So my experience tells me that this would work in a PC. Not the only white card on the market but I can see some PC builds incorporating this nice-looking product despite the premium. Also using a "Mac card" is one more thing to help you stand out from the build log crowd.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Hmm yeah I am not completely clear on the exact nature of the "firmware differences" but I can tell that since they went Intel you can take a "Mac GPU" and use it in a PC--but not the other way around (which makes me a little suspicious that this is another Apple-imposed 'limitation'; I don't see why you can't use a 'regular' video card in a Mac as well...).

I borrowed an 8800GT from a Mac at work back in the day to try out the NV drivers with a few titles and later some other low end card for use in my server box until my 5450 arrived (6 watts and passive woo).

So my experience tells me that this would work in a PC. Not the only white card on the market but I can see some PC builds incorporating this nice-looking product despite the premium.

Back in the old days I would buy a PC card that had a Mac equivalent and flash the bios to the Mac version and save a few 100 bucks. This was late OS9 early OSX era. I wonder if you still can?

 

[tokyoduong]

So, what makes it significantly more expensive? Firmware? Driver? Support? Reliability? I'd really like to know

That's cover is not made out of plastic, it's actually ivory.

Back in the old days I would buy a PC card that had a Mac equivalent and flash the bios to the Mac version and save a few 100 bucks. I wonder if you still can?

I don't see why not. Macs are even more PC like today than they had ever been before.

Who games on Macs anyways?

 

[TheMailMan78]

That's cover is not made out of plastic, it's actually ivory.


I don't see why not. Macs are even more PC like today than they had ever been before.

Who games on Macs anyways?

Back then Apples were better for Photoshop and such. SO it was graphic artists who wanted to get more FPS in Quake and Unreal basically

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Who games on Macs anyways?

No one buys a Mac to game primarily still but it's a lot more possible and worthwhile than ever before both due to the Intel hardware and companies like Valve.

And as for flashing again I am not even sure what to flash exactly as I am still not convinced there is an actual low-level difference such as firmware. Somehow PC cards don't work out of the box but as I said I don't understand how/why exactly. Before Intel Macs there was a definite firmware/bios difference and neither would work on the other platform.

 

[Sasqui]

So, what makes it significantly more expensive? Firmware? Driver? Support? Reliability? I'd really like to know

The white paint, lol.

Seriously, demand (economy of scale), driver re-writes, firmware and all the associated certifcations and compatibility testing.

Pretty much the same reason workstation cards are so expensive.

Then you have the Mac O'sphere, where there are few options and people willing to pay for those few options.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Yeah Sasqui pretty much hit it on the head.

 

[Delta6326]

Is it just me or is AMD/Vendors getting lots of contracts with other companies...?

I do like the White look, would be nice in a all white build.

 

[GSquadron]

It is obvious, the card costs this much because there are less produced than PC counterparts.