AMD Intros ATI Radeon HD 3870 for Mac

[cdawall]

most people doubt it. however, i ran a similiar test on a macbook pro. it had vmware installed and running windows xp and i got better 3d rendering doing that then on a laptop with the same specs and just running xp.

well more power to you thats crazy and makes no sense but hey why not

 

[Easy Rhino]

well more power to you thats crazy and makes no sense but hey why not

haha, well i didnt believe it myself when i started rendering. so i looked around on google and there was a bunch of info on virtual machine performance on a mac.

 

[Ripper3]

I'm unsure if a flash of this BIOS would be the only change for these cards, maybe something is also needed for communication with the TPM on Mac Pros. Also, the flash module itself might be different leading to problems, but it certainly would be interesting to see the video card flashing days come back.
I bought a cheapo 6200 AGP for my PowerMac G4, and flashed it with a modified 6600 BIOS, worked right away, improved performance an awful lot, in fact (that 400MHz G4 was really stressed with the UI and the code it had to run, now everything flies, but the upgrade to a dual 450MHz G4 certainly helped, heheh). I hope we can do this soon, after someone figures out how to write a compatible video BIOS, or when ATi and Nvidia start giving us EFI based video cards for our regular PCs. This should also help bring the prices of Mac cards down.

Oh, and DaedalusHelios, it's more likely to be Adobe's fault that they can't get their products working under x64 properly, but CS2 could already address greater than 2GB of RAM under OS X and Windows, so there's no excuse in the RAM department, while other operations might not stand to gain as much from running under 64-bit, compared to running multi-threaded.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

I just made $50.

When running VMWare Fusion you use a 32-64MB virtual video card which can't handle the basic of games. You are probably thinking of Boot camp which allows you to install and run Windows natively on a Mac.

parallels is pretty good at playing games.

I just wish apple would update the MacBook pros soon....

But AMD releasing a GPU for the mac pros shows intel doesn't have a stranglehold on apple products.

Good to see!

 

[robodude666]

parallels is pretty good at playing games.

I just wish apple would update the MacBook pros soon....

But AMD releasing a GPU for the mac pros shows intel doesn't have a stranglehold on apple products.

Good to see!

But parallels has performance issues compared to VMWare.

MacBook Pros were released back in feb. Not getting anytime soon. I want new Mac Minis!

nVidia makes GPUs for Apple to.

 

[WarEagleAU]

They list the MSRP at $219. Which is really on a $50 delta from the cost of my HD 3870.

 

[Easy Rhino]

yea the benchies ive seen show vmware fusion performs better than parallels.

 

[panchoman]

aren't the bios chips on macs bigger and hold some extra stuff, etc.?
my guess is that its efi and the like that wont let you use a flashed card with macs..

 

[btarunr]

BIOS chip? video-BIOS is stored on an EEPROM that's part of the GPU die itself. Unless they modified the RV670 itself....

 

[Easy Rhino]

all this talk really makes me want to build a hackintosh!! then install vmware fusion and put vista on it just for fun !

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php

 

[Ripper3]

The BIOS chips used to be bigger, depending on the graphics card. I believe Nvidia cards used 64k code for regular PC compatible cards, and 128k for Macs, while ATi used mostly 128k for both, while sometimes, you would be unlucky to find a card with only 64k, but there are plenty of reduced size ROMs to reflect that, and people would sometimes also just simply solder on a bigger ROM to the card anyway.
EFI certainly does affect it, yes, and part of the increased cost comes from the need to develop a new compatible ROM for the graphics card. Hence the higher cost for the 8800GT as well, and the longer wait until we finally had, and now have, new graphics cards.
EFI will be the norm for our PCs soon, so here's hoping that ATi and Nvidia are prepared with their graphics cards too, but something tells me we'll still be using our current cards with EFI motherboards.

The Mac forums must be going nuts with this, as the 3870 has been wanted for so long for Mac Pros, especially since people have been getting them to work with custom kexts under OS X.

Well, live and learn, didn't realise this:

BIOS chip? video-BIOS is stored on an EEPROM that's part of the GPU die itself. Unless they modified the RV670 itself....

This would make it even easier for a flash, since there's almost no way that ATi will bother changing the EEPROM just to accomodate a different type of BIOS.

 

[jbizzler]

i strongly doubt it running a virtual machine will degrade performance and all a mac is now is an overpriced dell with OSX installed on it

How is a Mac Pro an overpriced Dell??? If you're playing games, it is, but these are server/workstation parts. It has dual Xeons and fully-buffered memory. Building a custom computer comparable to a Mac Pro is just as, if not more expensive.

The Macbook Pros can be configured similarly to Dell notebooks, but aren't much more expensive, and have a lot of other features that make them better outside of the usual specs (like build quality). As I type this, I'm on a Dell Inspiron 1520 that has a Core 2 Duo processor and an 8600M GT, like the Macbook Pro. It has a 15.4'' screen, except it is much bigger and heavier than a 15.4'' Macbook Pro. This 8600M GT has slower VRAM than the Macbook Pro, older IO ports, and a loud as Hell optical drive.

But AMD releasing a GPU for the mac pros shows intel doesn't have a stranglehold on apple products.

Macs have had Radeons for a while now. Radeons were the only option on iMacs until recently, and are the defaults on Mac Pros. Intel has nothing against AMD graphics cards. Intel has Havok, and Havok is developing the on-GPU physics solution for AMD graphics cards. And AMD Crossfire is supported on Intel chipsets. In a recent ad-video from Intel, they were actually promoting individual Radeon cards.

 

[panchoman]

BIOS chip? video-BIOS is stored on an EEPROM that's part of the GPU die itself. Unless they modified the RV670 itself....

thats what i meant...

 

[Mussels]

Oh, and DaedalusHelios, it's more likely to be Adobe's fault that they can't get their products working under x64 properly, but CS2 could already address greater than 2GB of RAM under OS X and Windows, so there's no excuse in the RAM department, while other operations might not stand to gain as much from running under 64-bit, compared to running multi-threaded.

actually they said they're doing x64, but apple refused to let them do it on mac. so for at least one generation of adobe products, only PC will be 64 bit.

 

[Easy Rhino]

heh, macbook pros are no dells. #1 macs have WAY better screens #2 keyboard/touchpad are sturdier #3 osx based off bsd which is more effecient than windows #4 the amount of software you get (and great software it is) is amazing.

 

[Mussels]

heh, macbook pros are no dells. #1 macs have WAY better screens #2 keyboard/touchpad are sturdier #3 osx based off bsd which is more effecient than windows #4 the amount of software you get (and great software it is) is amazing.

the screen, keyboard and touchpad argument is the best i have ever heard as a reason to buy a mac. Macbook pros do indeed have good quality screens and peripherals.

i'll argue the rest a million times, just stick with the first ones and you're a winner

 

[Easy Rhino]

the screen, keyboard and touchpad argument is the best i have ever heard as a reason to buy a mac. Macbook pros do indeed have good quality screens and peripherals.

i'll argue the rest a million times, just stick with the first ones and you're a winner

haha i know. everyone has their preference. but like you said, you cannot really argue over the build quality of the macbooks. top notch.

 

[jbizzler]

haha i know. everyone has their preference. but like you said, you cannot really argue over the build quality of the macbooks. top notch.

And they have better battery life than other notebooks in their class. But this is off topic.

From what I understand, the 8800GT will still outperform the 3870 in 3D apps. But the 8800GT is slow with apps that use Core Animation. I thought this was mostly fixed, though, with the last update.

I'm wondering when OpenGL 3.0 will be finalized, and how that will end up on Mac systems, and how it'll affect the performance of these cards.