[Tenacious Dyl]

Good news for all of us. With little fanfare, the Apple Store is now selling the nVidia GeForce 8800 GT for those of us with non-2008 Mac Pros!

Here is the link (US Store):
The Apple Store (U.S.) - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (1st Generation) Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro

They're going for $279.00 and ship in 3-5 days. On the Educational discount, they are only $251. I think I may be picking one up soon, as they seem to about double the framerates in most games compared to the x1900xt (Although in Motion and other core image tasks, it is still behind, probably because of newer drivers compared to more mature x1900xt ones).

Who's buying?

[mr. burns]

ooooooo. nice.

i wouldn't say it's double the speed of the x1900xt, but it's a boost, and the ability to play directX 10 games in windows will be nice. guess i know where part of my 'stimulus' package will be going.

[Faust]

That's good to know. I'm not sure I'll be upgrading from my 1900xt as I do not know if it pays off (I'm not a gamer).

[mr. burns]

if you don't play games and you already have an x1900xt, there really isn't much reason to get it.

[Tenacious Dyl]

In WoW it really is about twice the framerates, in other games its more like 1/3 improvement. Check out some recent benches of the two mac cards against each other:

2008 Mac Pro - GeForce 8800 GT vs Radeon HD 2600 XT

[Cadaver]

Damn. I told myself I wasn't going to buy one, since I really don't do that much gaming.
Didn't last long. Ordered this evening. At least I don't have to pay sales tax (no sales tax in Delaware).

Guess maybe now I've got no excuse for not buying the new Unreal Tournament and maybe COD 4.

[synthfiend]

Originally Posted by mr. burns 

ooooooo. nice.

i wouldn't say it's double the speed of the x1900xt, but it's a boost, and the ability to play directX 10 games in windows will be nice. guess i know where part of my 'stimulus' package will be going.

You're kidding. THAT's why AvP2 won't work in Boot Camp?

#$&!%$@!!!

[wr11]

Hell yeah! I'm not a gamer, but I can appreciate Apple's gesture to all us "1st Generation" MacPro owners. I've ordered mine, it'll keep my machine going for a little longer!

[phobos]

If the fans aren't as noisy as the ones 1900XT has I will be buying for sure!

[mr. burns]

Originally Posted by phobos 

If the fans aren't as noisy as the ones 1900XT has I will be buying for sure!

yeah, i wonder how it compares to ATI's leaf blower fan.

[dankar]

Will buy as soon as they have it for sale here...

[mr. burns]

Originally Posted by synthfiend 

You're kidding. THAT's why AvP2 won't work in Boot Camp?

#$&!%$@!!!

AvP2 as in alien versus predator 2? that's not a directx 10 game.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mr. burns 

if you don't play games and you already have an x1900xt, there really isn't much reason to get it.

What about noise and reliability?

[mr. burns]

my x1900xt has never had problems and chances are if his hasn't yet, it's a good one too. if they don't play games then they won't ever hear the fan rev up, so that's not a problem. that's the only time it makes noise.

[Faust]

Originally Posted by mr. burns 

my x1900xt has never had problems and chances are if his hasn't yet, it's a good one too. if they don't play games then they won't ever hear the fan rev up, so that's not a problem. that's the only time it makes noise.

My experience differs. The fans in my Mac Pro are quite loud and I do not play games. It's not all that disturbing but mine is quite noisy. I forgot which card my older Power Mac tower had but it was definitely less noisy.

[wr11]

Okay, so just incase this 8800GT is louder than I would like - coming from a fan-less 7300. I've ordered on of these:

Accelero S1 Rev. 2 Fan-less cooler. Reviewed here: [H]hardocp.com. Which has been installed successfully in MacPros before - mostly on X1900XTS. Anyways, just wanted to share my research.

[mr. burns]

Originally Posted by Faust 

My experience differs. The fans in my Mac Pro are quite loud and I do not play games. It's not all that disturbing but mine is quite noisy. I forgot which card my older Power Mac tower had but it was definitely less noisy.

these aren't imacs. they make noise. chances are you're just hearing the case fans, not the video card fan.

[Peabo]

Originally Posted by mr. burns 

these aren't imacs. they make noise. chances are you're just hearing the case fans, not the video card fan.

I know for a fact that whenever I heard the fan on my Mac Pro it was the x1900. I upgraded the fan on it with one of those Accelero things and it's much much quieter.

[SierraDragon]

Well I already bought an HD 2600 XT for Aperture. If anyone finds decent comparative performance 8800GT vs 2600XT as regards Aperture, please let me know.

-Allen Wicks

[Faust]

Originally Posted by mr. burns 

these aren't imacs. they make noise. chances are you're just hearing the case fans, not the video card fan.

I had a Powermac tower before that and it didn't make any noise whatsoever.

[mr. burns]

Originally Posted by Faust 

I had a Powermac tower before that and it didn't make any noise whatsoever.

same here but mine was louder than the mac pro. they're all different.

[mduell]

A pretty reasonable markup over the PC version compared to previous Mac video cards.