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angelmb · Jun 10, 2009, 05:26 AM

First time a 3rd-party manufacturing partner of NVIDIA is selling a GeForce card in a Mac version, specs are great:

- Second-generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture
- NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology
- NVIDIA CUDA technology

EVGA | Articles | EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition

OpenCL support is a given, and the GeForce GTX 285 is faster than any single-chip board ATI has to offer. So, who is getting one and why?

Big Mac · Jun 10, 2009, 06:14 AM

That's positive. Too bad there's only one high end Mac line that can use those cards.

GPUs are getting huuuuuge, aren't they?

MallyMal · Jun 10, 2009, 07:21 AM

I'm thinking about getting this for my 2008 MP but I want to see Final Cut Studio 3 first. Hopefully, the FCS3 apps will be optimized to use all the GPU and CPU power that the MPs have.

is not · Jun 10, 2009, 12:30 PM

Looks hot !!

Simon · Jun 10, 2009, 01:21 PM

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/...iew/index.html

There's the usual bias. This card is faster than the Radeon HD 4870 for games, however it remains slower for Apple Pro apps. It's an nVidia problem: poor performance in OpenGL which translates to the bad scores in those apps.

Those worried about this should keep in mind that the PC version of the Radeon 4870 with 512 MB VRAM (similar to the Mac version Apple offers for $349) can be found for ~$150. And it will work in a MP under OS X.

angelmb · Jun 10, 2009, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by Simon

EVGA Geforce GTX 285 Mac Edition review (pg 1)

There's the usual bias. This card is faster than the Radeon HD 4870 for games, however it remains slower for Apple Pro apps. It's an nVidia problem: poor performance in OpenGL which translates to the bad scores in those apps.

Those worried about this should keep in mind that the PC version of the Radeon 4870 with 512 MB VRAM (similar to the Mac version Apple offers for $349) can be found for ~$150. And it will work in a MP under OS X.

Well, I don't know how those 'terrible' scores are likely to translate in the real world… my 8800GT is supposed to suck when it comes to pro apps and I can't say it is so.

Anyhow, it is more cute than any ATI has a right to be. It's been the same all along.

Don Pickett · Jun 11, 2009, 12:08 AM

FWIW, because of driver issues nVidia cards are extremely limited as to how many vertices they can push per second.

Big Mac · Jun 11, 2009, 12:57 AM

I don't understand why Apple can't dedicate resources to improving those drivers, then.

Simon · Jun 11, 2009, 03:25 AM

Originally Posted by angelmb

my 8800GT is supposed to suck when it comes to pro apps and I can't say it is so.

It definitely doesn't! These are all fast cards. I was merely trying to point out that they have different strengths and weaknesses (at least in part certainly due to the drivers).

If someone does only OpenGL and pro apps but no games they will likely chose another card than someone who's looking for a pure gamer card. On average all of these cards are excellent performers.

Don Pickett · Jun 11, 2009, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't understand why Apple can't dedicate resources to improving those drivers, then.

I don't know if it is still the case, but ATi used to have its own team at Apple's campus, working with the OS engineers to write the drivers. nVidia didn't, and it showed.