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macgeek2005 · Nov 10, 2006, 02:49 AM

Is anyone planning on getting this card and putting it in their Mac Pro? I'm curious as to how well it will work. There are programs out there that make it work in OS X.

I'm really pissed about it. I just recently got my Mac Pro with the X1900XT, which was at that time one of the best video cards available, and now the 8800GTX is out, with it's DX10 and it's HDCP and it's 71 FRAMES PER SECOND IN OBLIVION AT 2560X1600 MAXED OUT SETTINGS!!!!!!!

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX/GTS Performance Preview

I didn't realise that this really was the end of an era. The DX9 era is over. Buying the X1900XT now was like buying a PowerMac G5 a few months before the Mac Pro's came out.

I'm really pissed.

I'm buying a DX10 card as soon as apple has one on their website as an upgrade kit for the Mac Pro.

workerbee · Nov 10, 2006, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by macgeek2005

There are programs out there that make it work in OS X.

Do you have links for this? Thanks!
An Octomac with a 8800GTX would indeed be an awesome beast

aiongiant · Nov 10, 2006, 11:18 AM

planning to buy one althought i don't know how ot get power to the card

there is however 2 pci express power sockets on the motherbaord
althought i have no idea if that will fit or rather if that will be enough power even??

Leonard · Nov 10, 2006, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by aiongiant

planning to buy one althought i don't know how ot get power to the card

there is however 2 pci express power sockets on the motherbaord
althought i have no idea if that will fit or rather if that will be enough power even??

Someone else, on another forum, was asking if the MacPro could handle the 180W of power required by this card and the answer is yes, the Mac Pro should be able to handle it. The two aux power connectors will provide 150W power max total and the PCI-Express slot 1 can provide up to 75W max power, which is over the 180W needed by the card.

I would imagine the power connectors should fit, as it is an Intel designed board, the connectors should follow a standard.

jamil5454 · Nov 10, 2006, 02:53 PM

Man, I'm a huge Mac fan and all, but I say just buid a gaming PC. You can upgrade any part to your heart's content, you don't have to worry about BootCamp and EFI, and the best of all, you can use SLI (or CrossFire).

derekn · Nov 10, 2006, 03:20 PM

Man Macgeek stop getting pissed off about everything before you sprain something.

A user over at macrumors ordered an 8800 from NewEgg and should get it today. So hopefully we'll see some benchmarks and if it even works today.

Xyrrus · Nov 10, 2006, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by jamil5454

Man, I'm a huge Mac fan and all, but I say just buid a gaming PC. You can upgrade any part to your heart's content, you don't have to worry about BootCamp and EFI, and the best of all, you can use SLI (or CrossFire).

Before the intel switch, this is what I used to do.

I know for me one of the big selling points of the Pro was that future hardware investments wouldn't have to be split between two computers. I love the fact that the purchase of the X1900 gave me an increase in performance not only running boot camp for games, but for Aperture, Final Cut, etc. I'm sure the 8800 will lend quite a bit of benefit to a lot of Mac Apps.

Anyways, until I have unlimited funds at my disposal, it makes more sense to buy 1 machine that runs OSX superbly and windows quite well. Its not like I could afford to keep a Mac Pro AND an SLI gaming box under my desk. (But I could talk myself into a $500 graphics card upgrade for christmas

)

-Xy

macgeek2005 · Nov 10, 2006, 04:58 PM

omni's minimalist web site - main

That's the thing that does it. Titan it's called.

I guess i'm not that mad yet, cause I can play Oblivion at 1920x1200 with all settings maxed and not a bit of lag. It is a little annoying though, to know that it's WELL over the Lag point with the 8800gtx.

Tomchu · Nov 10, 2006, 05:50 PM

X1950 XT, X1950 XTX, GeForce 7800 GT, GeForce 7800 GTX, GeForce 7900 GT, GeForce 7900 GTX, GeForce 7950 GX2 ...

All those cards are last-gen cards that are as good or better than an X1900 XT. The X1900 XT is actually near the bottom of that pile.

Did you fool yourself into thinking that Apple was selling you something top-of-the-line in the form of the X1900 XT?

macgeek2005 · Nov 10, 2006, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

X1950 XT, X1950 XTX, GeForce 7800 GT, GeForce 7800 GTX, GeForce 7900 GT, GeForce 7900 GTX, GeForce 7950 GX2 ...

All those cards are last-gen cards that are as good or better than an X1900 XT. The X1900 XT is actually near the bottom of that pile.

Did you fool yourself into thinking that Apple was selling you something top-of-the-line in the form of the X1900 XT?

No. What i'm saying is the difference between the X1900XT and all the cards you list, is not nearly as colossal a difference as the difference between the X1900XT and the 8800GTX.

All those cards are from the same pile. Who's higher or lower in the pile doesn't matter that much. The 8800GTX is a NEW pile!!!

Tomchu · Nov 11, 2006, 12:16 AM

The difference in performance is not colossal.

The difference in supported feature sets is greater, but ... of what use is DX10 hardware in OS X?

thebunny · Nov 11, 2006, 01:23 AM

It doesn't seem to work at all:

BFG 8800GTX NOT working for me in my mac pro. - Mac Forums

mduell · Nov 11, 2006, 02:12 AM

With all the changes the 8800 series has brought to the graphics rendering architecture, the old drivers just aren't going to work even with a bit of hacking.

macgeek2005 · Nov 11, 2006, 04:25 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

With all the changes the 8800 series has brought to the graphics rendering architecture, the old drivers just aren't going to work even with a bit of hacking.

But there will be newer Mac cards for the Mac Pro in the future right? Chances are apple will make a "8800GTX Mac Pro Upgrade Kit" by january or something... right?

jamil5454 · Nov 11, 2006, 12:15 PM

It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. I suspect that Apple will offer the next-gen cards in its next Mac Pro rev, but only if ATI has their next-gen card out by then.

SMacSteve · Jan 26, 2007, 11:37 PM

I've been doing a little searching on the same question and I found a link to this company on the Apple Discussions: http://www.macvidia.com/

Although it doesn't say if the 8800 has been tried or not in their forums, but several have installed the 7900 and it works great.

Hope this works for you. I've not bought a MacPro yet, but I'm selling my G5 Quad and getting one as soon as a update is available so that I get the latest technology!

utw-Mephisto · Feb 1, 2007, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by SMacSteve

I've been doing a little searching on the same question and I found a link to this company on the Apple Discussions: The MacVidia Project :: Macintosh & Nvidia Community

Although it doesn't say if the 8800 has been tried or not in their forums, but several have installed the 7900 and it works great.

Hope this works for you. I've not bought a MacPro yet, but I'm selling my G5 Quad and getting one as soon as a update is available so that I get the latest technology!

In post 23 he said it does work at least for Windows . he left one of his old card in which he then removed. However, it only works when he boot up XP using bootcamp .. but yes, OSX is a no go

goMac · Feb 2, 2007, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by jamil5454

Man, I'm a huge Mac fan and all, but I say just buid a gaming PC. You can upgrade any part to your heart's content, you don't have to worry about BootCamp and EFI, and the best of all, you can use SLI (or CrossFire).

Xeon's can't support Crossfire/SLI. Not enough PCI channels. This is why the Mac Pro doesn't have Crossfire/SLI yet. It has nothing to do with Apple not caring about it.

And my Intel PC board had EFI. So EFI is even there on PC's now too, with the same BIOS emulation stuff Macs have.

mduell · Feb 2, 2007, 07:52 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Xeon's can't support Crossfire/SLI. Not enough PCI channels. This is why the Mac Pro doesn't have Crossfire/SLI yet. It has nothing to do with Apple not caring about it.

Yes, they can and do. You just have to buy the more expensive chipsets.

goMac · Feb 2, 2007, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Yes, they can and do. You just have to buy the more expensive chipsets.

From who? Apple is going to stick to Intel chipsets for now, so unless Intel has a Xeon chipset that does Crossfire/SLI...

mduell · Feb 2, 2007, 09:35 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

From who? Apple is going to stick to Intel chipsets for now, so unless Intel has a Xeon chipset that does Crossfire/SLI...

Intel has one for SLI. I don't think we'll ever see one for Crossfire since that's now an AMD technology.

goMac · Feb 2, 2007, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Intel has one for SLI. I don't think we'll ever see one for Crossfire since that's now an AMD technology.

They do have Crossfire boards. The Intel 975X chipset supports crossfire, and Intel ships two crossfire boards, the Bad Axe and Bad Axe 2. However, both these boards are not Xeon compatible, only P4-Core 2 Duo.

As far as I know Intel has no SLI boards (not counting NForce boards, which are not made by Intel).

mduell · Feb 3, 2007, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

They do have Crossfire boards. The Intel 975X chipset supports crossfire, and Intel ships two crossfire boards, the Bad Axe and Bad Axe 2. However, both these boards are not Xeon compatible, only P4-Core 2 Duo.

As far as I know Intel has no SLI boards (not counting NForce boards, which are not made by Intel).

Intel has one board based on their dual-Xeon SLI-capable chipset, but it's not clear if that board supports SLI.

goMac · Feb 4, 2007, 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

Intel has one board based on their dual-Xeon SLI-capable chipset, but it's not clear if that board supports SLI.

You have a link to that chipset? I don't think Intel has any SLI chipsets, only NVidia makes Intel compatible SLI chipsets.

mduell · Feb 4, 2007, 02:40 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

You have a link to that chipset? I don't think Intel has any SLI chipsets, only NVidia makes Intel compatible SLI chipsets.

Intel E7525 Chipset (AKA Tumwater)

SuperMicro has 6 boards based on it (various RAM/disk busses available) and IWILL has one.