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tyson.r · May 21, 2003, 08:02 AM

I'm holding out on building a dual Athlon 2.4 untill the 970 is announced (well, holding out for now). From what I hear about the 970, I don't have any doubts that it will at least put some big compition up to the Athlon, if not crush it at the higher end. However, the lack of high end video cards in apples corner makes me look twice. Im looking at the nVIDIA quadro900XGL for Maya work. Whats the chance of apple introducing some high(er) end cards like this in its new desktops? I would seriously HATE to deal with windows and give my mac up, but 90% of my time is spent right in maya...and its a much cheaper option with the Athlon.

D'Espice · May 21, 2003, 11:38 AM

The fastest video card available right now is the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, ain't that fast enough for your needs?

scottiB · May 21, 2003, 12:43 PM

If you search past reports on Mac Rumors or Think Secret--I believe around the first of this year--there was a mentioning of workstation-level 3-D card drivers (Quadro, etc.--not sure about 3DLabs) being written into 10.3 aka Panther.

MindFad · May 21, 2003, 01:48 PM

Originally posted by scottiB:
If you search past reports on Mac Rumors or Think Secret--I believe around the first of this year--there was a mentioning of workstation-level 3-D card drivers (Quadro, etc.--not sure about 3DLabs) being written into 10.3 aka Panther.

*puddle of drool* If that's true ... man, a 970 workstation for all my 3-D work? Can you hear the angelic choir of nerds yet? Can ya?

tyson.r · May 21, 2003, 03:36 PM

'The fastest video card available right now is the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, ain't that fast enough for your needs?'

No

GetSome681 · May 21, 2003, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by D'Espice:
The fastest video card available right now is the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, ain't that fast enough for your needs?

what about the 9800 pro 256mb DDR-II that was just released?

digi-j · May 22, 2003, 03:07 AM

the key word is "available" and the 9800 is not available for Mac

tyson.r · May 22, 2003, 06:52 AM

The Radeon cards are gaming cards. I wish I could tell you what makes them that. Something to do with emphisis on FX as apposed to raw virticie counts needed in a 3d program. The Radeon 9800 is avalable for under $400. The nVIDIA Quadro 1000 FX (wich im now looking at) retails for over a thousand. I hate to just throw prices around, but I'm just the user of the tool, and I have seen the card perform...its amazing.

power142 · May 22, 2003, 08:40 AM

I hate to add gasoline to the fire, but I have to agree... the price *does* count. We have a couple of Quadros (900 series) and they leave GF4s for dead in 3D modelling. Having said that, it ain't that hard to slow it down, at which point our trusty SGI friends come in useful.....

terrancew_hod · May 22, 2003, 10:45 AM

Originally posted by tyson.r:
The Radeon cards are gaming cards.

Very true. The difference is in the drivers and how they work with the video card. I learned a little about the differences when I had to build a machine for a guy that wanted to run Autocad. At the time they had a Geforce 3 and one of the Quadros. Both are the same hardware-wise except for a jumper, but the Quadro came with the special drivers needed to work with the 3D design programs.

While the specialized cards could run video games, video game cards were not good CAD cards...

AlanApple · May 22, 2003, 06:14 PM

And a GeForce4 Ti is not a big enough card for you?

MindFad · May 22, 2003, 06:26 PM

Originally posted by AlanApple:
And a GeForce4 Ti is not a big enough card for you?

For gaming, I'd rather have a 9700.

For 3-D work, I'd rather have a Quadro and not a gaming card.

Eug · May 22, 2003, 11:39 PM

The fastest video card available right now is the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, ain't that fast enough for your needs?

As they said, these are gaming cards, not pro 3D cards.

Both are the same hardware-wise except for a jumper, but the Quadro came with the special drivers needed to work with the 3D design programs.

In the old days you could hack an nVidia card into a Quadro, with some minor soldering. And then people would "find" the appropriate software/drivers out there in internet land.

BTW, is it correct that ATI does not make Mac compatible FireGL cards?

(I know nothing about pro 3D cards, but I'm just curious.)

Oh, and for the person who mentioned the 9800, rumour has it that a few ATI people have said (off the record) that the 9800 Pro will likely be coming to the Mac. No 9500 or 9600 though apparently. Time will tell.

sleepyrenderer · May 23, 2003, 01:15 PM

Hopefully the 970's motherboard will finally have an AGP Pro slot. Otherwise discussing bringing over a lot of the highest end cards is kind of moot.

power142 · May 24, 2003, 11:18 AM

PCI-X would be more forward thinking.....

roders · 01:14 PM

As far as I was aware, to get Quadro Functionality (not sure about performance, but this could be a driver thing also) for Nvidia cards in CAD/3D progs, there are LOTS of utilities available for the PC that derestrict the built in "brakes" that the PC Nvidia drivers have built in to them for their consumer cards, which most of the time are identical hardware wise to the Qaudro cards. This is purely a financial thing (to make more money out of those that Nvidia/ATI think can afford it, design/rendering houses etc).
Luckily nice Apple's drivers for the consumer cards are totaly unrestricted anyway, so you get this functionality/performance for free, apparently.

terrancew_hod · May 24, 2003, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by roders:
Luckily nice Apple's drivers for the consumer cards are totaly unrestricted anyway, so you get this functionality/performance for free, apparently.

But then we are back to needing professional graphic cards. Those cards need to be available for the mac as well. But maybe something like that is around the corner, since there were some rumors about bring Autocad to OS X.

MetalArtist · May 25, 2003, 06:16 AM

i remember the thinksecret article too, and i think its a logical course for apple to take if they wanna market new powermacs to fx production houses. Maybe once Macs can use quadros or firegl cards, A|W can port Maya Unlimited to OS X..... i do so want that snazzy fluid effects capability.

mac freak · May 25, 2003, 12:26 PM

I've always wondered what made "pro" video cards (FireGL, Quadro) inherently different from "gaming" cards like the 9800 Pro and GeForceFX... could someone briefly outline it? 'Cause it seems like "pro" cards don't do too well when it comes to running games, which seems odd (as they're "much" more powerful, right?).

terrancew_hod · May 25, 2003, 03:57 PM

It comes down to how the drivers are written. The cards are generally the same as consumer cards in most cases, but the drivers are more optimized for certain CAD applications, and make pure OpenGL calls than a subset of calls like the consumer cards (if I remember correctly--it's been a while). That's why you'll get bad performance when you try to use a consumer card for CAD. Some professional cards can get good performance in games (especially those that use OpenGL), just depends how the drivers are written.

I think that's the real brief summary...

tyson.r · May 26, 2003, 07:50 PM

I can't figure out how to quote, but to the poster saying its a moot point with out AGP pro. As far as I've been informed, AGP faster than 4x (current g4s) is what is moot. Current cards don't gain much at all from them. Actually, the system im considering building is AGP 4x.

Ken_F2 · May 26, 2003, 08:47 PM

The next-generation ATI R400 (now called R420) and Nvidia NV40 will use PCI Express (PCI Express replaces AGP). Hopefully Apple will adopt that next year when it introduces the 970 systems...

tyson.r · May 26, 2003, 09:17 PM

Im looking at news about these new chips now...but from what ive collected so far, they look to be coming out as gaming cards...for now anyway