driving a Apple 30" cinema monitor

[hieule91]

Hi,

I'm looking for a system that can drive the max resolution of Apple's 30" cinema monitor at (2560 by 1600)

I prefer a P4 configuration

I see that the specs for both NVIDIA & ATI high-end card only support 2048x1536

Can someone give me recomm🙁endation?

Hieu

 

[uOpt]

Search. There were at least two threads here listing PC cards with dual-link DVI.

 

[mdahc]

Are you looking at nVIDIA Geforce and ATI Radeon GPU's, because you should be looking at the Quadro and FireGL series. Furthermore, why are you posting this in the SFF/Notebook forum?

 

[droopy1592]

only the Asus V9999GE and Dell GeForce 6800 GTO will support the 30" Cinema display

 

[mdahc]

Originally posted by: droopy1592
only the Asus V9999GE and Dell GeForce 6800 GTO will support the 30" Cinema display

What are you smoking? The QuadroFX 3400 and 4400 do for sure (link), and so do the FireGL V7100 and V5000 (link) although I don't know if you'd want to shell out the $ for one of those cards (then again, if you're willing to shell out for a 30" Cinema Display, then why not?). For that matter, where is it stated that either of the cards you mentioned support dual-link DVI?

 

[hieule91]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
Search. There were at least two threads here listing PC cards with dual-link DVI.

thanks everyone,

but I'm still confused about why would I need a dual-link DVI? Don't I need only one DVI? Are you saying that the Apple Cinema 30 requires a card that has two (2) DVI ports to drive it at the same time????

 

[whistleclient]

Originally posted by: hieule91

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
Search. There were at least two threads here listing PC cards with dual-link DVI.

thanks everyone,

but I'm still confused about why would I need a dual-link DVI? Don't I need only one DVI? Are you saying that the Apple Cinema 30 requires a card that has two (2) DVI ports to drive it at the same time????

no, not dual dvi ports. dual-link dvi. to push all the pixels the 30" needs.

 

[trungthiendo]

do a little research on it...as stated previously you need a card that has DUAL-LINK DVI...not just a card with dual dvi but dual link...

 

[hieule91]

ok, got the picture.

it seems as though for the PC solution, I can only find FireGL 7100 or X3 model or Nvidia Quadro FX 3400 or 4400 to get dual-link DVI

Wonder if Nvidia going to release a dual-link DVI version for 6800 ultra just like the Mac high-end version


I don't want to get the FireGL 7100 (more affordable than Quadro) because it sucks on game performance

 

[mdahc]

Actually, all Quadro's and FireGL's suck in terms of game performance. They're optimized for OpenGL DCC/3D digital animation/CAD type software (i.e. their drivers are not optimized for DirectX type games).

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Actually, all Quadro's and FireGL's suck in terms of game performance. They're optimized for OpenGL DCC/3D digital animation/CAD type software (i.e. their drivers are not optimized for DirectX type games).

Now it's my turn to ask what you're smoking.

Quadros and FireGLs do just fine in gaming. Their miniscule drop in performance is due to the fact that neither manufacturer uses "image optimization techniques" in their workstation drivers.

- M4H

 

[mdahc]

I mean, for the amount of money, you'd expect them to smash the hell out of any Geforce's and Radeon's. However, as can be seen here, a ~$1300 QuadroFX 3400 consistently performs in the neighborhood of a ~$200 Geforce 6600GT. IMO, that sucks just a little.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: mdahc
I mean, for the amount of money, you'd expect them to smash the hell out of any Geforce's and Radeon's. However, as can be seen here, a ~$1300 QuadroFX 3400 consistently performs in the neighborhood of a ~$200 Geforce 6600GT. IMO, that sucks just a little.

Like a Lexus over a Toyota, you're paying for the branding, the quality assurance, and the service. Not the horsepower.

- M4H

 

[mdahc]

What are you talking about? The QuadroFX 3400, for example, is based on NV40/Geforce 6800. Thus, wouldn't one expect the card to perform on par with at least a 6800 std, GT or Ultra in addition to kicking some rendering arse in Maya? My point is, the card is designed for rendering, not gaming, whereas Toyota's and Lexi are both built for driving. By your analogy, a Quadro or a FireGL should at least peform the same as the lower-end/consumer counterpart (but you're just paying for "branding, quality assurance, blah, blah, blah").

 

[n yusef]

The QuadroFX 3400 is based on the 6800GT (900MHz RAM instead of 1GHz though), which has much greater performance that a 6600GT, but, it uses workstation drivers that are optimized for OpenGL and could care less about DirectX performance. That is why the FX 3400 doesn't have the performance of a 6800GT in games.

 

[mdahc]

:thumbsup: