NVIDIA Announces The Quadro FX 4800 For The Mac Pro

[ViRGE]

Where was the high-end NVIDIA option on the new Mac Pros, you may wonder? As it would turn out, here it is.

The FX 4800 is a GT200 part with all of the shaders active, but the memory bus restricted to 384bit, which is below any of the GTX cards. This specific card will ship with 1.5GB of VRAM, which means 6 256MB GDDR3 chips.

Now the more interesting bit here is that this means Apple/NVIDIA is finally going to ship GT200 drivers for Leopard. This should make it possible to use GTX cards on Hackintoshes,😀 which will alleviate the dilemma of a slower NV 9xxx card with better drivers, or the faster ATI HD4xxx card with ATI's spotty drivers. Using modified GTXs on a Mac Pro may be another issue however, because the card is different enough that just swiping the firmware likely won't be good enough.

I can't wait for May.

 

[Jack Flash]

Hurrah! I'm crossing my fingers for GT200 Hackintosh support soon.

 

[sjwaste]

With every other component of the Mac Pro being just about at the top end of consumer/workstation hardware, why wouldn't they be looking to cram the FX 5800 in there?

That or offer a Quadro CX option, which bills itself as an accelerator for CS4?

I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm the first to admit that I don't exactly know the demands of people who buy Mac Pros for their intended use. The only people I know that have them aren't doing bleeding edge work.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
With every other component of the Mac Pro being just about at the top end of consumer/workstation hardware, why wouldn't they be looking to cram the FX 5800 in there?

That or offer a Quadro CX option, which bills itself as an accelerator for CS4?

I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm the first to admit that I don't exactly know the demands of people who buy Mac Pros for their intended use. The only people I know that have them aren't doing bleeding edge work.

I suspect the issue is that the FX 5800 is too power-hungry for the Mac Pro. IIRC they only have a single 6pin power connector for the video card, which limits your options to whatever maxes out at 150W (which happens to be the FX 4800). Heat may also be an issue.

 

[Kaido]

Yup:

http://netkas.org/?p=97

And lol @ the 384-bit restriction. Nvidia != Apple :laugh:

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: sjwaste
With every other component of the Mac Pro being just about at the top end of consumer/workstation hardware, why wouldn't they be looking to cram the FX 5800 in there?

That or offer a Quadro CX option, which bills itself as an accelerator for CS4?

I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm the first to admit that I don't exactly know the demands of people who buy Mac Pros for their intended use. The only people I know that have them aren't doing bleeding edge work.

I suspect the issue is that the FX 5800 is too power-hungry for the Mac Pro. IIRC they only have a single 6pin power connector for the video card, which limits your options to whatever maxes out at 150W (which happens to be the FX 4800). Heat may also be an issue.

They cant swap in a stronger PS with the upgrade? They sure are charging enough for it, at least put the top workstation card in there.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: sjwaste
With every other component of the Mac Pro being just about at the top end of consumer/workstation hardware, why wouldn't they be looking to cram the FX 5800 in there?

That or offer a Quadro CX option, which bills itself as an accelerator for CS4?

I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm the first to admit that I don't exactly know the demands of people who buy Mac Pros for their intended use. The only people I know that have them aren't doing bleeding edge work.

I suspect the issue is that the FX 5800 is too power-hungry for the Mac Pro. IIRC they only have a single 6pin power connector for the video card, which limits your options to whatever maxes out at 150W (which happens to be the FX 4800). Heat may also be an issue.

They cant swap in a stronger PS with the upgrade? They sure are charging enough for it, at least put the top workstation card in there.

That still wouldn't solve the heat issue if there is one. Plus the PS isn't something Apple intends to be replaced under normal circumstances, it can be removed but not easily from what I understand. In other words, it's not intended to be a user-upgradeable part.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Kaido
Yup:

http://netkas.org/?p=97

And lol @ the 384-bit restriction. Nvidia != Apple :laugh:

The 384 bit restriction makes sense if you're trying to hit a power budget. It requires fewer GDDR3 chips, which eat a fair bit of power on their own.

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: sjwaste
With every other component of the Mac Pro being just about at the top end of consumer/workstation hardware, why wouldn't they be looking to cram the FX 5800 in there?

That or offer a Quadro CX option, which bills itself as an accelerator for CS4?

I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm the first to admit that I don't exactly know the demands of people who buy Mac Pros for their intended use. The only people I know that have them aren't doing bleeding edge work.

I suspect the issue is that the FX 5800 is too power-hungry for the Mac Pro. IIRC they only have a single 6pin power connector for the video card, which limits your options to whatever maxes out at 150W (which happens to be the FX 4800). Heat may also be an issue.

They cant swap in a stronger PS with the upgrade? They sure are charging enough for it, at least put the top workstation card in there.

That still wouldn't solve the heat issue if there is one. Plus the PS isn't something Apple intends to be replaced under normal circumstances, it can be removed but not easily from what I understand. In other words, it's not intended to be a user-upgradeable part.

Maybe it's the deeply-entrenched PC side of me, but that would absolutely not be a valid reason to hold back better hardware in the PC world.

For the going rate of a Mac Pro, they ought to find a way to do it. We're talking about not being able to match an 8-core, bleeding edge workstation with the best available hardware.

Rolling it into the next cycle of the product is probably how it will work out, but again, that must just be something that Apple users get used to doing. I realize the advantage here is absolute stability, but a PSU-graphics combo upgrade is a workable solution for a market as small as the Mac Pro -- even if it involves Apple doing the upgrades through their retail outlets or something.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: sjwaste
With every other component of the Mac Pro being just about at the top end of consumer/workstation hardware, why wouldn't they be looking to cram the FX 5800 in there?

That or offer a Quadro CX option, which bills itself as an accelerator for CS4?

I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm the first to admit that I don't exactly know the demands of people who buy Mac Pros for their intended use. The only people I know that have them aren't doing bleeding edge work.

I suspect the issue is that the FX 5800 is too power-hungry for the Mac Pro. IIRC they only have a single 6pin power connector for the video card, which limits your options to whatever maxes out at 150W (which happens to be the FX 4800). Heat may also be an issue.

They cant swap in a stronger PS with the upgrade? They sure are charging enough for it, at least put the top workstation card in there.

That still wouldn't solve the heat issue if there is one. Plus the PS isn't something Apple intends to be replaced under normal circumstances, it can be removed but not easily from what I understand. In other words, it's not intended to be a user-upgradeable part.

Oh come on, if someone is going to shell out $2,000 for a video card, the least they could do is pick up a $50 power supply to run it :laugh:

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Oh come on, if someone is going to shell out $2,000 for a video card, the least they could do is pick up a $50 power supply to run it :laugh:

Ok, at least one of the hardcore Apple folks in this forum agrees with me 🙂

Is that really what the top of the line Quadros go for, or is that a Mac premium? I knew the professional video cards were expensive on any platform, but wow!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: Kaido

Oh come on, if someone is going to shell out $2,000 for a video card, the least they could do is pick up a $50 power supply to run it :laugh:

Ok, at least one of the hardcore Apple folks in this forum agrees with me 🙂

Is that really what the top of the line Quadros go for, or is that a Mac premium? I knew the professional video cards were expensive on any platform, but wow!

MSRP $1999:

http://www.hexus.net//content/item.php?item=16492

Apple charged like $2800 for the Quadro FX 5600 (which you could mod from an 8800GTX at the time for $450, albeit with half the RAM, lol).

Yeah I dunno about the Mac Pro, what kind of $3,000 professional machine only has 4 hard drive bays standard? 😕 Oh well, that's Apple!

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: Kaido

Oh come on, if someone is going to shell out $2,000 for a video card, the least they could do is pick up a $50 power supply to run it :laugh:

Ok, at least one of the hardcore Apple folks in this forum agrees with me 🙂

Is that really what the top of the line Quadros go for, or is that a Mac premium? I knew the professional video cards were expensive on any platform, but wow!

MSRP $1999:

http://www.hexus.net//content/item.php?item=16492

Apple charged like $2800 for the Quadro FX 5600 (which you could mod from an 8800GTX at the time for $450, albeit with half the RAM, lol).

Yeah I dunno about the Mac Pro, what kind of $3,000 professional machine only has 4 hard drive bays standard? 😕 Oh well, that's Apple!

Well, I can admit that 4 HD bays is probably plenty for me, but I'm also not in the target market for these things.

Didn't know you could softmod from an 8800GTX. Is it basically just a firmware difference between the cards? Any discernable functional change?

I have to admit, though, the Mac Pro is a nice looking machine AND for an 8-core workstation it's actually pretty well priced. I just find it hard to believe they can't go bleeding edge on the graphics, especially when that's basically the machine's domain.

 

[sjwaste]

Just read that 99% rule post. Hilarious, but 100% (pun intended) accurate!