Will the nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL video card work on PC's?

[Mik3y]

Will the nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL video card work on PC's? They are 8x agp and will fit into a pc, but i have no clue whether it will run correctly. maybe the agp voltage is different for apple as it is for pc's.

 

[darkswordsman17]

The only problem I can think of (and it would be a pretty big one) is lack of drivers. I don't know if NV is going to make drivers for the PC. I don't know if it requires specialized drivers (I would guess so). If you're wanting to take advantage of what makes it different than the normal 6800Ultra, I'm sure you'd need special drivers or something.

 

[Xyrrus]

Historically, its been 50/50 with Apple cards working. Some only need drivers, some need to be flashed, some just plain don't work cross platform. Looking at the picture on Apple's site, I don't see a molex connector on the card. Its possible that Apple's boards feed more power to an AGP card than is normal.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9593G/A

This would make sense, as Apple's now-defunct ADC connector carried all signals required for an LCD monitor: DVI, USB *and* Power. I assume they're taking advantage of that extra port:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/nvidia_Mac_6800_ultraQandA.html

There is an on-board power connector on the graphics card and the motherboard to provide power, so there is no need for an external power connector from the power supply.
(although the only Mac 6800 photos I've seen are tiny, it appears there's a stub connector on the card that (I suspect) uses the ADC (28V or 24V usually) DC power connector on the motherboard that's normally used for ADC display power to provide additional power (regulated down) for the 6800 card. That eliminates the need for Aux. (Molex) P.S. connector(s) like the PC/standard 6800 card versions have.)

 

[Xyrrus]

One final note: Apple loves selling their high profit displays to PC users. My guess is that its in everyone's best interest to get PC DDL cards to market. Also, I seriously doubt Apple is the only company who is going to want to make 30" displays at this resolution.

 

[ViRGE]

Nvidia would have to release a video BIOS that's PC(VESA) compatible for it to work; the card won't work out of the box.