Apple's Mac Pro: A Discussion of Specifications
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 9, 2006 3:54 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
GPU Options
We had hoped for more extensive GPU options with the Mac Pro, unfortunately Apple only gave us three. The options are now a GeForce 7300 GT for those who aren't doing any real 3D work, an ATI Radeon X1900 XT and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500.
The Radeon X1900 XT used in the Mac Pro appears to have a 1.3GHz memory clock, which is slower than the 1.45GHz clock of the PC version. The core clock is also slower than the PC version at 600MHz, instead of 625MHz. Historically, ATI Mac Edition cards have always been clocked lower than their PC counterparts; ATI explained the reasoning behind this disparity as having to do with basic supply and demand. The demand for Mac video cards is lower than their PC counterparts, so ATI runs them at lower clock speeds to maintain their desired profit per card regardless of whether they are selling to Mac or PC markets.
The interesting offering on the Mac Pro is the Quadro FX 4500, which is basically a higher clocked version of the GeForce 7800 GTX with some additional workstation class features. With a 450MHz core clock (compared to 430MHz on the 7800 GTX) and a 1050MHz memory clock, the Quadro FX 4500 should actually be slower than the Radeon X1900 XT on the Mac Pro. If you compare the X1900 XT to NVIDIA's offerings on the PC, you generally need a 7800 GTX 512MB (with its faster clock speeds) or a 7900 GTX to outperform the X1900 XT, a vanilla 7800 GTX won't cut it. However, Apple's own benchmarks indicate that the Quadro FX 4500 is faster in games than the Radeon X1900 XT; even though Doom 3 and Quake 4 are the titles of choice, ATI should still be faster. It's tough to say which will run cooler/quieter, the X1900 XT is built on a 90nm process while the Quadro FX 4500 was a 110nm GPU, but with different clocks, transistor counts and fans we'll just have to find out for ourselves.
We're working on getting both cards in house for a head to head comparison, but there could be some explanations for the performance standings being what they are today. NVIDIA's OpenGL drivers may be better than ATI's under OS X or it's also possible that some of the GPU-level enhancements enabled on Quadro GPUs are somehow coming into play in the Quake 4/Doom 3 benchmarks that Apple is reporting.
Finally there's the default configuration option, the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT. If you plan on doing any GPU based rendering, then the 7300 GT is more than enough for OS X, especially since it comes equipped with 256MB of memory. Even 30" Cinema Display owners will have a fairly smooth Exposé experience with 256MB of video memory.
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vladik007 - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
Flashing PC video cards to work on G5 was possible and in my own experience also rock solid. I have 2 G5;s at home ( one 2.0Ghz very 1st released ) and 2.7ghz. PNY 6800 GT with 2120 firmware has worked for over a year now and ZERO crashes in that time in both of them.So if PC videocards will NOT work in Mac Pro by just simply sliding in , firmware flashing will.
ViRGE - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
Anand, has Apple/Nvidia/ATI commented on what video card compatibility will be like with the Mac Pros over the PowerMacs? With the PowerMacs, PC video cards were incompatible due to OpenFirmware and more importantly endian issues. The Mac Pro however is EFI and not OpenFirmware, and there are no endian issues, which gives everyone a lot of hope that the system may be able to take on vanilla 7900's and the like.Has anyone said anything on this matter going one way or another?
blwest - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
I'll know tonight when I try to slap my 7800gt into the box!artifex - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
He never came back... maybe he blew up his new Mac Pro?archcommus - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
Given that this hardware is just like a PC and 100% x86, and given that the new OS X is designed to run on that hardware, what is REALLY the obstacle in getting OS X to run on our own Windows and Linux machines?Missing Ghost - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
yep OSX does not use the bios. It needs efiAaronAxvig - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
They still have the EFI boot system, no?mrgq912 - Wednesday, August 9, 2006 - link
Back when Apple made they announcement that they were going to switch from power pc to intel cpus. I thought why intel and not amd? Now it seems that Intel must have shown them what their new hardware is capable of, and Apple didn't even need to think twice about the move. Good call by apple.But I still won't buy closed system like Mac pro.
hmurchison - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
Please don't take offense to this but that was really a silly statement. Back in the days when you had differing hardware between Macs and PCs you could say the Mac was more closed. Nowadays you have the ability to run OS X, Windows and Linux simultaneously and a lot of hardware will just plug and play with the appropriae minidrivers in the OS.mrgq912 - Saturday, August 12, 2006 - link
none taken. i didn't know that mac pros allowed you to switch video cards and memory. I always wanted to use the mac os for every day use, and have windows for games and such. But now the only thing stopping me is the price.