EVGA's GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition: The Best for OS X?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 17, 2009 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power Consumption
Comparing power consumption under OS X echoes what we've seen under Windows, the GeForce GTX 285 uses less power than the Radeon HD 4870 at idle but more under load:
| Total System Power Consumption | Idle | Load (Mudbox 2009) |
| ATI Radeon HD 4870 (512MB) | 286W | 334W |
| EVGA GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition (1GB) | 278W | 350W |
| NVIDIA GeForce GT120 (512MB) | 251W | 262W |
Both of these cards will consume much more power under load than the GT120, but you also get much more performance out of them. The extra ~30W at idle isn't terrible.
Final Words
To me, the biggest advantage of EVGA’s GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition is its large 1GB frame buffer. Something you can’t currently get from any other video card Apple offers. Kudos to EVGA for not only putting out a complete product but also delivering the best video card offered on Apple’s website.
What I would like to see is this become a regular occurrence; whenever there’s a new PC GPU release I’d like to see EVGA or one of the other vendors provide quick turnaround on releasing a Mac edition. So long as there’s driver support, there’s no reason that it can’t happen.
The other thing I’d like to see is EVGA work to break down the ridiculous pricing on these things. A $100 price premium for two cables, different packaging and an EFI compliant ROM is ridiculous. Unfortunately that seems to be what the Apple user has to live with. EVGA’s pricing isn’t as bad as it could be (remember the $399 X1900 XT?) and from talking with EVGA, apparently they are also working to drive prices down. However if you take into account the fact that two PCIe power cables will cost you $60 and EVGA bundles them for free, the price premium ends up a more manageable $40.
Personally, I’d try your hands at converting a PC video card first but if you don’t want to deal with the hassle - EVGA’s GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition is pretty much the best option you’ve got.
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SiliconDoc - Saturday, July 18, 2009 - link
Yeah... boy a GTX285 seems pretty weak.(good lord!)
psonice - Saturday, July 18, 2009 - link
Well, a radeon 2600 is very weak compared to a gf8800. Yet it kills it in core image tasks (probably bad nvidia drivers, seeing as core image is based on GLSL, and the 8800 is way faster for that).My advice for people running CI heavy apps has been "avoid nvidia" for the last year or two, I'd like to know if that should change :)
Lanska - Saturday, July 18, 2009 - link
On MacOSX there isn't too enough games, but World of Warcraft from Blizzard is availaible. So you can test GTX 285 as a game accelerator card for Mac. I think many Mac gamers want to buy it as a game card, but not to display more windows in Photoshop or similar. After all you can even compare perfomance of World of Warcraft in Mac and in Windows on the same MacPro system (in Windows for more competition truth you can also use OpenGL mode instead of DirectX, as Mac version is OpenGL only).Game have testing command /timetest to benchmark system.
World of Warcraft client for both systems can be freely downloaded from Blizzard, trial accounts are also availaible. So you willn't pay any charge for testing, but this review will be more interesting, without games game card review not so nice :)
sprockkets - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
You think WoW needs a GTX anything?ipay - Saturday, July 18, 2009 - link
It always sends me into fits of laughter when Anand acts surprised at the absurd price premiums on Apple products - as if Apple's strategy from their inception has been anything else than putting shit in a box and selling it as gold to gullible idiots with lots of money.I also got some kicks from reading the description of how to install the video card (something that any self-respecting PC owner can do in their sleep), as well as the fact that the Mac motherboard uses an Intel chipset of some sort.
Keep the lulz coming Anand, I really appreciate it!
sprockkets - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
Laughter?More like his credibility.
Stuff like he still hasn't done any more research into why a MacBook "Pro" has better battery life under OSX than Windows, or why we should spend $2k more on a Mac Pro just to add a video card that can work with a $100 motherboard. I'm sure the average Mac user spends $2400 minimum on a machine for OSX, only to have to dual boot anyhow Windows to play Crysis, adding another $100 to the price, minimum.
"The other change is firmware. In order to get your PC video card to work under OS X it needs firmware with a few EFI hooks in it. It’s not a huge change, but for whatever reason the PC specific cards don’t have it."
Yeah, might have something to do with the fact that EFI sucks and PCs are better off without that crap. And even if EFI becomes standard in "PCs", Apple will just change the way OSX works to again kill it from working on any hardware.
rpmurray - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
I can't help rolling on the floor when some dipwad blames Apple for the high prices of third-party add-ons. Especially when that same company sells it cheaper for the PC, which just goes to show you who's gouging whom.afkrotch - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
Actually, it all boils down to being Apple's fault. They make a platform that they locked down a ridiculous amount. They then charge a premium for the trash and this causes elitist bitches to buy it, while no one else cares.Because there is such a small platform of users, companies have to charge a markup for having to make a product for a minimal amount of users.
Personally, Nvidia and AMD should just let Apple rot. Let S3 make their graphics cards.
sprockkets - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - link
If you are used to buying Macs with pointless markups you are used to buying Mac accessories with pointless markups.Dainas - Saturday, July 18, 2009 - link
Anything that says apple on it is soo overpriced that there are many many forums dedicated to finding or making pc stuff that doesn't say apple on it work. The evga gtx 285 mac might actually sell boxed as they are only slightly insulting.