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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saneproductions - Sunday, August 27, 2006 - link
I just picked up a 2.66 MP 2GB and got some SATA-eSATA PCI plates to route the 2 hidden SATA ports to my eSATA drive and it was a no go. I tried both having the drive powered up then booting (system hung at the gray screen) and powering on the drive after the MP was up and running (nothing happened). any ideas?Mike
blwest - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
I received my Mac Pro last Friday afternoon. It's absolutely wonderful. It's also absolutely silent.The 7300 card also isn't that bad either. I could play World of Warcraft at 1600x1200 at reasonably high settings. Expose worked very smoothly, overall the system's performance screams in comparision to Windows XP. Running stock setup like on Anand's review.
mycatsnameis - Monday, August 14, 2006 - link
I see that Crucial is shipping 4 gig FB PC5400 DIMMs. I wonder if these can be used in a Mac Pro? In the past the max memory capacity that Apple has quoted (for pro or consumer machines) has generally been conservative and related more to the size of DIMMs that are generally available than any actual h/w limit.nitromullet - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
With boot camp and a Windows XP install, is the Mac Pro Crossfire capable? I don't imagine that OS X has drivers for that, but that wouldn't be the point anyway - use the Windows install for gaming and the OS X install for everything else...dcalfine - Saturday, August 12, 2006 - link
I imagine that getting crossfire to work is a matter of simple firmware flashing. With SLI, the motherboard supports it, but the Mac OS doesn't. But because crossfire depends mostly on the crossfire card, flashing the card with Mac firmware, which often works with other cards, (see Strange Dog Forums, http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board...">http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board... should allow it to work. I'd be interested in trying this, if I had the funding.Apple should be doing something to get dual- or even quad-gpu solutions on macs, since now each mac pro is a quad-processor.
tshen83 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Hey anandtech, the more interesting option for GPU is actually the QUAD 7300GT powering over 8 screens. I was wondering if Apple's OSX is able to push 3D or overlay stuff on all 8 screens like Linux could.michael2k - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
As far as I know, Apple's been able to do this for far longer than Linux could :)tshen83 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Hey anandtech, the more interesting option for GPU is actually the QUAD 7300GT powering over 8 screens. I was wondering if Apple's OSX is able to push 3D or overlay stuff on all 8 screens like Linux could.OddTSi - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
Are there any plans for non-ad hoc, fast serial RAM or is Rambus the only one even attempting something like that with their new XDR memory?kobymu - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
There is QDR....