[rescue] AppleMacanix GFX cards

[Mark Benson]

On 1 Sep 2011, at 07:48, Jonathan Patschke wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Sep 2011, Mark Benson wrote:
>
>> No issues in 10.7?
>
> I don't know.  I've no plans to downgrade from 10.6.

I'll avoid comment on that, I personally have no issues with 10.7, I know some
do, especially people who are running older PPC dependant software.

> If it works with 10.6, and there's a driver for the same card in 10.7,
> it's very unlikely that it won't work.  Once you've booted the OS, you're
> past the need for Mac-specific firmware.  It's all PCI IDs and drivers
> from there.

I agree, and all Mac Pro graphics cards are supported in 10.7 (because all Mac
Pros are).

> I had the same thing happen with the ATI x1900xt in my Mac Pro.  The
> screen corruption was pretty impressive.

Yeah it was - the cost of an OS that uses native OpenGL acceleration to render
the UI. If you get a memory failure on the card things go pear-shaped pretty
damned fast!

It makes me wonder if the original Mac Pros have airflow issues around the
PCIe cage to be honest, there being nowhere at the back for the air to go
unless you force it out of a grille. Mitigated it in my PC using side-door fan
and there are no 'decks' to get in the way in that case either. The Mac Pro is
a great design but it's far from perfect...

>> Apparently Apple's current Radeon 5770 *still* works on a 1,1 and a 2,1
>> with 32-bit firmware... but not officially. They cost over 200 GBP
>> though.
>
> Correct.

I added up the numbers and to ship a Radeon 4870 or 5770 to the UK including a
possible whack of import duty will cost me nearly 170 GBP. Suddenly it doesn't
look that much cheaper.. Think I might go with Apple's and get stabbed all the
same. At the very least I get a 1 year warranty and a realistic chance fo
claiming on it with Apple's.

>> Bit of a wallet breaker when you consider the Sapphire 5770 in my PC
>> cost me 104 GBP a year and a half ago!
>
> Yeah, it's some combination of Apple mark-up, tiny target market, and
> support costs.  The end result is sad, but if PCs would ditch BIOS for EFI
> (finally), this situation could quickly reverse itself.

I can see the reasons, and to be honest some of Apple's cards have been well
priced. I remember the 8800GT was only about 30-40GBP more than a PC
equivalent when it came out. The 5770 is taking the Michael a bit especially
as it's a-day-late-and-a-dollar-short generationally. Christ knows why they
always pedal such weak cards for the Mac Pro. Is it so hard to certify
current-genration cards for the platform? They must know it makes them look
bad...

I know I nee dot get rid of the damned 7300GT in this rig soon though -
Aperture 3 is a joke on here :*(

--
Mark Benson

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"Never send a human to do a machine's job..."