SLi or xfire on a mac pro?

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khalidur

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the mac pro hs one dual slot pci express slot and three single slot ones, so i was just wondering whether one can sli two 7900GTX, or xfire to x1900XTX, or even do quad sli with 4 7600GT/7300GT or two 7950?

i know no-one has a mac pro yet, but i was wondering whether it was possible theoretically if the right drivers were released?
 
Well, no SLI drivers for OSX, and it would have to also have a supporting chipset to even make it worth while. Nvidia is supposibly considering giving SLI support to Intel chipsets for PC (mac pro is also intel chip based), so someday SLI might be a possiblity for a mac, but not any time in the near future, or even on the release of the mac pro. I doubt even a firmware upgrade would support it. Even if someone got the cards to go into the mac pro in an SLI configuration, you would have to boot windows to even maybe get it working with semi-ok performance with hacked drivers.

I say, why even try, or waste the money on a $3000 mac pro for pondering about SLI, when you can just get a specialized pc mobo with full SLI/crossfire support that play games 10x better than a mac, with so much more flexiblity and compadibility. If you love mac so much, you can even load OSX on a PC now, or vise versa. PCs lead macs by quite a margin in all realms as far as I'm concerned. Even in the TV studio I have a part time job at aside from my main job, the PC based non-linear editors are far more stable and work better than mac's we've had with final cut pro or adobe premiere pro on. It shocked the mac rep when we terminated the lease on our g4/g5 mac editors and chose to buy/build our own pc non-linear editors instead. Dual Opterons ftw!
 
wiretap, i know you are not trying to start a flame war, but let me state i don't intend to actually buy a mac pro, i am a broke 16 year old teen, i am just thinking hypothetically, also there is a configuration apple ships with 4 7300GT, i just presumed that they used some sort of sli, but now that i think about the target market, it is probably so that the final cut pro and adobe guys can run 12 montiors if they need to, 8, with the 4 dual link dvis and a "y" splitter and another 4 with the single link ones.
 
oh, I wasn't flaming.. just stating that it would be a waste to try SLI on something that isn't even made for it.. but FYI, sli/crossfire isn't made to really run multiple monitors, its for gaming with one good monitor. If you want multiple monitors, you disable SLI, then you are able to use all the ports.

For video editing, 3 or 4 monitors max is sufficient, or at some tv studio's I've seen, they use a big plasma with 1080P. For their multiple monitors setup, they'll use the specialized Quadro cards with the 60 pin links for multiple monitors, or just use a breakout box with a bunch of DVI ports on it. They're expensive, and its already on the market.

Out of FOX2 News Detroit and WDIV News Detroit, they are currently using PC setups anyways. Lots of people are moving away from macs I've found out. (at least in my area) The PC's now offer tons of specialized editing hardware/software/plugins you just can't get with mac.
 
khalidur said:
the mac pro hs one dual slot pci express slot and three single slot ones, so i was just wondering whether one can sli two 7900GTX, or xfire to x1900XTX, or even do quad sli with 4 7600GT/7300GT or two 7950?

i know no-one has a mac pro yet, but i was wondering whether it was possible theoretically if the right drivers were released?
Click to expand...


This is a single slot. dual wide so it can take the 2 slot design cards ie NV 7950GX2, or the XT1900XTX that take up 2 spaces.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/expansion.html
 
khalidur said:
i know no-one has a mac pro yet, but i was wondering whether it was possible theoretically if the right drivers were released?
Click to expand...
Those systems use Woodcrest CPUs and chipsets. The 5000 series chipsets only support 24 PCI-E lanes. Depending on how many PCI-E x1/x2/x4 slots Apple includes, that pretty much only leaves about 20 PCI-E lanes for video. There are workstation boards now with x16 and x4 (x16 size slot) slots that you can fit SLI/XF cards into. I haven't read that it works in either configuration though.

It may technically be possible, but very unlikely on the first generation Mac Pro systems.
 
I've been reading up on mac forums about the mac pro and SLI questions, and from what everyone is saying, its impossible given what will be coming in the first generation of these 'new' mac pro's.
 
I like xfire since I can talk to my buddies in game with it.
 
w1retap said:
Well, no SLI drivers for OSX, and it would have to also have a supporting chipset to even make it worth while. Nvidia is supposibly considering giving SLI support to Intel chipsets for PC (mac pro is also intel chip based), so someday SLI might be a possiblity for a mac, but not any time in the near future, or even on the release of the mac pro. I doubt even a firmware upgrade would support it. Even if someone got the cards to go into the mac pro in an SLI configuration, you would have to boot windows to even maybe get it working with semi-ok performance with hacked drivers.

I say, why even try, or waste the money on a $3000 mac pro for pondering about SLI, when you can just get a specialized pc mobo with full SLI/crossfire support that play games 10x better than a mac, with so much more flexiblity and compadibility. If you love mac so much, you can even load OSX on a PC now, or vise versa. PCs lead macs by quite a margin in all realms as far as I'm concerned. Even in the TV studio I have a part time job at aside from my main job, the PC based non-linear editors are far more stable and work better than mac's we've had with final cut pro or adobe premiere pro on. It shocked the mac rep when we terminated the lease on our g4/g5 mac editors and chose to buy/build our own pc non-linear editors instead. Dual Opterons ftw!
Click to expand...
Sorry to go a little off-topic, but since you brought it up, I find this very interesting. In my old Net Admin job, the media dept. drove us nuts insisting that they had to have Macs with Final Cut Pro etc. because nothing on the PC could touch it for power, flexibility, ease of use, etc. They got their way, of course, and we had to waste a lot of time and energy trying to keep their systems integrated with the rest of the company. Not to mention the cost of the Macs themselves! Sounds like their arguments are a little out of date in the truly professional world... I'll file that away in case I ever have to fight that battle again.
 
snefan said:
mac got owned!
Click to expand...
Woodcrest got owned. Crossfire and SLI doesn't work on Woodcrest, no matter who builds it.

If you want Woodcrest, Apple is the least expensive way to get it. <shock><horror><end of the world>
 
Commander Suzdal said:
Not to mention the cost of the Macs themselves! Sounds like their arguments are a little out of date in the truly professional world... I'll file that away in case I ever have to fight that battle again.
Click to expand...
But a dual-Woodcrest Apple is much cheaper than systems from anyone else. They'd beat you to death with the cost argument alone. (Plus Boot Camp means they can keep their $$$ Mac software library, so the cost benefits of the Pro are even better.)
 
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