Thursday, April 30th 2009

GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition Coming This June

NVIDIA is pushing forth a special variant of its high-end GeForce GTX 285 graphics accelerator. This one is specific for use in Apple Mac systems that support PCI-Express addon-cards. Its hardware specifications remain the same: 240 stream processors and 1 GB of 512-bit GDDR3 memory. Available in June, the accelerator will benefit the upcoming Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" that makes use of GPGPU. NVIDIA partner EVGA seems to be ready with one. Pictured below, the card resembles the reference design accelerator commonly available for PCs.
Source: Engadget
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19 Comments on GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition Coming This June

#1
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
It might resemble it, heck it will be the same card, but it will cost 4x as much as the PC version.
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#2
Baum
but if you're able to flash its vbios...
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#3
phanbuey
this is exactly the reason why I don't, and probably never will, own a high-end mac.
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#5
iStink
I think if these sell ok, nvidia will release the 250, 260, and 275 for mac as well.
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#6
h3llb3nd4
funny, it's black:wtf:
should'a been white
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#7
3870x2
wtf are they going to use this for? WOW?:laugh:
Does a mac not have PCI-E slots? im confused. One would assume the drivers would be all that is needed?
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#8
h3llb3nd4
Mac only supports certain Hardwares
FTW they even have Mac edition SSDs:)
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#9
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
Most of the Mac edition stuff is complete BS. Macs can use pretty much any hardware a PC can, HDD/SSDs, memory, processors, etc.

One of the few things that still have to be specially made for Macs is the video card, and basically the only difference is the BIOS on the video card, which has to be specially written to interface with the Mac motherboard's BIOS properly.

Usually this means that the only hardware difference between a Mac card and a PC card is that the Mac card has a larger BIOS ROM chip on it to hold the special BIOS. This is also why most of the time, a standard PC card can not simply be flashed to the Mac edition, though this isn't always true.
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#10
timta2
Their justification is that they have to pay programmers to write the custom Mac bios, which I'm sure costs them some money. We all know prices usually scale with production numbers and in this case the Mac Edition cards have much smaller sales.
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#11
Castiel
Finally, getting tired of the GT 100 and 8800GT.
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#12
freaksavior
To infinity ... and beyond!
newtekie1Most of the Mac edition stuff is complete BS. Macs can use pretty much any hardware a PC can, HDD/SSDs, memory, processors, etc.

One of the few things that still have to be specially made for Macs is the video card, and basically the only difference is the BIOS on the video card, which has to be specially written to interface with the Mac motherboard's BIOS properly.

Usually this means that the only hardware difference between a Mac card and a PC card is that the Mac card has a larger BIOS ROM chip on it to hold the special BIOS. This is also why most of the time, a standard PC card can not simply be flashed to the Mac edition, though this isn't always true.
yeah that the only difference. more than likely you will be able to flash the bios on here with a mac gtx and it will work.
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#13
DrPepper
The Doctor is in the house
What exactly would you use this for ? If your going to use it on bootcamp fair enough.
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#14
Wile E
Power User
3870x2wtf are they going to use this for? WOW?:laugh:
Does a mac not have PCI-E slots? im confused. One would assume the drivers would be all that is needed?
DrPepperWhat exactly would you use this for ? If your going to use it on bootcamp fair enough.
There are many games on mac. not nearly as many as PC, but still quite a few.

But, unfortunately, Mac video cards are alway quite expensive for some reason. It's still $280 for a Mac 8800GT and $350 for a Mac 4870.
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#15
FordGT90Concept
"I go fast!1!11!1!"
Wile EBut, unfortunately, Mac video cards are alway quite expensive for some reason. It's still $280 for a Mac 8800GT and $350 for a Mac 4870.
Makes me glad I don't have a Mac. $250 for a 4890! :D
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#16
DaedalusHelios
Baumbut if you're able to flash its vbios...
EFI isn't an easy thing to circumvent. Driver is included within the device from what I have heard. It works on a different principle than typical PC bios's on PC version cards.

No added benefit except its more plug and play for Mac users which saves them 10 minutes of time and costs them twice as much. They bleed Mac users dry. :ohwell:
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#17
Wile E
Power User
DaedalusHeliosEFI isn't an easy thing to circumvent. Driver is included within the device from what I have heard. It works on a different principle than typical PC bios's on PC version cards.

No added benefit except its more plug and play for Mac users which saves them 10 minutes of time and costs them twice as much. They bleed Mac users dry. :ohwell:
Nah, no driver in the device. The driver is still at the OS level. The BIOSes are just different on Mac video cards. Many PC cards can flash to Mac cards. Also, many PC cards have 3rd party Mac drivers available for them. nVidia is more well supported in that realm tho.
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#18
DaedalusHelios
Wile ENah, no driver in the device. The driver is still at the OS level. The BIOSes are just different on Mac video cards. Many PC cards can flash to Mac cards. Also, many PC cards have 3rd party Mac drivers available for them. nVidia is more well supported in that realm tho.
I heard people made a mint flashing cards to Mac and selling them back in the 9800 pro days. I wish I got in on that back in the day. :(
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#19
Wile E
Power User
DaedalusHeliosI heard people made a mint flashing cards to Mac and selling them back in the 9800 pro days. I wish I got in on that back in the day. :(
Yeah, but back then, the Mac cards used a bigger bios, so you had to trim the bios to fit on the PC card's chip. You ended up losing the functionality of either the DVI or VGA port on most cards, can't remember which.

Despite that, it was still way cheaper to buy a flashed card than a real one, so the tradeoff was worth it for many.
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