[Gary Huff]

[John Rofrano] “Because the drivers are hacked to get around the signature problem.”

No they are not. This is what Yosemite reports, there was no hacking of any drivers. It automatically reports the 7970 as the D700.

[John Rofrano] “BTW, you might get a kick out of reading this PDF file from HP:”

It’s all marketing that you’re assuming is absolutely true…but it’s marketing.

[Gary Huff]

[John Rofrano] “The specs don’t make it FirePro. AMD enabling the FirePro features and drivers makes it a FirePro.”

So what features does AMD enable on the D700 that makes it more than a Radeon? And why does building a Hackintosh with a 7970 in it make OSX identify it as a D700 automagically? Are these features enabled in such a configuration? And how does that negate my point at all? The article you linked to compared the D700 with the FirePro W9000, a nearly $4k/per card. And the biggest difference is that the D700 doesn’t have to have drive 6 mini display ports on its own hardware (i.e. it’s linked with the Mac Pro’s motherboard), nor does the D700 have ECC memory (it has the same memory as the Radeon, not the FirePro branded cards).

And how does that negate my point in the first place? The point I made was that the hardware is still more expensive because the D700 is the 7970 hardware and not the FirePro and thus you can build a Hackintosh system that identifies the same GPU for $3k less than what the article you linked to claimed.

[Gary Huff]

[John Rofrano] “Not according to AMD and they should know:”

AMD D700
2048 stream processors
384-bit-wide memory bus
264GB/s memory bandwidth
3.5 teraflops performance

AMD Radeon 7970 (specs)
2048 stream processors
384-bit-wide memory bus (Wikipedia)
264GB/s memory bandwidth
3.79 TFLOPS

Yep, nothing similar here at all.

[Gary Huff]

[John Rofrano] “I’m reminded of the Extreme Tech article: Apple’s new ‘overpriced’ $10,000 Mac Pro is $2,000 cheaper than the e… where if you bought the same quality parts that Apple uses, PC’s really aren’t cheaper. “

Except it wasn’t accurate. It counts the D700 as a FirePro, when it’s not. It’s rebadged Radeon 7970, retailing for $850/per (at the time), while this article has them listed as $3400/per, making that article’s similar homebrew workstation come out at $3k less .

[Gary Huff]

[Todd Terry] “Plain and simply, you are behaving like a child.”

Name calling.

[Todd Terry] “Perhaps you hare having a bad day, and if so, we are sorry. Maybe you got up late, or your dog is sick, or you accidently spilled milk. Or maybe it is just your usual MO of highjacking a thread with snarky and condescending comments.

Patronizing.

[Todd Terry] (I don’t know you or recognize your name but a five-second search of past threads leads me to believe that is the case).”

You have one other posting that’s like this out of all the others and think you’re on to something?

[Todd Terry] “You make very valid points, but they are cloaked in such a cloud of derision and condescension that it is hard to give them any merit.”

Coming from someone who said:

[Todd Terry] “Children… please…. quit sniping like a bunch of six year olds. This is not a Real Housewives audition… lets stop it before someone gets a drink thrown in their face.”

Really? You can say that to me with a straight face after that?

[Todd Terry] “It’s a bit like Bob Zelin but without the humor or personality.”

Personal insult (lame one too).

[Todd Terry] “As an moderator in this usually very friendly and very helpful forum for the better part of a decade, it’s very clear that whatever you are doing is not appropriate.”

But your response above is completely appropriate? How does that follow? Frankly, I am astounded at your utter lack of self-awareness here.

[Gary Huff]

[Rick Wise] “This forum is not the place for it.”

And yet you decided to take a swipe directly at me with your comment right as this branch went on topic, so your own actions belie what your words put forth. You could’ve just left well enough alone, but you were unable to do that.

So you have yourself basically doing what you claim you don’t want to see, and Todd Terry showing how much of an adult he is by resorting to name-calling. Wonderful.

[Gary Huff]

[Rick Wise] “We can disagree, respectfully.”

Which means kowtowing to someone’s point I take it.

[Gary Huff]

[Todd Terry] “Then again, maybe I just need to get over myself. I believe that has been suggested.”

Perhaps if you’d treat other adults who bring up a valid point with respect instead of appealing to the basest human emotions, you would have garnered a better response? But I guess the lure of patronization was too much for you to combat?

[Gary Huff]

[Rick Wise] “In my view, disrespect has no place on this forum – or anywhere else, for that matter.”

I think you meant to type “disagreeing” there.

[Gary Huff]

[Jason Roberts] “There I have no interest because emotional arguments aren’t ever really won, they just kind of stop.”

And this was not an emotional argument, so why bring it up? I absolutely stated this:

[Gary Huff] “I don’t disagree that there is a lot of subjectivity in topics of this nature,”

and yet there has not been a single point brought up for discussion that does not have some evidence behind it or could be considered to be entirely subjective. In fact, by talking about “emotional arguments” that cannot be won, you seem to be dismissing what I am saying without directly contradicting anything I have said. I would hope that’s not your intent.

Now for the subjective:

[Jason Roberts] “Not everyone can be a Robert Rodiguez or Shane Carruth (director, writer, editor, cinematographer, composer, and who knows what else).”

But they can if they don’t care about the end result. Neither Rodriguez nor Carruth are good actor directors. Their cinematography doesn’t come to the level of any of the numerous talented individuals in the ASC. Their scores never on the “must-have” lists of collectors. Their material is merely serviceable, and if you’re okay with that mediocrity in the end result, then have at it. Frankly, I would argue that both of those names aren’t exactly the pinnacle of success (look at the dismal box office receipts and critical reception of Sin City 2 for instance) and that if you want to make something good, then perhaps auteur theory does need to be poo-pooed.

So yes, everyone can be a Rodriguez or a Carruth if they don’t want to be honest with their own creative limitations and don’t mind a sub-par output in some area they aren’t that strong in. It’s just when you want a beautiful orchestral score, well, then, you need to turn to a third-party. Want your movie to look nice? Hire an actual DP. Can’t write good dialogue? Hire a talented scriptwriter.

And so on.