[Stephen Galinsky]

“Rumor has it” that Lion enables the use of non-EFI compliant video cards, so you could theoretically grab a PC version of any Apple-supplied/supported card and have it work. Now, I can’t personally speak for the veracity of these claims due to the fact that my PC 5870 has been reflashed and worked fine under Snow Leopard anyway.

Things to keep in mind regarding reflashed cards:

1. You may or may not get any video output before the window manager initializes (the “blue screen” stage of the boot sequence. If you frequently use single user mode or use the option-boot menu, this isn’t a good solution for you.

2. You may have to use a patch to get OpenCL/Quartz/OpenGL working.

I’ve personally had good experiences and haven’t run into problems, but others I know have had a hard time, etc etc.

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[Stephen Galinsky]

What do you mean “Apple doesn’t work to work with Nvidia”?

Apple already has to do far, far more work for Nvidia than they should. I’m no apologist, but c’mon.

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[Stephen Galinsky]

[Patrick Murphy] “I think it might be worth while to suggest a few realities about Mac Pro’s. Here’s my view of the realities of their status.

1. For what they are, they’re monstrously overpriced. My estimate is 2x. Build your own and the variable
2.5x to 3x.
“

THey’re in line with competing pre-built machines from HP and Dell, last I looked. Admittedly that may have changed in the last year or so, but I doubt it’d be by much.

”
2. Despite the price tag they ignore most of the industry standard data protocols.
Firewire 800? Are you kidding? What about USB 3, and SATA?
“ Valid complaint. THat having been said, my Mac Pro has 4 eSATA ports via a PCIe card.

”
3. Apple’s Mac Pro’s don’t support CUDA, an essential for serious PPro users
“ Yes it does, just not with the ATI cards they ship with. You’re free to install a GTX285, Quadro 4000 or other NVIDIA card and get CUDA support.

”
3. Is it reasonable to expect a company that’s turning it’s back on media professionals will continue to
manufacture a workstation that is only really necessary to FCP 4. Certainly there are some specialized applications that require the platform.
Don’t you think these software creators are up tonight creating a port to W7?
“
Reasonably valid.

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[Stephen Galinsky]

Thunderchannellightboltpeak is not fast enough to support high end GPUs, it can’t replace PCIe yet. If Apple tries it, welp, off to HP and Dell.

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[Stephen Galinsky]

Booo, my post is in moderation so you beat me to it 😛

But yeah, I agree with your assessment.

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