*DAMN R6 Forum

I think this card is simply the best out for the mac platform, or any at this point. Finally we have a card we dont have to wait for 6 months just to get!
It's released for Mac and PC at the same time..or close.. The line is truly thinning...

Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL
(http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/574/store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/m9593ga_125.jpg)
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_6800.html (http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_6800.html)

The groundbreaking new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra delivers the industry's first 16-pipe superscalar architecture and support for the world's fastest DDR3 memory to raise the bar for 3D graphics performance. The specifications of the GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU, are stunning: Using over 220 million transistors it supports a 256-bit interface for an effective memory bandwidth of 35.2 GB per second which delivers 600 million vertices, 6.4 billion textured pixels per second. The GPU is built on an AGP 8X board and includes 256MB of DDR3 memory for use in the most demanding graphics applications. It is the first card available to support the DVI standard dual link digital signal specification from the two DVI ports it features. This capability is required to drive the new 30-inch LCD, high resolution Apple Cinema HD display. The combination of a GeForce 6800 Ultra with a dual processor Power Mac G5 driving two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays is the definitive tool for the creative professional.
Special note on the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra: due to size of this advanced graphics card, the adjacent PCI or PCI-X slot will be blocked and cannot be used. This reduces the number of available PCI or PCI-X slots from three to two.

What do you think also..at $599 is it worth it? I wonder if these could be flashed?

The displays are nice too.. Not the industry best.. But very nice...

What is you ask?

Barco Solaris LC 40
(http://www.barco.com/projection_systems/images/Solaris_N.jpg)
http://www.barco.com/entertainment/en/products/product.asp?element=2004# (http://www.barco.com/entertainment/en/products/product.asp?element=2004#)

Comments, Questions, Bulshit, leave it here....

Woot

 :-[ ::)

I know Barco has always been one of the best producers of quality displays. I've worked on a calibrated CRT, and they really are colorproof. But you forgot to mention a tiny difference between the Barco and the Apple display: the Barco works on a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels, while the Apple display can work on 2560 x 1600 with the nvidia card... Just a tiny difference  ;)

New GeForce isnt for mac yet....but the moment i saw it i started salivating.....for real......

Benchmarks for the PC side:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-40.html

Very impressive. I think the mac version ships in August.

The cards will HAVE to ship in Aug. because that is when the 30 inch displays ship. And you cant run these mega displays off any other card.

I'm goin' with the GeForce 6800 with my PowerMac rather than the Radeon 9800, since it delivers around twice the performance in many cases.  If you're going to be spending so much on a monster computer, might as well go all out and get the top-of-the-line video card (it's not that much more than the 9800XT).

Holy cow i really didn't realise how powerfull these new cards are going to be... I thought they would struggle with having to power these immence 30inch screens but the betchmarks from the pc cards would seem to show otherwise... pretty damn awsome!

Wait a tick, does this mean we have the best PC card?!

Mmm, yes   :)

TAKE THAT ATI!!!!! GO APPPLLEEEE!

Probably not for long, it's taken nvidia this long to make a quality card that is the best. ATi can't be far behind.

Mmm....actually, with the exception of the previous generation of video cards, ATi has never had anything close to rivaling NVidia in desktop-level video cards and drivers.

Nope, you're right, they've already come out with their X800 to compete with NVidia's next-gen offerings.

THE NVIDIA MAC SUPPORT IS AND WAS BS! NO DRIVERS,  NO TOOLS.

SO I HOPE ATI is gonna bring some of there new Cards for Mac, too.

BTW, the Beta Versions were already faster then the new NVIDIAs.

X800 XT will win... in time.

I never have trusted ATI and never will. I hear too many things about drivers that are fubar so ill stick with the purdy GeForce

Do you have a clear case or do you have xray vision?

I never trusted NVIDIA. Who ever is best at the time is always the one to go with.

Well I have the geforce 2mx i had teh 9800 but  took it back cause i got better framerates on my geforce.. maybe cauwse the radeon has AA and AF features..but still it wasnt worth the 350 i paid so i got an ipod and a eight of weed which worked alot better...

The ati card i heard is good but at some levels (X800 or whatever) but i heard its a hundred more and the technology it uses most games are at least a good year behind...

So yeah mysterio in time ati might be the way to go...
Nvidia drivers are updated in OS X updates...which is kinda nice,,,

Anyone know if you can get the BSD unified drivers to work in X11?
Theres a concept...

Alos Toxic if you have a video card you can go way over 1280..
Im on a lacie 19 Blue 3 electron and my geforce will push up to 19oo +

oh well.. i m just stirrin up thought on all this video card shit caus im stoned..great comments guys...

Im just glad we are closing the gap on PC and MAC software/peripherals...

Quality not quantity..like my ganja..and my women...

Keep the faith...(http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~damnr6/yabbse/YaBBImages/uzi.gif)

Funny Revlot, half the people would say the exact opposite of what you said. ATI maintained a very big lead over NVIDIA until the GeForce 6800. There was never question as to who was better until the 6800.

Better raw FPS on your MX 2(realllllly old) vs your 9800? I believe this about as much as you getting over 100 FPS all the time in RvS.

Since this thread is about graphix cards, I got a question about the ATI 9800 Pro SE. I'm thinking of buying one very soon (mb next week), are there any problems with it? What framerates do you get in AA (avarage, and framerates on hospital (I get between 20 and 60 now)).

Also, does anyone have experience with the card using a 3D app, renderingwise does it improve it a lot?

And what other games did you try it with? I got Unreal 04, CoD, GhR, RVS, Halo, ...

I just want some stats from real life usage, without having to compare with the given facts on the internet.

Sentinel, why would you want to get a graphics card just as the rest of the top of the line are going to be bumped down again. This is graphics cards overflow season.

Me, I for my part never had any problems with the ATI Drivers on PC nor on Mac.

But I had a few probs with the NVIDIA once. The bad driver Myth is gone for a few yaers now. ATI had bad drivers and bad Support with their Rage series and lower. But after that, all changed. But this is still what ppl try to tell you: ATI had always nad drivers. In fact it is not true.

My Problem with NVIDIA on Mac ist still the lack of Utils and Drivers made by NVIDIA of its own. With some featuers I can use, enable or disable. Excatly what the ControlePannel of ATI does. Implemented Drivers from Apple are ok, but not really the top performence Drivers.

The majority of ma users love ATI for some reason. I think it's because NVIDIA is so evil looking. It just has a ring to it like the word Microsoft, or Intel.

Myst it always takes almost a year to get those new graphix cards to get to Belgium (in the store that is). So the SE just got available and by the time those new cards are out, I prolly have enough money for a new G5 and one of those new shiny thingy's. I just need a better one asap, because when I have my two screens connected I loose half of the speed when trying to play. So I always have to disconnect one of my screens before I can start playing... annoying. So that's why I want the 9800 SE.

btw, I can't wait long enough for those other cards, I got a nasty habit, when I want something it has to be here asap!!  ;D

I too have a 9600, but I intend to hold out until the next big leap... maybe then I'll have the money.

all of you are graphics card yuppies..i would give my reproductive organs for a 9200 on my iMac..thats how bad the graphics are...crypts knows..

Well sent.. I was the first to get it on GR and its good.. I have been having probs w/ 3d rendering but thats b/c i installed a bad driver (waiting for next update from apple to fix it) but static also got one and he said his works perfectly (he didnt install the drive i that ATI offered on there web site that was later found incapatable fully with 10.3.4).. Talk to him he can tell you about the FPS that he is getting.

BTW.. I was jusr reading some on the 6800..... They have a ver comming out that is liquid cooled from (as they put it) "the newer computers liquid cooling systems" Does this mean that it can hook into the liquid cooling system in the new g5's?? we shall see

I also found this on another site about the 6800    

3.      A vacant PCI slot adjacent to the AGP slot.   This board occupies two slots: one AGP and one PCI.

The benchmarks on the G5 2.5 with a 6800 are awesome, y'all need to go and see them.

See them where?

I saw some on Mac Rumors that people took at the WWDC Expo. I've seen others somewhere else, but I can't remember.

Well, I can say for now that that is only speculation.  As of now the ATI Radeon 9800 256mb card is the top card at this time for the Mac.  Dont get me wrong, the Nvidia 6800 looks pretty sweet, but for now the ATI is the fastest we got.  Although there is some rumors now of ATI coming out soon with a comparable card to this NVidia 6800.  

:MoD:Saberian

No, the 6800 is superior.

Well, my apologies, I should have ben specific.  It seems that this is coming out in the next two months but I am talking about as of now.  The 6800 is faster,espeically with the processor and the 4 DVI ports. But, as for sales it hasnt been released as of yet, and that is what I was talking about myst.  So as of now in sales the ATI 9800 Pro 256 chip is the fastest for the Mac until this finally get's released.  This will be hard to beat but ATI is saying that they already have a project in the works to compete with this.  Something to think about for the ATI users out there =)

:MoD:Saberian

It's not like it's a big secret; it's already available for purchase (though ATi seems to be out of stock right now).

http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2004/4750.html

Ok, so my question is when, if ever, will Apple get ahold of the new 800X ATI cards and start slapping them in G5s?

Really looking to get ahold of a dual 2.5 in the near (very near) future, but if all the video cards are about to take a huge jump up in speed, i think i could hold my breath just a little bit longer.  

The X800 is rumored to have fallen short of the NVIDIA 6800 Ultra.

There's really no telling when Apple will make the X800's available in PowerMacs, but it's a non-issue for me.  Performance-wise, NVIDIA and and ATi are really neck and neck at the moment.  Judging from preliminary benchmarks, it seems that the GeForce 6800 performs slightly better with no antialiasing, while the X800 takes the lead when AA is enabled (the X800 really flaunts its power with anisotropic filtering enabled at higher resolutions ? the 6800 can't quite keep up in some of these tests).  In general, though, performance doesn't heavily tip to one side, and both sides' strengths and weaknesses sort of cancel each other out.  NVIDIA's offering seems to be king technologically, with its support for ShaderModel 3.0 and 32-bit floating-point precision shader programs (ATi's card supports ShaderModel 2.0 and 24-bit fp).  ATi's got 3Dc, a pretty sweet looking ATi-developed technology that can compress normal maps to 1/4 their original size with very little loss in data quality (though I think for the moment this'll be a DirectX-only feature...maybe they'll add OpenGL support if they bring this card to the Mac).  The X800 also has physical advantages, being smaller and consuming less power than the 6800.

However, benchmarks suggest that NVIDIA's card takes the lead with OpenGL code paths, as opposed to DirectX (which is certainly relevant to us as Mac users, since we have no DirectX).  And NVIDIA is set to release an even more powerful edition of its card soon ? the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme (teehee, silly name).  I think if you were to go with NVIDIA's 6800 in your new dual 2.5GHz, you wouldn't be disappointed, as this is certainly right up there at the top of the performance pack regardless of whether or not Apple starts offering the ATi X800.

Another things is that NVIDIA's 6800 supported Mac off the bat (it was in the original Specs) yet ATI's X800 doesn't mention mac. Perhaps ATI was leaving mac out and coasting because they thought top spot on mac was theirs?