Apple and SLi

Question

Apple and SLi

First off I want to say that I know that this is a pretty common topic for this and any apple forum and I just figure that maybe Apple supervises this forum over the others and will recognize that games would buy a Mac Pro if they moved over to SLi w/xfire. So this is my speculation on the topic and my request is that if Apple doesn't do this in the near future than we show how big of a market there would be for this change.

I believe that Apple will start supporting SLi on their next Mac Pro, mainly because of Intel's seaburg chipset being the only non-nVidia chipset to support sli and not to mention xFire. I say this because seaburg is the new version of the Intel 5400 chipset that is currently on the Mac Pro the only thing that Apple would have to do is update to the X48 chips (aka stoakley). But what really makes me believe that Apple will do this on the next Mac Pro is that they showed interest in the gamers by working with EA and id last July. This would definitely put them over the top in that market and 2800 bucks is a lot better of a price than what Alienware would charge for skulltrail. My prediction for this update is for WWDC or Q3 this year and most likely alongside a new aluminum and glass display.

This is what i think the new Mac Pro have

Harpertown
FB-DIMM or possibly DDR3 1600MHz support
Four 16x PCI Express slots (preferably v2.0)
BD-RW drives (if not now than never)

But I definitely think the worst thing that Apple could do is separate the Mac Pro and gaming.

I would definitely like to hear your opinions on the subject or maybe if you have some info that I maybe missing that would support or debunk my theory please tell me.

Sawtooth G4 Dual 450MHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 1GB Memory, nVidia GeForce4 MX, 120GB HDD

Posted on Jan 26, 2008 4:41 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 26, 2008 6:23 PM in response to Apples_or_Oranges

I personally don't see a real need for SLi. I tried it once, and didn't really see a major improvement/difference. Most gamers that I know don't use it (obviously including myself). It's not SLi that is stopping gamers from buying a Mac it's the lack of quality video cards that are more geared toward gamers and as such most developers thus far have not looked at the Mac as a gaming style rig. Most games that I play on my PC will run just fine via bootcamp/windows with the forthcoming 8800GT anyway so I'm not all that worried.

SLi in my opinion is way to hyped.

By the way the current Mac Pro has PCI Express 2.0 already so no doubt we will see it again (if not 3.0) in the next Mac Pro.

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Answer 2

Jan 26, 2008 9:35 PM in response to jesterdev

A lot of people at my work think that SLi is overrated especially if you have 8800's because they are expensive and not worth the cost yet but it takes a lot of strain off of your processor but just because it doesn't make a difference with windows doesn't mean it will perform the same on OS X. Freeing up the processors really makes a difference, a lot of people think that the mac pro wont be bogged down with 8 cores but Intel's display of skulltrail had the two 3.2GHz quad xeons overclocked to 4.0GHz with 2 8800 ultras and 8GB of ram and was running MS flight sim at max settings and it consumed almost all the memory and 82% of the processors. I know the new mac pro has PCI express 2.0 but only one, I'd like to see 4 because apple has a way of over doing it and doing it well from the get go. But if Apple starts to support SLi and xFire there will most likely be more demand for high end gaming cards.

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Answer 3

Jan 26, 2008 9:41 PM in response to Apples_or_Oranges

X48 ( enthusiast ) chipset does not support dual processors nor Xeon processors ( ie X/E/L5xxx LGA771 ), it Is for Core 2 Extreme processors ( ie Q66xx/Q68xx/Q98xx LGA 775 ). The 5400B ( server/desktop ) chipset does not support SLI.

FB-DIMM development is not going GDDR3 nor over 800MHz for the foreseeable future.

No intel chipset supports 64 PCI-e lanes needed to do four version 2.0 16X slots.

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Answer 4

Jan 26, 2008 9:39 PM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

I thought the X48 was the going to appear on the the new skulltrail or was I mistaken. maybe i misread wiki on the subject.

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Answer 5

Jan 26, 2008 9:47 PM in response to Apples_or_Oranges

Just to say it I did misread wikipedia x48 is the core 2 extreme alternate northbridge chipset. But what I meant to say in its place is the dual nforce 100 MCPs in the southbridge. So just to restate I thought the x48 was the southbridge chipset.

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Answer 6

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Jan 27, 2008 7:45 AM in response to Forrest McElfresh1

DDR3 FBDIMM

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Answer 7

Jan 27, 2008 9:43 AM in response to Apples_or_Oranges

To ensure Apple hears you, input your feedback on the Mac Pro feedback website: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html

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Answer 8

Jan 27, 2008 11:26 AM in response to Apples_or_Oranges

Apples orOranges wrote:
I know the new mac pro has PCI express 2.0 but only one, I'd like to see 4 because apple has a way of over doing it and doing it well from the get go. But if Apple starts to support SLi and xFire there will most likely be more demand for high end gaming cards.

Actually the new MacPro's have 2 PCI-e 2.0 slots.
however sli/crossfire obsoletes one card and adds extra video/graphics memory and processing capability to the main gfx card.

while its a nice idea/concept its just not necessary especially in Macs, when you can add multiple video cards in and utitlize them in the same way but have more monitors at once, so your not limiting your multi-dispaly set up or losing too much video ram or processing.

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Answer 9

Jan 27, 2008 1:40 PM in response to AppleNewton

To answer all of these comments,

I didn't think about DDR3 FBDIMMs and would be amazing.

another thing is that yes the mac pro does have 2 PCI-e and i was getting confused with another motherboard.

I know that there is no chipset on the market that supports 64 PCI lanes but apple has this way of getting technology form intel before the others, like apple had the 5100 chipset and the new 5400 chipset that are in the mac pros right now, the technology is available just not to the consuming public.

Of course its not necessary on a Mac to have SLi but I know that people don't always buy for practicality but headroom. Knowing that they could one day use it and actually using it are two different things. I would argue that the video editing/rendering market would love support for 4 quadro 5600s in their machines, not to mention coupled with OS X's 64bit capabilities no gamer/video enthusiast would in there right mind turn to windows after using one of these.

People spend millions on gaming machines and go to LAN parties just to show off there machines. The idea is once apple is in the gaming world people will start to understand how a computer should run and operate. Kids read gaming magazines, and i hate to sound like bill gates here, but introduce kids to apple at an earlier age.

And its not that i have anything against bill gates or Microsoft, i just have had too many bad experiences with windows to ever recommend them to someone looking for a quality machine.

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Answer 10

samuel1

Level 2

150 points

Jan 28, 2008 1:00 PM in response to Apples_or_Oranges

Not taking sides in a debate or anything, but if I were working for apple and I saw an open future avenue of support for SLI without sacrifice of anything else, I would follow it....

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