Is ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics the best card for the new MAc Pro 2.66?

If Apple didn't put it in for you, you'll be paying $350 on the street for it instead of $200 from Apple.
It's a darn good card. Some say the GTX285 has more potential but that's yet to be seen.

Agreed - GTX285 is the only current supported option better than the 4870 in performance, but the bang/buck may not be there. Some online vendors have it, Fry's (if you have one local to you) may sell it, but it is a rare find.

Now, if you are of the creative sort, there are a number of sites dedicated to "hacks" to support other GPUs, such as the ATI 4890. If you do a google search, you will find a ton of hits. The only downside is that when Snow Leopard provides a software update, you have to wait for the revised "hacked" driver package from the sites that do them, so you may lose some extra functionality for a short period of time. Hope this is helpful. sam

It takes more work to develop an EFI version, and small market to spread cost (look at all the PCs versus Mac Pro 2008/9).

I'm not sure where Apple fits in with the 285 pricing, a card made or produced by EVGA. It's an Nvidia card though.
The $350 for the Radeon is steep and almost unbearable, but excellent cards have always gone for a lot. Where EVGA or Nvidia get off thinking the 285 is worth a hundred bucks more than the 4870 is a mystery to me though.
In it's present state, and I've been saying this since I pre-ordered and got one of the first, that card just ain't worth it.

The PC 4870's were selling for ~$200 or slightly above, then cut price to bare while $150 overhead for Mac version. Almost double the price. And about the same markup margin on the GTX, no? Right now, Apple (and eVGA) charge $449 for Mac version GTX.

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=01G-P3-1080-TR&family=GeForce 200 Series Family

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=01G-P3-1180-AR&family=GeForce 200 Series Family

And if you look on Newegg or Amazon, a PC version runs ~$400.

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-01G-P3-1180-AR-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics/dp/B00275 G0SW/

There was a time earlier on where the PC GTX was more like $330 at lowest.

Take a look at the ATI X1900, terrible design, heat, dust build-up, etc; the 2600XT had a short shelf life; 3870 may or may not have been around and also lasted about one year but never really took off. ATI hardware design? not my cup of tea, but then Nvidia ran into trouble but the 8800GT G92 seemed to have a good two-year run.

We have cards that could support OpenGL 3.x but have yet too as well.

Without a good reason to build and focus on 3D (and gaming, to push the hardware envelope) in the end to its potential? That could change.

On the plus side: if you don't build it, they will not come. The horse has to be there to pull the cart or it won't go. Putting the GTX 285 out there, some have hoped, was to be a harbinger of things to come.

PS: Even as the Quad G5 was getting ready to ship, the Mac Pro was in the wings; and the Quad could boot from GUID disks.

I didn't realize the PC version of the 285 was going for so much. At least for PC users though, they should be seeing some remarkable performance from it. We can too if we were to run a game under Windows, as I recall. But not from the Mac OS side of things.

A thing that bothers me reading about older, similarly much hyped video cards is the promises they offered but apparently were just given up on not far beyond their launch. I've had a sinking feeling for some time that the 285 has hit it's stride and it will be abandoned also soon.
Not that Apple couldn't make better drivers for it and eek out better performance, but, knowing Apple, I just don't believe they will.

To answer the posters question, and I haven't yet, I haven't seen much price variation for the 4870 and 285's for Mac. One may get lucky, I just haven't seen it though.
One thing I would definitely do if I got my Mac with a low powered card (and but for the Discussions, I almost did.), is to consider what Sammy refers to as "Hacks", which I believe I would term "flashed" cards.
I used to do a lot of business with these guys (almost everything they have is flashed) and was never disappointed. They are some really good people.
Now I like to stay away from flashed, and, if I can, get Made-4-Mac cards. The new 09s are lucky that way to have two such good, but expensive, cards available to them.
But if hadn't spent a lot on the old card and was just beginning my journey to hunt out a new and better one, I would really keep "hacks" or flashed" cards in mind. There are risks and potential issues but I have never run across them in the past as far as I know. They might just be worth a shot.
http://stores.ebay.com/local338onlinestore

Message was edited by: Samsara

When the ATI Radeon 9800 256MB (4/8x) came out it was over $300 new as well.
I paid $200 for:

SE/30 PDS slot graphic 2MB to drive a Pivot Display 16" $995 kit
Centris 650 2MB PDS video $200 Sonnet card
ATI Radeon 32MB
ATI RAdeon 128MB 9200 PCI

Back to GTX 285 and hitting its stride and PC versions: next up are the 300-series "Fermi" card family.

It took almost a year for Apple to figure out the Nvidia 8800GT, only to be dropped. Where is the learning and commitment? Only time will tell if finally OpenCL and OpenGL 3.2 matter.

5 yrs ago I'd have thought FW would have hit 3200, not stuck at FW800, but at this point, I'm just hoping for USB3.0.

For PC games? Hmm... I don't have Windows on my Mac. I'm not sure what kind of games are being played when booted into Windows. I wonder if one can play both Mac and PC games booted into Windows?

What I can say is that for Mac games played on the Mac OS, at least the ones I have played like COD4 and Enemy Territory, which I've heard are heavy graphics hitters (often listed in tests), play really darn well. And I think that as the Hatter mentioned also, the 4870 will continue to benefit from changes Apple makes to OpenCL and OpenGL. It's a very fine card and I count myself lucky for once that getting it installed by Apple made such a price difference.
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal05.html

applications from my wife's PC she uses for her music to the Mac Pro.

You have Windows installed on your Mac then? Otherwise I wouldn't know how your Mac could handle those.

How hard is it to find a wife who loves you AND enjoys playing video games to "escape" reality for a while?

I would say you're doubly blessed. 🙂

Several things I found here I thought interesting.
Under, "NVIDIA's Bumpy Ride: A Q4 2009 Update"
http://www.anandtech.com/video/
This line was odd to hear. "Charlie said that NVIDIA was going to abandon the high end and upper mid range graphics card markets completely."...
Whose Charlie and is he right?

Message was edited by: Samsara