[rob_ART]

You dudes might find this page interesting. I tested 5 current Mac Pro GPUs and 3 "possible future" GPUs using Vista Ultimate and various Windows only 3D benchmarks:
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal15.html

The most exciting future prospect, IMHO, is the Radeon HD 5870 that started shipping last week (for PC only for now).

[The Liberator]

In UT III there was hardly any difference, and somehow in CoD 4 the 295 was faster. Odd…

Liberator.

[Sneaky Snake]

The 5870 is a better card. The huge benchmark lists on PC sites prove this. Also it is a single card, where as the 295 is really 2x 275's in SLI (pretty close to that, just slightly slower). Being a dual GPU the 295 will suffer from driver issues and the fact that apple doesn't look to be importing SLI or xfire anytime soon

[teflon]

Also, don't forget that the drivers for the 5870 are going to still be quite immature. New GPUs try to impress with their hardware grunt, but it takes successive driver releases which optimise for specific games and engines as well as generally optimising before you get the best performance out of it.

NVidia will have spent a long time getting the drivers for the 295 optimised for UT3, and it shows. The 5870 hasn't had this yet, so will at least catch up, and probably exceed the 295 in the coming months.

[rob_ART]

Sneaky Snake, on October 9th 2009, 01:56 PM, said:

The 5870 is a better card. The huge benchmark lists on PC sites prove this. Also it is a single card, where as the 295 is really 2x 275's in SLI (pretty close to that, just slightly slower). Being a dual GPU the 295 will suffer from driver issues and the fact that apple doesn't look to be importing SLI or xfire anytime soon

I've just recently come to understand the GTX 295. The '2 x 275' characterization makes sense when you see in my article that the GTX 285 beats it running the Redway3D Turbine benchmark.

Notice in my article I linked the excellent review of the 5870 by Anandtech.

[The Liberator]

Ahhh, okay. Thanks guys. I forgot about the drivers and everything. Did not know that the 295 is kind of two cards, so would that be like say they 4870X2?

Liberator.

[Sneaky Snake]

The Liberator, on October 10th 2009, 05:02 AM, said:

Ahhh, okay. Thanks guys. I forgot about the drivers and everything. Did not know that the 295 is kind of two cards, so would that be like say they 4870X2?

Liberator.

Yea, its the same type of thing as the 4870x2, its got two GPU's that run in SLI on one card

[rob_ART]

Sneaky Snake, on October 10th 2009, 08:35 AM, said:

Yea, its the same type of thing as the 4870x2, its got two GPU's that run in SLI on one card

Speaking of the 4870x2, I didn't included it in my graphs but check this out:

CoD4 at 2560x1600 Max Quality 4X AA:
Radeon 4870x2 = 66 fps
Radeon 5870 = 54 fps
GeForce GTX 295 = 56 fps

ETQW at 2560x1600 Max Quality 4X AA:
Radeon 4870x2 = 89 fps
Radeon 5870 = 94 fps
GeForce GTX 295 = 112 fps

UTIII at 2560x1600 Max Quality:
Radeon 4870x2 = 133 fps
Radeon 5870 = 121 fps
GeForce GTX 295 = 116 fps

[Sneaky Snake]

rob_ART, on October 11th 2009, 07:25 AM, said:

Speaking of the 4870x2, I didn't included it in my graphs but check this out:

CoD4 at 2560x1600 Max Quality 4X AA:
Radeon 4870x2 = 66 fps
Radeon 5870 = 54 fps
GeForce GTX 295 = 56 fps

ETQW at 2560x1600 Max Quality 4X AA:
Radeon 4870x2 = 89 fps
Radeon 5870 = 94 fps
GeForce GTX 295 = 112 fps

UTIII at 2560x1600 Max Quality:
Radeon 4870x2 = 133 fps
Radeon 5870 = 121 fps
GeForce GTX 295 = 116 fps

Very nice speeds. I hope that apple use either the 5870 or the 5890 when its released for their next generation of Mac Pro's