ATI Radeon HD 3870 Video Card for the Mac Pro in May?
Barefeats and Xlr8yourmac report that the ATI Radeon 3870 video card will make its debut for the Mac Pro by the end of May.
We have received confirmation from a reliable source that a ATI will definitely offer a retail version of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 with 512MB DDR4 that will boot OS X on both current and legacy Mac Pros. It will, of course, boot Windows XP or Vista in your Boot Camp partition. And, like the 2600, we expect it to support CrossFire mode under Windows if you have two installed and jumpered.
Early evidence of the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 3870 option came from the Singapore Apple Store which briefly listed the ATI Radeon HD 3870 as a build-to-order option for the Mac Pro. The page was shortly corrected.
The Mac Pro currently only offers 3 video card options to buyers: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT and the high end NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600. The new 3870 card should offer a price and performance that falls roughly between the current 2600 XT and 8800 GT options for gaming. However, there have been benchmarks that suggest that even the low end ATI 2600 XT card renders Core Image effects faster than the more expensive NVIDIA 8800 GT, potentially making the upcoming ATI 3870 a better choice for "pro apps" than the NVIDIA 8800 GT (further comments from barefeats).
Available benchmarks on the internet show that the 3870 is 2.1x to 2.8x faster than the 2600 XT in some benchmarks, while the 8800 is about 1.2-1.3x faster than the 3870 in Crysis (game).
If the rumors are true, this would also provide another upgrade path for older Mac Pros besides the $279 NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT.
Popular Stories
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Juli CloverApple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Juli CloverElevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag.
Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year.
Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro.
The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup.
The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie.
The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
