Sapphire's Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition Unleashed

$450 for a 7950? Are we back in March 2012?

This makes me want to look for potential Mac 7950 customers, buy enough 7950s for them for around $300, flash them to Mac, and sell them at a *discount* of $400 instead of $450. It should be easy money if there are enough Mac users looking for 7950s.

Imagine a Mac GTX Titan's price.

Despite the price it's good to see a contemporary offering for the Mac Pros. I do often miss my 2010 Mac Pro. Now, Apple needs to update the Pro's a bit and pull the pricing from out of their @$$.

EDIT: Interesting how on AMD's and Nividia's website, there are no drivers for a Mac OS.

It's most likely that both companies considered programming a GPU driver for the Mac OS wouldn't be worth it, since the Mac desktop market is puny.

It would make sense for AMD to charge more for a custom driver that wouldn't be used by many customers due to the small niche market.

Why stop at comparing it to the 8800 GT?

Why not show us how it fares against the TNT2, or the ATI Rage 3D?

blazorthon - You're too late. People have been doing that with Apple's previous "premium" offering of 5870 cards for $350 (which is $100 less than Apple wanted for the 'official' version). They are even still selling the 5870, looky here! Apple should seriously be ashamed, oh but look, Free Shipping! http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC743ZM/A/ati-radeon-hd-5870-graphics-upgrade-kit-for-mac-pro-%28mid-2010-or-early-2009%29

You can tell it's for Mac because it's white.

and why the hell is it vs an 8800 GT?

EstixWhy stop at comparing it to the 8800 GT?Why not show us how it fares against the TNT2, or the ATI Rage 3D?

Because most 2010 pre-built desktops don't come with silly old GPUs like those.

If you think there are no Mac drivers on NVIDIA's web site, you must not have looked very hard. Or, more likely, were blinded by ideology.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html

Well it's freaking beautiful, but...

Really niche market since 99% of mac users can not assemble or disassemble computer.
Man even windows is difficult for them.
And now you have this new breed of Windows METROsexuals.

dramseyIf you think there are no Mac drivers on NVIDIA's web site, you must not have looked very hard. Or, more likely, were blinded by ideology.http://www.nvidia.com/object/macos [...] river.html

You know that page where it ask for for the GPU generation, exact model, and the OS you're running? I didn't see a Mac OS as an option.

Poor, poor sheeple. The sad thing is people will actually by this overpriced card for their Macs.

99 % of mac users can't disassemble a computer because Macs are designed not to be user serviceable. I had enough trouble finding the Torx screwdrivers for an older model. Pentalobe screwdrivers will be even harder to find. At least in hardware stores anyway. People who own Mac Pros, however, probably have some idea about how to open them. They were meant to be opened. A little silly though how they price it so much higher just for the different firmware. But hey, things are worth what people are willing to pay for them, and Mac users tend to have deep pockets and some have short attention spans as well, so they might go for it.

This is a joke for a price. Are you kidding me? It's time our mac owner friends stood up and demand better pricing or boycott them. Talk about a robbery.

wanderer11$450 for a 7950? Are we back in March 2012?

Good. Companies make some money and iSheep burn some money they would do in a normal scenario on a Mac product. Everyone wins.

A Bad DayYou know that page where it ask for for the GPU generation, exact model, and the OS you're running? I didn't see a Mac OS as an option.

He's just being an @$$ hat. Nividia only supports 6 cards according to his page. The newest one is a GTX 285 and Mac OS does show up in the drives search... If you select the 200 series. But who would do that?

6 beyond outdated cards for 3-5 herself machines is not "driver support"

I get the fact that thei wanted to present big performance jumps from one generation (8800 GT) to another (HD 7950), but really aren't other powerhouses on OSX than Portal 2 and Blops2?

The video driver updates are included in the OS updates. It's well-known that Apple owns its users in addition to its patents. You only get updates when Apple says so, it has very little to do with Nvidia/AMD. And btw - I'd bet that some of the additional price is due to Apple being forced to pay AMD/Nvidia to write the drivers for their ultra-minority OS. Honestly, with such a tiny marketshare in desktop performance machines, they likely have no choice.

someone just has to create/mod a bios on a regular 7950 to trick the macs into thinking its a sapphire 7950 mac edition card. they release it free on the web. and any mac user with half a brain would save themselves some $150(hopefully). its really blasphemy however, that apple is still selling a 5870 at $450...

Seeing any card for Macs is fairly nice... and given the miniscule market, I kind of get the higher price. (Remember, these aren't just updates "for macs," but specifically for the Mac Pro - the only one you can actually get into and change hardware on.)

Of course, the Mac Pro itself needs an update...

I know Apple wants to keep the product lines simple, and that works for most of their customers, but I do rather miss being able to get into the machines (through the "beige" G3s and the like) and add/remove/change hardware easily. (First toolless cases I dealt with? 68k Macs... had me wondering why PCs weren't doing it back then! Still like the Q700.)

bustaprsomeone just has to create/mod a bios on a regular 7950 to trick the macs into thinking its a sapphire 7950 mac edition card. they release it free on the web. and any mac user with half a brain would save themselves some $150(hopefully). its really blasphemy however, that apple is still selling a 5870 at $450...

But then Apple would frown upon such heresy of not accepting everyone spoon-fed to you at a wallet-burning price.

And you know what Apple likes to do...

This card has been on Newegg for at least a week now...

mynith99 % of mac users can't disassemble a computer because Macs are designed not to be user serviceable. I had enough trouble finding the Torx screwdrivers for an older model. Pentalobe screwdrivers will be even harder to find. At least in hardware stores anyway. People who own Mac Pros, however, probably have some idea about how to open them. They were meant to be opened. A little silly though how they price it so much higher just for the different firmware. But hey, things are worth what people are willing to pay for them, and Mac users tend to have deep pockets and some have short attention spans as well, so they might go for it.

They will send(sell?) you the tools if you ask.

otacon72Being an iSheep myself I sell my Apple products every 2 years or so whether it be MacBook Pro, iPhone, etc and I make back at least 75% of my investment to put towards the newest model...how about your computer and phone gadgets? Exactly...slam Apple people all you want but in the end you're the ones who are paying more for stuff in the end.

2 years later on and you sell them for 75% the price you paid? I'm sorry but your country must be filled with morons. I mean, after two years ,in all likelihood, they can find that same product on a store being sold 75% cheaper than what you paid for.

Vladislaus said:

otacon72Being an iSheep myself I sell my Apple products every 2 years or so whether it be MacBook Pro, iPhone, etc and I make back at least 75% of my investment to put towards the newest model...how about your computer and phone gadgets? Exactly...slam Apple people all you want but in the end you're the ones who are paying more for stuff in the end.

2 years later on and you sell them for 75% the price you paid? I'm sorry but your country must be filled with morons. I mean, after two years ,in all likelihood, they can find that same product on a store being sold 75% cheaper than what you paid for.

To be fair, a lot of Apple hardware does have good sellback value regardless of the country. Whether or not it's a smart buy is still usually a big NO, but selling it is usually not difficult.

wanderer11$450 for a 7950? Are we back in March 2012?

Overpriced to death

Their Benchmarking against the 8800GT because that is what came stock in a 2010 Mac Pro. That's what is in mine currently, till this shows up at my doorstep.

EstixWhy stop at comparing it to the 8800 GT?Why not show us how it fares against the TNT2, or the ATI Rage 3D?

The 8800GT is what came stock in the 2010 Mac Pro, That would be why they are comparing that card. Most people that never upgraded to the 5770 or the 5870 are probably still using the 8800GT

This is a good example of how backwards Apple still is. Steve Jobs hated paying any money for license fees. Anything that lacked a good profit margin was a "bag of hurt". You have a MacPro Dual Quad configuration and the only way to get equivalent PC graphics power is to pay assanine prices for GPU hardware that is practically identical. I am really glad there are people out there that take the time to flash bios to change from GForce to Quadro to illustrate the fact that it's really a just a big lie. So really...Apple is a "bag of hurt". They had so much potential to have a powerful machine like a MacPro Dual Quad Zeon with an nVidia GForce Titan. Can you imagine the power? Apple...you are so stupid.

I think there are bigger things to worry about regarding the current Mac Pro, like it's totally outdated Xeons, RAM, (lack of) connectivity options, and bloated, insulting price tag. The current 12-Core Mac Pro with 3.06GHz Xeons, 64GB of RAM, two HDDs and a 512SSD, a 27" display, and an HD5870 will clock in at the charming price of $10,240 dollars.

Meanwhile, one can get a 16-Core PC with the latest soc2011 Xeons running 96GB of ultra-fast RAM in quad-channel config (Mac Pros can even achieve tri-channel), the same HDDs and SSD, a 27" ultraHD monitor, and a workstation class Quadro5000 card for $8500.00

Apple needs to take care of these issues first, before companies like AMD start pandering to Mac Pro owners who are already taking it up the tailpipe.