ATI 3870 vs Nvidia 8800GT on MacPro

[Anonymous]

In the foresee for the arrival of ArchiCAD 12, I'm thinking to upgrade my MacPro's poor videocard, but I can't decide between Nvidia Geforce 8800GT and ATI Radeon 3870. I know on windows there should not be questions about (8800 wins), but on mac it seems ATI driver are better performing with core image, and I think this can be important for Archicad. And mostly I prefer ATI cards on Mac (all video related problems I got on Mac, was with nvida cards)
On the other side, I've read on some issue with ATI Radeon 2400/2600, and won't take a card to have new noise...
Did someone get one of this card, or better did try both (with AC12 on Mac OS 10.5.x) an can give me some suggestion?

[Dwight]

Have the 8800 for a 30"+20" display on a MacPro.

Had an occasional issue with Artlantis navigation "banding" on a complex building until last software update - now fine.

In Archicad: it makes a big OpenGL window run fine on a complex building.

If you search the forum you'll see plenty of ATI whining, not that that many would go for the 8800 card.

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
If you search the forum you'll see plenty of ATI whining

I know, but all whining I've read are about Radeon 2400/2600 and Barefeats conclusion about 3870vs8800 is:
In our Core Image intensive tests, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition provided 21% to 41% gains in performance over the GeForce 8800 GT
And another thing hold me from buying 8800: with Archicad 11 on my MacBook Pro (8600GT), I often have slowdowns that I think are video related, and I must restart Archicad (sometimes I reboot directly)
On the other side ATI whining worries me

[Karl Ottenstein]

The barefeats results for the 3870 and 8800 definitely make the 2600 look like oatmeal, but the 2600 works completely fluidly on my MacPro - and when using the SpaceNavigator, the model is really fast at times.

I've had no performance issues to even tempt me to upgrade, so perhaps the performance boots of these cards is really more related to fast frame rate video games that are constantly pumping new textures into the 3D engine...something that doesn't happen with ArchiCAD and Artlantis...?

Cheers,
Karl

[Karl Ottenstein]

borgo1971 wrote:
And another thing hold me from buying 8800: with Archicad 11 on my MacBook Pro (8600GT), I often have slowdowns that I think are video related, and I must restart Archicad (sometimes I reboot directly)

How much memory on your MacBook Pro and what speed hard disk? And, are you on a network when the slowdown happens?

Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
How much memory on your MacBook Pro and what speed hard disk? And, are you on a network when the slowdown happens?
Karl

It's in my sign: 4GB. The disk is the standard Fujitsu 120GB/5400rpm, and no, it's not network related, because it happens even if I'm not connected to any network. It happens random and symptom is really slow video respons 2d redrawing, menus, dialogs, all I do until I restart Archicad.
And you, didn't you have any of the much talked ATI issue? Truly I've seen only iMac owners whining over it, my be iMac only issue...
And I'm convinced ATI 2600 is far better than my 7300, Barefeats too says it's a good value for the bucks

[Karl Ottenstein]

Sorry I missed your signature! Duh. No brilliant ideas for why you're having issues on your MacBook Pro. 😞

borgo1971 wrote:
And you, didn't you have any of the much talked ATI issue? Truly I've seen only iMac owners whining over it, my be iMac only issue...
And I'm convinced ATI 2600 is far better than my 7300, Barefeats too says it's a good value for the bucks

I did - until Apple released a firmware update for the ATI 2600 in MacPro's as well as a other updates to Leopard last spring. It was the same 'broken glass' issue that the iMac people are still reporting. All of the 'birthing pains' of the "Early 2008" MacPro models have been long fixed.

Cheers,
Karl