Mac Pro users have faced a troubling paradox for some time. While the Mac Pro is capable of 64-bit multiple processor supercomputing, there have been few professional-level graphics cards available for this system. This is like driving a Formula One race car but being restricted to 50 mph. This very real limitation has prevented many Mac Pro users from tackling high-end visualization tasks. However, earlier this year, NVIDIA promised to solve this problem with the release of a variant of Quadro FX 4800 specifically built for the Mac Pro.

The Quadro FX 4800 is designed to meet the demands of graphics intensive applications like scientific visualization, video processing, and high-end 3D modeling. Based on NVIDIAwww.nvidia.com’s GT200GL GPU, the Quadro FX 4800 features 1.5 GB of GDDR3 on-board RAM, 384-bit memory interface, 76.8 GB/s memory bandwidth, 192 processing cores, all with a modest 150 Watts power consumption. This double-width PCIe graphics card has two Dual Link DVI connectors (one more than the Windows version) and a three pin mini-DIN connector for stereoscopic output. And the card’s housing makes it quieter than, for example, the Quadro FX 4600. On paper all of these specs add up to a powerhouse graphics card that should be able to tackle any graphics computing task. For Windows users this is the case, but Mac users may be in for a surprise.

Benchmark tests indicate that under the Windows operating system the Quadro FX 4800 delivers marked performance boosts. Our own testing with the Windows version of the card in an HP Z600 workstation showed consistently improved performance when loading very large datasets into 3ds max, rendering in After Effects, or applying filters in Photoshop. In a Mac Pro the Quadro FX 4800 performed very well during testing with the Adobe CS4 suite as expected. But here is the nagging problem, we also tested an ATI Radeon 4870 (under $300) and found that while the Quadro FX 4800 did better than the Radeon 4870 the difference was often negligible.

Why would a $300 Radeon 4870 do almost as well as $1799 Quadro FX 4800? It could be argued that the Quadro FX 4800 exceeds at ultra high-end visualization like scientific visualization. That would mean that for standard high-end work like video processing there’s no need to dole out the cash for the Quadro FX 4800 when a less expensive Radeon 4870 will do the trick. Another possible answer is persistent problems with nVidia drivers on the Mac that prevent the computer and graphics card from working efficiently. All variables being equal nVidia cards working under the Windows operating system outperform cards working under the Mac operating system. Until this issue is sorted out Mac users cannot expect the same performance Windows users enjoy.