Apple Expands Support for AMD ATI Radeon cards under OSX 10.6.7

[caveman-jim]

Apple enthusiast blogspot Tonymacx86 noted recently that it appears expanded support for AMD ATI Radeon cards has been added to the OSX 10.6.7 update - possibly indicating the end of MAC edition Radeon cards:

We have confirmed that Apple has included native graphics acceleration for some Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx cards in the Mac OS X 10.6.7 Update for early 2011 MacBook Pro (Sandy Bridge). This means full QE/CI without Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler or any enabler kexts such as ATY_init.

The following graphics cards appear to be natively supported:

ATI Radeon HD 5630 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5630 Device ID 0x68D9
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5730 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5770 Device ID 0x68B8
ATI Radeon HD 5850 Device ID 0x6899
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Device ID 0x6898

AMD Radeon HD 6850 Device ID 0x6739
AMD Radeon HD 6870 Device ID 0x6738
AMD Radeon HD 6970 Device ID 0x6718

This development raises some interesting questions. Could this mean the end of the Mac-only graphics card? Could Apple be opening up the platform more? What happens to NVIDIA? Why support for cards that aren't in Macs yet? Will the 2011 Sandy Bridge iMacs contain one or more of these new 6xxx cards?

Source - TonyMacx86

[Dr. Zhivago]

I built a Hackintosh for a friend and used a Sapphire HD5770. Installed the 10.6.5 update and the card was natively supported. So, it surprises me that they're making a big deal out of this for that series of cards. I understand the 6xxx series being new.

[Chuck]

The Radeon HD6970 on the 27" iMac would be..

[Crisler]

This is something that will help AMD in the market place. Gives them a solid boost.

[HAL10000]

This is something that will help AMD in the market place. Gives them a solid boost.

Hopefully, this is a step towards Apple looking beyond Intel for CPUs.

[Dr. Zhivago]

The Radeon HD6970 on the 27" iMac would be..

They'd have to add active cooling which would make it too loud which would cause it to not get made so, no. Or, they would hobble it's performance so it wouldn't get too hot so they wouldn't have to add active cooling so it wouldn't get too loud and then it's performance would be right in line with most Macs is the more likely scenario.

[Qb2k5]

I guess this puzzle fits the picture in why Steam decided to support Apple a year ago. This is good news for us gamers. If Apple continues to do this I may get a Mac Pro if it allows fully interchangeable graphics cards with AMD and Nvidia and has a vast library of games compared to what Apple has today.

Now Apple's problem is their GPU drivers. If they fix that then they will be on the right track as Gabe Newell said something about how Apple's gpu drivers weren't as good as the Windows drivers.

[Treeckcold57]

They'd have to add active cooling which would make it too loud which would cause it to not get made so, no. Or, they would hobble it's performance so it wouldn't get too hot so they wouldn't have to add active cooling so it wouldn't get too loud and then it's performance would be right in line with most Macs is the more likely scenario.

Maybe 6950 would be fine with a passive cooling? No?