OTOY Forums

It's disheartening to hear almost everybody here discussing about GTX 480 and other Fermi cards whereas the Mac users are left high and dry with only a GTX285. And even that is as good as considered discontinued since many vendors are not stocking this card (I know it can still be had at ebay and directly from Apple).

However, does anybody have any heads up if there will be any upcoming cards for the Mac Pro?
I don't want to invest in a GTX285 now only to find out later that a better one is round the corner.

why don't you use the mac for videos, music etc,
and get a cheap PC instead ? it will give you a lot more flexibility, guaranteed compatibility and cheap upgrades.

Radiance

That is one possibility that had crossed my mind but it would not be anytime soon.
But while we are on this topic, in case I finally decided a PC is a better way to go .... say sometime later this year, is there a possibility for me to switch my copy of Octane Render from a Mac version to a PC version without any additional cost?

bluescorpion wrote:That is one possibility that had crossed my mind but it would not be anytime soon.
But while we are on this topic, in case I finally decided a PC is a better way to go .... say sometime later this year, is there a possibility for me to switch my copy of Octane Render from a Mac version to a PC version without any additional cost?

yes, the licenses are compatible.

Radiance

radiance wrote:why don't you use the mac for videos, music etc,
and get a cheap PC instead ? it will give you a lot more flexibility, guaranteed compatibility and cheap upgrades.

Radiance

This is the approach I have taken. I actually bought two Octane licenses: one for my Mac Pro (not yet activated, because I don't have a compatible graphics card) and one for a Windows 7 machine, which I am using with a GTX 470.

The problem with the Mac Pro is that the best card available seems to be the GTX 285, which at US$450 is $100 more than the GTX 470 for the PC. I'm still hoping there will be a way to get a decent card for the Mac in the near future: Apple is overdue with the release of a new Mac Pro, which might well come with a new graphics card. I use the Mac for most of my design work: ArchiCAD, CS4 and modo, so a really good configuration for Octane is very interesting to me.

Of course a "cheap PC" probably means an i5-750 and 8G RAM, plus a reasonable graphics card and solid power supply, so it will still set you back about $1000.