HD4870 for Mac

In the UK the HD4870 from AMD is the most powerful officially supported GPU for Mac OS X. The GTX285 from EVGA, while comparable, is currently only available in the US (for benchmarks head to BareFeats).

The Mac HD4870 512MB is available on the Apple UK Store for £280. You can pick up a PC HD4870 512MB for around £100. Spend around £15 more, you’ll get a 1GB version. The cost of the Mac HD4870 is substantially higher than the PC version at nearly three times the cost. AMD doesn’t have anything to do with pricing, so it’s a question for Apple. I’ve been told that the cost is down to “the Mini DisplayPort and drivers”. Mac GPU drivers never perform as well as Windows GPU drivers so you’re paying more for less, instead of the same for less. I can’t imagine many users own Apple’s 24″ LED screen and hence use the Mini DisplayPort. Frankly, the extra cost is ridiculous.

The good news: the HD4870 outperforms the 8800GT and HD3870 in games. I tested Call of Duty 4 (1680 x 1050, 4 x AA, all settings maximum), Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (1680 x 1050, AA disabled, all settings maximum) and EVE Online (1680 x 1050, 32-bit buffer) on 10.5.8 and 10.6:

EVE Online doesn’t have a netdemo so I had to keep my eye on the FPS counter and gauge performance. Performance was similar in 10.5.8 and 10.6 across all cards, but the HD4870 managed to keep a fairly steady steady 60FPS. There were some graphical glitches using the HD4870, which CCP are working on.

The HD4870 is faster in 10.5.8, with performance dropping in 10.6. I’ve no doubt that performance will increase in later versions of 10.6, but the great jump in GPU performance that some thought Snow Leopard would bring hasn’t materialised. Developers need to be code for CUDA so maybe we’ll see better performance in patches and updates. Interestingly the 8800GT and HD3870 perform better in 10.6. I’m unsure if this is down to driver optimisations or low level Snow Leopard improvements.

Like Anand says, it’s worth attempting to flash a PC GPU for use in Mac OS X as there is a greater range of models, often cheaper. HardMac have plenty of articles to help, they even mention you can run the HD4890 without flashing.

If you’re happy to spend £280 for a Mac HD4870, you’ll get a great card but at a high price. As most of you use Boot Camp for gaming, you might find the HD4870 is more use in Windows than in Mac OS X.

Note: You can get the Quadro FX4800 for Mac with more memory, but performance in games does not justify the price.