looking to give your ‘aging’ Apple Mac Pro desktop a boost in the graphics department? then you probably what to check out this new offering from Sapphire Tech: the Sapphire HD 7950 Mac Edition Graphics Card. this gleaming new graphics accelerator is based on AMD’s latest Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture that promised to deliver a significant graphics performance in a wide range of applications including gaming, audio and video editing. the HD 7950 Mac Edition is said to boost gaming frame rates by over 200 percent, general benchmark performance by around 30 percent, while graphics intensive benchmarks get a jolt by as much as 300 percent when pitted against the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT that’s commonly found in Mac Pros. key features include 3GB of GDDR5 memory, Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE) that deliver up to 2.87 TFLOPS single precision compute power, a 3GHz HDMI 1.4a port, dual mini DisplayPort outputs supporting a massive 3,840 by 2,160 resolution per display when running on Mac OS X, Dual-link DVI port with HDCP (supports up to 2,560 by 1,600 resolution), AMD PowerPlay technology for automatic power management, and hardware support for Open GL 4.2 and Open CL 1.2, plus AMD HD3D technology and APP acceleration. the Sapphire HD 7950 Mac Edition Graphics Card is compatible with Apple Mac Pro models from 2010 onwards, as long as the machine has a PCI-Express x 16 slot to spare. a driver disk is included to enable the HD 7950 Mac Edition to function with Mac OS X 10.7.5, 10.8.2 or later. and oh, it has dual firmware support too (via a simple firmware (dual BIOS) switch). expect it to set you back at a hefty $479.99 when it hit the stores.
