I made the following chart for PCs.
It may be applicable to Macs with Windows.
Or it may be of interest to a Mac person with extra space and money who wants to buy a PC rig for gaming.

My objective was to find the most powerful video cards for running X-Plane.
X-Plane is the only game I play.
I scanned the tech/gaming sites for benchmarks.
X-Plane is OpenGL.
I could only find one big name game that is OpenGL and is being used for benchtests; Enemy Territory; Quake Wars.
I took 35 benchtests of tech/gaming web sites using ET:QW to get my results.
I started out with a benchtest from ComputerPowerUser which had 6 video cards.
That benchtest was very close to the average results I was seeing in the other benchtests.
I then compared card to card.
For example, I calculated that the GTX 285 was on the average 4.8 fps faster than the GTX 280.
I would plug that into my chart and I would adjust it if necessary.
I am confident that the first 10 video cards are pretty much in the correct order because they are very consistent with the results of most benchtests.
One caveat: the GTX 295 was inconsistent. Four web sites believe the GTX 295 driver has to be improved.
Xbitlabs said that the GTX 295 failed when they enabled extremely high levels of antialiasing.
I only used single video cards for my results, no sli or cf.
The HD 4890 overclocks well and will rival the GTX 285 when OC'd.
As you can see "bandwidth" is not necessarily indicative of the results.

For Macs it is a lot easier. The HD 4870 is the best card followed by the HD 3870 and the 8800 GT comes in third place.
I am still talking about X-Plane. For other games the 8800 GT will probably beat the HD 3870.
My hope is the HD 4890 will become available for Macs.

See this?

NVIDIA unveils $1800 Quadro FX 4800 card for Apple's Mac Pro

The $1800 card boasts 192 parallel processor cores and a massive 1.5GB frame buffer with memory bandwidth of up to 76.8 GB/sec. NVIDIA says this architecture delivers high throughput for interactive visualization of large models, high-performance for real time processing of large textures and frames, and the highest quality and resolution with full-scene antialiasing.

Each Quadro FX 4800 also features a standard 3-pin stereo connector for true 3D stereoscopic imaging in modeling applications requiring 3D glasses, as well two dual-link DVI digital connectors capable of driving a pair of 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/...es_mac_pro.html

Yeah, I saw that, John.
That card will be nice for some of the professional people.
It would be great for professional applications like a 3D program.
But even if I had $1800 it wouldn't do too much for me however.
It wouldn't be the greatest gaming card in the history of the world.
For example:
It only has a bandwidth of 76.8 GB/s. That would bring it in at around number 13 on my video card chart.
The 1.5GB of vram is very impressive.
One person who runs X-Plane has a card with 1GB says that X-Plane uses all that vram for full screen anti-aliasing.
So the FX 4800 would probably come in handy that way.
On the other hand, ATI's 4870 X2 card has 2GB of vram and sales for less than $500. The 4870 X2 is a single card with 2 gpus.
And the 4870 X2 has a bandwidth of 115.2GB times two.

p.s. A little secret; I don't care at all for video cards. I just like looking at the pictures of the girls who are on them.

As normal, you can right click to make the picture larger. But everybody knows that.

Rumor has that the HD 4870 X2 driver may be available with Snow Leopard or maybe even 10.5.7.
Because the HD 4870 X2 is basically two 4870 cards, it may be possible to flash a PC version and make it run under OS X.
So far it hasn't been done so it's appears unlikely.
If the HD 4870 X2 becomes available for Macs, I will be the first in line. And I'll think that I've done did died and gone to heaven!

Hmmm.. what are my options. I have the XT1900 and it's the second one since the first one had overheating issues.

I see the Apple store has the ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro... but it says that it's for the later Mac Pros... (Early 2009 or Early 2008)
Mine is from late 07.
I don't understand that... aren't the specs for PCIE the same as before?

Alas.. my system can't be getting long in the tooth already...

The problem is with the firmware.
Your Mac Pro has EFI 32 firmware.
The HD 4870 has EFI 64 firmware and is not backwards compatible.

Possibly some good news for you... Some people are selling Mac compatible PC HD 4870 cards on eBay.
They claim their HD 4870 cards are EFI 32 and 64 compatible.
Or you could do it yourself and flash a PC HD 4870.

The eBay PC HD 4870 cards are not compatible with VGA monitors.
I've also heard that the PC HD 4870 cards lose some functions after being flashed but I can't verify that one way or the other.

One very good option for you is the ATI HD 3870.
The HD 3870 is compatible with EFI 32.

[censored]" target="_blank">http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-5...%3A1%7C294%3A50

Just got a reply...


$385. Should be selling some more soon.

Best regards,

- bruinmacs

I am and have been keeping a very close eye on eBay.
I have a 4870 512MB card on order from Apple.
I figure that is the safe way to go.
Problem is for X-Plane the HD 4870 1GB card will have more vram available for antialiasing and as you say, the HD 4870 1GB is available on eBay.

10.5.7 should be out this week.
I will be watching to see if it has the driver kexts for the 4870 1GB or the 4890 or the 4870 X2.

If someone sells a flashed 4870 X2 on eBay, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
Same goes for the 4890.
And then I'll have to take my life because I'll have nothing to live for.

Are you going to buy one?