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<blockquote data-quote="Amen-Moses" data-source="post: 82127" data-attributes="member: 114">The power for the ADC connector (and hence th emonitor itself) comes from the AGP socket.&nbsp; In PowerMacs the AGP socket has extra oomph from the power supply lines, i.e they are higher current rating than standard to allow for Mac specific cards.Anywho, I've been doing a liitle more digging and it appears that the hardware is pretty much identical between the Mac specific cards and the standard retail but the firmware (i.e software on the card) is different, this was bleeding obvious when I thought about it for more than 5 seconds as cards intended for PC use support and are tailored for DirectX whereas the Mac cards are tailored for OpenGL so it makes sense that they would supply the firmware to best suit the application.I suppose the real winners in all this are the Linux crowd as they can put either card in their machines and just drive it as required, a Mac user would have to source the firmware from somewhere (I couldn't find it myself) to use a PC card in their machine and a PC user is limited to meagre OpenGL support if they opt for the PC specific cards.Personally I'm waiting a few months for the Mac X800 retail card to comedown to a reasonable price (and 300 quid ain't reasonable in my book!).Amen-Moses</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Amen-Moses, post: 82127, member: 114"] The power for the ADC connector (and hence th emonitor itself) comes from the AGP socket. In PowerMacs the AGP socket has extra oomph from the power supply lines, i.e they are higher current rating than standard to allow for Mac specific cards. Anywho, I've been doing a liitle more digging and it appears that the hardware is pretty much identical between the Mac specific cards and the standard retail but the firmware (i.e software on the card) is different, this was bleeding obvious when I thought about it for more than 5 seconds as cards intended for PC use support and are tailored for DirectX whereas the Mac cards are tailored for OpenGL so it makes sense that they would supply the firmware to best suit the application. I suppose the real winners in all this are the Linux crowd as they can put either card in their machines and just drive it as required, a Mac user would have to source the firmware from somewhere (I couldn't find it myself) to use a PC card in their machine and a PC user is limited to meagre OpenGL support if they opt for the PC specific cards. Personally I'm waiting a few months for the Mac X800 retail card to comedown to a reasonable price (and 300 quid ain't reasonable in my book!). Amen-Moses [/QUOTE]

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