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kdixey · May 23, 2003, 02:20 AM

Okay, I am looking to upgrade an inherited G4 and I'm on a tight budget (so I'll probably do a little bit at at a time).

I have a pretty good handle on the COU upgrade and hard drive options but I'm puzzling over the video card (remember I'm trying to get best bang for the buck). I want to fit it all into $500 or so. I have been looking at Radeon 7000's for around $125, I can also buy nVideo GeForce MX2's for about $55. I know the Radeon is faster, but I'm a student studying video and every penny counts. I have a baby coming any day now and what doesn't go toward diapers will be going into my "get a used Canon GL1" fund. Any thoughts on the MX2 for $55? I primarily use Photoshop and FCPro. I'm thinking it'll be waaaay faster than the stock video card in the G4. I don't do much gaming.

Oh yeah, I'm running Jaguar.

Thanks in advance.

Kevin

tooki · May 23, 2003, 03:29 PM

For video, you may want to go with an ATI card, as ATI has superior video scaling algorithms that make the video look better on screen.

That said, if you're just doing video editing and Photoshop (not 3D gaming), you won't see a substantial speed increase with a faster graphics card. (Although under OS X 10.2 it is beneficial.) The stock Rage 128 Pro will be fast enough for most purposes (it's primarily the 3D performance that gets improved with faster cards).

tooki

kdixey · May 23, 2003, 03:55 PM

Thanks for the info.

I didn't realize that most of th benefit was for 3D. I'm not much of a gamer so I'm pretty ignorant of the benfits of graphics cards. I've been using the computer for FCPro work already and it seems to work fairly well. I would think that a card with more than 16mb VRAM would be helpful under OS X 10.2.

Any thoughts on what card would be a good choice (still under the best bang for the buck rule)?

firefly · May 23, 2003, 04:39 PM

If you are going to get a new graphics card it would be most beneficial if it supported Quartz Extreme, which accelerates 2D graphics. The Mac Radeon 7000 would not be a good choice, as it is PCI only (you want AGP) and so wont take advantage of QE.

The Geforce 2 MX (AGP) is roughly the same speed as the R7000, so if you can get hold of an after-market Apple OEM, then it should serve you well. Otherwise, they don't sell these retail for Mac, and flashing the PC version of the card could cause problems.