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Axo1ot1 · Jul 15, 2003, 04:11 PM

My parents are going to buy my dual 1 GHz G4 from me and I'm thinking about buying a G5. I have the GeForce 4 Ti 128 MB graphics board in my G4, and I was wondering if it will be possible to swap it into the G5 and put the stock 9600 in the G4. Is the GeForce 4 even a superior card? My parents don't exactly need tons of graphics power, and I'm no hardcore gamer, but I'd like to have as much power as possible without paying for the Radeon 9800 upgrade.

kkant · Jul 15, 2003, 04:33 PM

I would try both cards to see which performs better in the G5 on the games you play, before doing the swap permanently. I think the 9600 Pro and 4ti are roughly comparable, with perhaps the 9600 having the overall edge in speed, but of course the 4ti has more memory.

DBvader · Jul 31, 2003, 07:38 PM

the 9600 out of the G5 wont work with the G4

TheMosco · Jul 31, 2003, 10:03 PM

The 9600 is an 8X card and will not work in a 4x/2x slot. They use different voltages. a 2x/4x card will not work in the G5.

Conscript · Jul 31, 2003, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by TheMosco:
The 9600 is an 8X card and will not work in a 4x/2x slot. They use different voltages. a 2x/4x card will not work in the G5.

I'll admit I'm new to Macs, but you're saying the 8x AGP cards for Macs aren't the same as the PC version? All PC 8x AGP cards are backwards compatible to 4x AGP...

Adam Betts · Aug 1, 2003, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by Conscript:
All PC 8x AGP cards are backwards compatible to 4x AGP...

Are you sure?

gizzard · Aug 1, 2003, 12:32 AM

I was told by an ATI representatives that the 8x AGP cards shipping in the G5s will not work in any Power Mac G4. I believe it is because of the voltages and the way 8x AGP cards are keyed.

Conscript · Aug 1, 2003, 08:08 AM

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Are you sure?

absolutely

Conscript · Aug 1, 2003, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by gizzard:
I was told by an ATI representatives that the 8x AGP cards shipping in the G5s will not work in any Power Mac G4. I believe it is because of the voltages and the way 8x AGP cards are keyed.

well maybe it's a difference in the mobo that is used for macs versus PC's then. The AGP slot though is a standard, and I would have thought the same principles would follow both...

saru boy · Aug 1, 2003, 10:08 AM

Originally posted by TheMosco:
The 9600 is an 8X card and will not work in a 4x/2x slot. They use different voltages. a 2x/4x card will not work in the G5.

I can understand an 8x card not working in a 4x/2x slot, but are you sure that a 2x/4x card won't work in an 8x AGP slot? I have a P4 box with 8x AGP and right now I have a rather old 2x AGP GF2MX running in the 8x AGP slot.

Arkham_c · Aug 1, 2003, 10:21 AM

Originally posted by saru boy:
I can understand an 8x card not working in a 4x/2x slot, but are you sure that a 2x/4x card won't work in an 8x AGP slot? I have a P4 box with 8x AGP and right now I have a rather old 2x AGP GF2MX running in the 8x AGP slot.

I think the 2x/4x card will work in the 8x slot, but the 8x card will not work in anything but an 8x slot. This is not Mac specific.

roders · Aug 1, 2003, 12:17 PM

the G5's and there Vid cards are AGPX8 PRO cards/slots, which are bigger (longer) and provide more power than AGP2/4 (negating the need for a sepearte HD powersupply connector for powerfull cards), thats "probably" why the G5 Vid cards won't work/fit in a G4.
Hence the ATI Aftermarket 9800 Pro only being AGP4X, which works in G4's & G5's (AGP Pro is backwards compatible I beleive).

Conscript · Aug 1, 2003, 01:07 PM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
I think the 2x/4x card will work in the 8x slot, but the 8x card will not work in anything but an 8x slot. This is not Mac specific.

that is absolutely, positively false, as I am using a radeon 9800 in a 4x/2x agp PC board (i845). Again, I'm not sure that Macs are diffenent or not, but I would guess no.

gizzard · 12:34 AM

In general, an 8x AGP graphics card will only work in an 8x or 4x slot. Go look at any product specification and you can verify this is true. The video cards in the Power Mac G5s are AGP Pro cards, which is different from a "normal" 8xAGP card (mainly the power requirement).

To answer your other question, on page 26 of the G5 technical documents, it plainly says, "The AGP bus is 1.5 V only and is not backward compatible. Older AGP
cards will not work in the Power Mac G5 computer." Of course, this excludes the retail Radeon 9800 Pro.

Lateralus · Aug 2, 2003, 12:17 AM

FYI: The Radeon 9600 would kick the crap out of a GF4Ti, not only in raw performance but image quality as well.

Why in the world would you want to swap them?

kkant · Aug 2, 2003, 06:52 AM

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
FYI: The Radeon 9600 would kick the crap out of a GF4Ti, not only in raw performance but image quality as well.

Why in the world would you want to swap them?

That's not quite true...according to the benchmarks I've seen, the two cards are about even. If anything, the GF4 is slightly ahead IIRC.

But this is moot; as has been pointed out earlier, you apparently can't swap them anyway.

Conscript · Aug 2, 2003, 09:07 AM

nm

Lateralus · Aug 2, 2003, 11:07 AM

Originally posted by kkant:
That's not quite true...according to the benchmarks I've seen, the two cards are about even. If anything, the GF4 is slightly ahead IIRC.

But this is moot; as has been pointed out earlier, you apparently can't swap them anyway.

Not from what I have seen.

In some tests, the GF4Ti is able to hold even with or pull slightly ahead of the Radeon 9500/9600. But the Radeon ends up winning mosts tests and it wins them by the largest margins. I have never seen one set of benchmarks that placed the GF4Ti ahead overall.

Regardless of what tests you have seen and what tests I have seen, it is not arguable that the Radeon will provide a higher level of image quality. So in the end, sticking with the GF4Ti would be a downgrade since the Radeon 9600s core has support for many new features that the aging GF4Ti does not, and the card itself is 8x AGP as opposed to 4x.

But, you're right. They're not swapable in this situation, so why both debate.

a2daj · Aug 2, 2003, 01:05 PM

The Apple 'brand' (OEM) 9800 Pro is an AGP 8X Pro card keyed to take full advantage of the AGP 8x Pro slot. The OEM 9600 has the smaller slot connector that I would assume can fit in AGP 1x-4x slots but the card is setup as an 8x card only (according to ATI employees) so it will only work in G5s. So even if ATI did something similar to the 9600 that they did with the 9000 and use Apple's Radeon 9000 as the basis for ATI's retail 9000 the card 9600 is still designed as a AGP 8x card.
There's a good discussion of this at the Accelerate Your Mac BBS but it's down right now so it might not be up until Monday