[BWSchultz]

So upgrading a video card is kind of confusing...

I have the original G5 1.8ghz single processor. Yes, the one that was discontinued virtually immediately in November 2003. I got the midrange video card at the time, which I believe is the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. I would like to update this card. That should help me get another 2-3 years out of this great machine.

I think at the time the high end video card was the 9800 Pro. I believe that has 128 mb. What else can I stick in there? I think I need the card to be AGP 8x Pro but I'm not sure. Of course, I would like to have dual monitor capability.

Is this one a possibility (and good)?
Newegg.com - DIAMOND Radeon X1650PRO X1650AGP256SB Video Card - Retail

Thanks for your help.

bws

[Lateralus]

Your machine can take;

GeForce: FX 5200 Ultra, 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra.

Radeon: 9600, 9600 XT, 9650, X800 XT, X850 XT, 9800 Pro 128MB, 9800 Pro 256MB, 9800 XT.

Pretty much anything you find on NewEgg isn't going to work. You have to have a Mac version of a video card. NewEgg has a few but they're all from the ones I listed above and they are specifically denoted as being Mac versions.

[chris v]

Look here:

Video Cards, Adapters & KVM Switches at OtherWorldComputing.com

I went with the 9600 Pro 256 mb and it does the trick for me, but I'm not a gamer, so your milage may vary.

[BWSchultz]

I'm not a big gamer either. I do have a roller coaster design program that's fun and that could really use some extra oomph. And a few other things, too.

I believe my 9600 has only 64mb. I assume a 9600 pro with 256mb would make a huge difference?

I see some Radeon boxes that have MAC EDITION on them. I guess that's what I should be looking for here.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by BWSchultz 

I believe my 9600 has only 64mb. I assume a 9600 pro with 256mb would make a huge difference?

Unless you're driving multiple displays at high resolutions, you wouldn't see much of a difference at all. A 9600 is still a 9600.

[BWSchultz]

No, I just have single monitor at the time. Would like to add a second but haven't found the right one for the right price yet. I'm now looking at the 9800XT with 256mb. OWC has it for $175. The 9600 Pro 256 MB is $219. Should the 9800XT be better?

[Lateralus]

Very much so.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by BWSchultz 

No, I just have single monitor at the time. Would like to add a second but haven't found the right one for the right price yet. I'm now looking at the 9800XT with 256mb. OWC has it for $175. The 9600 Pro 256 MB is $219. Should the 9800XT be better?

Yow! That is the real cost of owning a Mac. Those are $60-80 cards for PCs. $200 will buy you a 7900GT (about the same as the X1900).

[chris v]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Unless you're driving multiple displays at high resolutions, you wouldn't see much of a difference at all. A 9600 is still a 9600.

I saw a noticable difference in the smoothness of exposé & Dashboard, at least, though certainly not vast. Could be the Snappy™ Placebo effect.

[andrewbw]

I just bought one of those $175 Radeon 9800XT's for my G5 (Dual 2GHz) from Other World Computing. It's a nice card, and a good match for your G5. A 1.8GHz processor isn't going to over-saturate it (it'll still be waiting for input more often than not) but it will give you more headroom than a 9600, and has 256MB, which is useful should you ever decide to add a second monitor, or as Apple continues to off-load OS functions onto the video card.

I think this is the best bang for the buck out there right now, short of getting a deal on one of the NVidia cards that will work with your machine on eBay or somesuch. The next step up from ATI would be the X800, but they're still in the $300+ range new, which is a lot of money to spend if you're not a serious gamer.

[jmccainiii]

Hey Andrew, does the 9800xt support monitor rotation? It's called versavision on some cards but it doesn't say on the owc site if this card has it.

[andrewbw]

Yup, it does. The option to rotate the display showed up in the "Monitors" panel in System Preferences right after I installed it, and it works as advertised.

[jmccainiii]

Thanks for the info. It has been difficult to find this anywhere.

[RaddishIoW]

I upgraded my G5 Dual 1.8 from a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (the standard card) first to a 9600 Pro (64Mb), then to my current 9800 Pro (128Mb), and I get a good framerate and general speed with most things... World of Worcraft runs at above average detail settings fine on my 1280 x 1024 Formac display.
The 9600 Pro is basically the same level as the 5200 Ultra, especially with the limited RAM, so I then sold my 9600 and bought a 9800 second hand on ebay about a year ago. Done me proud. You can also overclock ATI cards quite easily, if you want to risk it... :-)

[MichiganRich]

Monitor rotation works on the 9600 you've already got. I have the same 9600 in my G5 1.6 and it works on mine, just a button in the display pref pane.

[emark]

take a look at barefeats.com

you will find excellent comparisons using a variety of applications to show where the $ vs. performance sweet spot is in simple graph, followed by good common sense conclusions.


The 9800, as old as it is, is still excellent. I'm less familiar with the nvidia offerings, but one thing I believe is that the generation of shader support may be better suited to not only games but to current and more important, the FUTURE OS needs...look into that on the specs at the manufacture, or, look at the tables on WIKIPEDIA...very comprehensive.


as far as I can remember, the 9600 is great general purpose but still 4 pipelines...the 9800 is 8 and when pushed in games or tough rendering jobs at higher resolutions really shines. the difference in performance between the 128 and 256 is negligible, and only then shown when pushed... but again, if for a few more bucks you can get the more up-to-date shaders/vertex thing-a-ma-jiggies than do so...look to the future for that is where you will spend your time!

good luck.

[Leighgion]

Before you go too far down this road, make sure updating your video card is actually going to make a difference to your practical work.

While more programs aside from 3D games are starting to leverage the power of the video chipset, they're still by far in the minority as I understand it. Unless your software is specifically written to hook into the GPU's power, you could have the mightiest video card on earth and your work would still be CPU-bound. Even with OSX using the GPU for things like Exposé, Core Image and Core Video, for the daily use of the OS I haven't found any particular improvement in performance from the lowest end Core Image-supported card to better.

My own G5 started out with a Geforce FX5200, moved to a Radeon 9600 and then 9600XT. Doing video editing with Final Cut 3, which doesn't touch the graphics chips, I was perfectly happy on all of them. My upgrade to the Radeons were primarily a matter of curiocity about how much H.264 playback might benefit due to hints in the system reqs about HD playback that Quicktime 7 might be doing at least a little offloading to the videocard for H.264. Playback did notably improve on 1080p HD movie trailers with the Radeon 9600, but that's about all the improvement I saw and my next upgrade didn't improve that trend further than I can see.

I did recently buy one of those Radeon 9800XT's from OWC, but that upgrade was spurred specifically by my purchase of the Final Cut Studio 5.1 suite, which very clearly leverages the video card's power in several cases, especially for Motion 2.

If you're not a gamer and your primary software isn't written to unleash a powerful video chipset, that 9600 may be all you need. The 9600 also supports dual monitors just dandy. Just buy an adapter for the appropriate port to the appropriate connector.

[Cadaver]

For the AGP-based PowerMac G5s, the X800 XT (retail) or the X850 XT (Apple OEM) are/were available. Both have 256MB and will drive one 30" display. These Radeons will only occupy a single slot, leaving the adjacent PCI slot open. And for what its worth, both will support display pivot/rotation.

The Apple OEM nVidia 6800 Ultra DDL is very similar in speed to the X800 XT; slightly faster then the X800 XT with some apps (especially Motion), slightly slower in others (some games). The 6800 DDL (non-Ultra) is slightly slower all around than the X800 XT, but still a very good performer. Both also have 256MB of VRAM. The nVIdia 6800 series cards from Apple both support two 30" displays as both of their DVI ports are dual-link capable. The ATI cards for the G5 only will drive one 30" display at max. So the nVidia cards are the only way to get two 30" displays in an AGP-based PowerMac G5. Neither one is available at retail, so you'll need to hunt around for them (eBay, Mac parts dealers, etc). The nVidia cards also use a big heatsink/fan combo that obstructs the adjacent PCI slot, unlike the ATI offereings. And just FYI, none of Apple's nVidia chipsets - at least as of OS X 10.4.8 - support display rotation. If you want that feature, you'll have to go with ATI.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by jmccainiii 

Hey Andrew, does the 9800xt support monitor rotation? It's called versavision on some cards but it doesn't say on the owc site if this card has it.

Any Mac Radeon 9600 and above (Radeon 9800, X800XT, X850XT, etc...) will support monitor rotation. I don't think Nvidia cards support it.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by Leonard 

Any Mac Radeon 9600 and above (Radeon 9800, X800XT, X850XT, etc...) will support monitor rotation. I don't think Nvidia cards support it.

Actually, I've got a Radeon 8500 Pro in one of my old G4s (currently in one of my daughter's rooms), and it also supports display rotation.

But you're correct about the lack of support in the OS X nVidia drivers. It is however clearly a driver issue, as nVidia cards on PCs running Windows (even the nVidia 7300GT in the Mac Pro under Boot Camp) supports display rotation.

[jmccainiii]

Upgraded to the 9800xt and now I have strange yellow lines on both of my displays. I loaded the drivers from ati but can not find any trouble shooting info on what this may be. Anyone have any ideas?

[BigBadBiologist]

Could be bad video RAM or overheating. You could try downloading graphiccelerator and underclocking the video card and see if that fixes the problem.