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Mac Write · Dec 20, 2005, 07:18 PM

As I am going to be getting the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac 256MB "for all systems," for my MDD Rev C (June 2003) DP 1.25GHZ, I want to hear people's experiences who have this card in the MDD. I currently have 3/4 drives in the system, 2 Optical drives.

Power connecter, where did you get power from (I here there is a power cable splitter included)? How easy was the install since it's not a simple AGP/PCI card swap? What is the performance difference beyond CoreImage/Video access? What else can you tell me about the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac 256 (or 128) and MDD's.

Thanks.

chefpastry · Dec 20, 2005, 10:18 PM

When I installed my 9800s in my MDDs, I connected the power cable to one of the hard drives below the optical drives. Other than the need to connect the power cable, there's nothing that differenciates installation of this card from others.

Unfortunately, I don't have any numbers for you, but I'm sure that you can find benchmarks that will show you the advantages of this card to others by doing a google search.

Some have said that the fans on the 9800s are not very good... Some say the fan is loud... Personally, I can't hear it over the other noises my MDDs make.

Mac Write · Dec 20, 2005, 11:42 PM

Not worried about benchmarks but real world performance. Does it have a power cable extension so you can connect it to the front HD drive bay power cables? Do you have a photo of the inside of the MDD (or can you take one) so I can visualize it better?

Thanks.

new newton · Dec 21, 2005, 01:24 AM

It's a Molex connector, on a Y-cable so that it splits one to the card, and one to a drive or whatever else. It fits right onto the card. If you want to visualize it, have a look at the cable on the back of your hard drive. It's neither complex nor difficult to install. What needs to be done with it will be immediately obvious to you.

Mac Write · Dec 21, 2005, 04:10 AM

I was worried about length of the splitter power cable.

chefpastry · Dec 21, 2005, 12:16 PM

No need to worry the extension cable is long enough to reach with a bit to spare.

JasonBourne · Dec 22, 2005, 07:54 AM

Just installed one for almost a month now the ATI 9800 pro mac. So far I did not regret buying it. Its not loud or I must say Its quiet. Aperture is responsive considering its only dual 1.25 G4. Just installed and updated it to 1.01. My UI is very responsive and multitasking is very impressive. Encoding H264 and encoding DVD at the same time and a lot of the apps are open. So far I'm very happy with it.

Mac Write · Dec 24, 2005, 03:39 PM

Using Aperture, what is the preformance difference between R9000 and R9800? Also, what is still slow (or you see "loading") in Aperture even though you have the R9800?

anim8ing · Dec 26, 2005, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Mac Write

Using Aperture, what is the preformance difference between R9000 and R9800? Also, what is still slow (or you see "loading") in Aperture even though you have the R9800?

I'm curious as to how you got Aperture to run (or even install) on the Radeon 9000 card. I've seen different patches that removed the CPU Requirement, but none for video.

Thanks!

Mac Write · Dec 27, 2005, 01:11 AM

The CPU patch also removes the video card requirement.

jcadam · Dec 28, 2005, 04:28 PM

Installed a Radeon9800 Pro (128mb) in my MDD 867. Was not really worth it. Marginal increase in performance over the Radeon 8500 it replaced.

Now that same 9800Pro is sitting in my Dual G5, though, and it works well. And I didn't notice any drop in performance on the MDD when I swapped out the 9800 for the G5's stock 9600.

sauria · Dec 30, 2005, 03:09 PM

I have a R9800 Pro 128M in my MDD 1.42GHz G4. It is not to loud and I also have a PSI slot cooler fan in the area to try to vent the heat from this maching. No video artifacts and it runs fine.

Mac Write · Dec 30, 2005, 07:21 PM

How is CoreImage/Video preformance? Sure I will do some gaming and I know that will be faster, Core OS UI preformance is the key for me.

Anyone gone from a Radeon 9000 64MB to a Radeon 9800 128/256?

sauria · Dec 30, 2005, 07:24 PM

I did, I haven't tested it -- but will if you'd tell me how to test coreimage performance?

Mac Write · Dec 30, 2005, 10:02 PM

Just use CoreImage apps (Add/remove widgets in Dashboard). Also try dragging windows (general UI preformance) and doing Exposé with loads of windows. Basicly try as much UI intentsive stuff as you can (also try playing full size H.264 videos on Apples QuickTime site. for me they were choppy to some degree).

JasonBourne · 02:49 PM

I have not tested it. For me 9800 upgrade is for multitasking and aperture, iapps and dvd and H264 encoding.

sauria · Dec 31, 2005, 03:17 PM

Ok Mac Write, I'll try and post my results

Mac Write · Dec 31, 2005, 03:22 PM

You're saying that the R9800 will help if I use Toast to encode a DVD? I didn't think it would do that . What kind of DVD encoding time savings have you seen? (mine take 3-4 hours for a full 4.7GB DVD to be encoded and burned 2x).

sauria · Dec 31, 2005, 03:23 PM

Batman HD 720p H.264 video plays fine without choppiness MDD DP 1.42 R9800 Pro 128M

Mac Write · Dec 31, 2005, 05:00 PM

Good (though the extra 200mhz might also be the reason

)