[CaseCom]

Two weeks ago I e-mailed ATI asking if the Radeon card would work in the Cube. They just got back to me:

Yes, the RADEON Mac Edition will work in the Apple Power Cube G4.

Allan Nelson
ATI Sales Support

[roders]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

I have what may turn out to be a really dumb question, but I will ask it anyway. What is so special about this Radeon Card? Everybody seems to be wanting one for the cube, but I have never heard why. I have ordered a 500Mhz Cube from the Apple store. This will be my "conversion" from the PC world. I would like to know what is wrong with the included video card. Thanks for any input.

G

[Evangellydonut]

nothing "wrong" per se with the included Rage 128 Pro. Its just that the Rage128 chipset is 2+ years old now, and compared to the rest of the industry, its way behind. The Radeon on the other hand, is entirely new, based on nVidia's NV15 GPU, with a lot of features that the Rage 128 Pro doesn't offer. We Mac-heads have been waiting for a competitive graphic card for a while now, and hopefully, ATI will deliver in time. (anyone saw the specs on the PC GF2Ultra w/new drivers? that thing is 20%+ faster than Radeon )

[Herr Newton]

A better question would be:

Will the Radeon, work, fit, and not overheat in the Cube?

[denim]

See the first message in this thread.

[venom600]

First, the ATI radeon is NOT, i can not stress this enough, based on the Nvidia NV15. I dont know who would say something like that, but it is wholelly untrue.

[AMS]

Doesn't the fact that the Radeon has a fan offset the "silent" appeal of the cube?

Just a thought,

AMS

[JohnM15141]

Maybe the Radeon Card has a quiet Fan? After all the Cube is touted as being a quiet computer, not necessarily a "Fan-less" computer. Yes, the answer to why it is so quiet is "there is no fan" but it is not advertised as a "Fan-less computer." I'd love to have a Radeon Card in my Cube. Isn't another difference is that the Radeon has 32mb Video memory while the standard ATI Rage has only 16mb? That alone indicates better performance...?!?!

[muttfree]

and better yet is the fact that that "32MB" is DDR ram, so you're effectively getting 4X (64MB) the performance possibilities of the rage 128, for just a little more $$

[Evangellydonut]

If not the NV15, ATI still licensed their GPU from nVidia...and added their own hyperZ and a few other engines...

As to the fan issue, I remember reading somewhere that the Radeon is cool enough to run w/o a fan, even though all the pictures of the chip thus far has a fan on it.

Something else people should be careful about...the 32MB Radeon for PC uses 6ns DDR instead of 5.5ns, thus its actually clocked at 166Mhz instead of 180 or however fast. Personally, I'd rather pay a bit more for a 5ns DDR Radeon...

[CaseCom]

Here's something else: The listed specs for the Radeon say it will support VGA and DVI monitors. At some point, though, they'd have to bring out an ADC version, right?

[dante]

Does this mean the Cube has an AGP slot?

[roders]

I suppose the sun most have got to you down there ay, you know slowed you down a little?

[Cipher13]

You got something against Australians?!?

and better yet is the fact that that "32MB" is DDR ram, so you're effectively getting 4X (64MB) the performance possibilities of the rage 128, for just a little more $$

Huh? You've still only got 32 to work with - its just twice as fast (just about) - not double capacity! Man, that'd be something - DDC RAM!!

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 08-22-2000).]

[Misha]

Yes, the Cube has an AGP slot...

But with no ADC connector anyone that bought a matching new monitor can't use it.

Three different video connectors in one year, including one that's completely proprietary. What's Apple thinking?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Evangellydonut:
[B]If not the NV15, ATI still licensed their GPU from nVidia...and added their own hyperZ and a few other engines...[QUOTE]


I'm sorry, but as far as I know this is complete rubbish. We're did you get your information from? The Radeon is a totally ATI designed chip, with ATI's custom pixel tapestry and Charisma engine. Nothing to do with Nvidia. They are the competition.

Chris.

[denim]

Originally posted by AMS:
Doesn't the fact that the Radeon has a fan offset the "silent" appeal of the cube?

Considering the cube contains a disk drive, I don't think I see the point you're trying to make.

[AMS]

denim,

my point was that while a hard disk may spin and access intermittently (and rather quietly in my opinion), i would consider a fan to be much louder, constant sound (ok, we all have varying degrees of sound sensitivity) and since one of the touted features of the cube is its silence, wouldn't a card with a fan tarnish that reputation? Just a thought really, nothing more...and pure speculation at that since we know nothing about how the radeon will be incorporated into the cube.

a

[slboett]

The tiny box-fans found on processor and video cards should be almost silent - the noise of the hard drive should be louder and make it unnoticable. I know some of the early ATI AGP cards had noisy fans, but it is not by default going to be that way. I used these things in scores of hardware applications when I built equipment in my old lab at UCLA and good-quality fans are quiet.
The problem is, the fan would change the convective flow of the design of the Cube - I bet they don't ship with fans...

Scott

[dante]

I suppose the sun most have got to you down there ay, you know slowed you down a little?

Umm, yeah OK. Bloody poms.

I must admit I haven't really had a look at the specs of the Cube, until now that is.

BTW it's the middle of winter here, so we would be getting a lot more sun than the UK.

[roders]

Tell me about it, half my relatives have emigrated to that part of the world (Australia & NZ) for that very reason..

The radeon card in my cube does not have a fan.

The Radeon card in my Cube DOES have a fan. Hmmm....

What are the specs on the Radeon Cubes without fans? Mine is a 500 MHz BTO with 40 Gbyte HD. And yours ...?

The sound of the fan on the Radeon card is definitely audible, but not by much. I'm happy with its slight hissing sound, rather than silence interrupted by the clicking and whirring of hard drive activity. The slight fan sound masks those intermittent sounds.
Regards,

Pete Christy

My cube is 450MHz but I doubt that matters. I suspect that initial Radeon cards had a fan, but newer ones do not. But I'm just guessing.

[Agent69]

I just received my 450Mhz Radeon Cube the friday before last and the Radeon card does have a fan, at least in mine.

Jeff

[This message has been edited by Agent69 (edited 10-26-2000).]

So if i put a Radeon card in my cube, I'll be able to get NTSC Video out of it?

Does anyone know for sure if a non-OEM Radeon card (i.e. not sold by Apple) will have an ADC connector? It's not enough for me to know that it will fit inside the cube and work, I need to know if I can hook my studio display to it.

Assuming that it will not support ADC, is there a way to obtain the card from Apple (besides buying another cube of course)?

Thanks all.

I don't usually frequent this forum but after reading some of the above posts I feel that some information needs to be cleared up. First and foremost I don't know where the first poster got that e-mail, but I must correct it. The retail Mac edition of the Radeon DOES NOT work with the Cube! I repeat, DOES NOT work with the Cube! It is simply too long. Only OEM Radeons Purchased with a Cube from the Apple store will work in a Cube. The retail Radeon also does not support ADC Monitors!!! Only OEM Radeons do. Finally the Radeon has NOTHING to do with Nvidia. It was developed and produced by ATI! We do not go to our biggest rival to get a chip. I hope this clears things up a bit. People should check the ATI page for info as well as the many Mac sites out there. I personally recommend XlR8yourmac.com for info. Mike Breeden does an excellent job of covering almost all things Mac, particularly anything dealing with hardware.