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Why Mac PCI graphics cards expensive?
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Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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I'm trying to find a PCI graphics card to add a second display to my PowerMac G4 tower. The cheapest (in fact only) card I can find is the one on Apple's price list: Apple NVIDIA GEF4 Titanium Graphics Card AUS$960.00 (I presume it is PCI not AGP).
I don't need a particularly powerful card. I'd settle for a Radeon 7000 PCI PC graphics card that I can flash with a new ROM to work with a Mac.
Why are there so few PCI graphics cards available for the Mac OS?
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Banned
Join Date: Jul 2001
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That's an AGP card, not PCI.
It's strictly supply and demand. There just isn't much of a market out there for PCI cards on the Mac. It's only the PowerMacs that can use them, and most relatively modern PowerMacs have support for two monitors from their AGP card.
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Senior User
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Australia
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Originally posted by Sam Venning:
I'm trying to find a PCI graphics card to add a second display to my PowerMac G4 tower. The cheapest (in fact only) card I can find is the one on Apple's price list: Apple NVIDIA GEF4 Titanium Graphics Card AUS$960.00 (I presume it is PCI not AGP).
I found this from Streetwise:
Villagetronics 8MB 2nd Monitor PCI Graphics Card A$279.95
No idea how good/bad it is. Also, no DVI output.
Why are there so few PCI graphics cards available for the Mac OS?
It's probably because the PC world moved to AGP based graphics cards a lot earlier than Apple did, as far as I know there aren't that many vendor's choice to go a PCI video card for PC anyway.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Rochester, NY
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Well its only 8 MB of VRAM and its not even DDR. So it won't be anything like the GeForce4 Ti the original poster posted.  But it will do the job for another monitor.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jan 2003
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At least for the US and Canada, you can buy a Radeon 7000 PCI card (supports two displays from the same card) directly from the ATI website for US$129.00
Not sure why you're having such a hard time.
Plus, there are Rage 128 PCI, Radeon Mac Edition PCI and Radeon 7000 PCI cards on eBay all the time if you want to buy cheap.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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Yeah, just go on eBay. New Mac-compatible PCI graphics cards are expensive because it's a niche market within a niche market - not many people need a second graphics card.
You should be able to find a Rage 128 on eBay for no more than $20 or $30. It's not great, but it'll still provide basic graphics acceleration under OS X (no Quartz Extreme though).
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: St Paul, MN
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Originally posted by Sam Venning:
I'm trying to find a PCI graphics card to add a second display to my PowerMac G4 tower. The cheapest (in fact only) card I can find is the one on Apple's price list: Apple NVIDIA GEF4 Titanium Graphics Card AUS$960.00 (I presume it is PCI not AGP).
I don't need a particularly powerful card. I'd settle for a Radeon 7000 PCI PC graphics card that I can flash with a new ROM to work with a Mac.
Why are there so few PCI graphics cards available for the Mac OS?
How old is your Powermac G4? The later Powermac G4's were able to power two monitors off the same graphics card. If your Powermac is new enough, you can already have two displays. If you already knew that, then just ignore my post 
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Senior User
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Australia
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Originally posted by Sam Venning:
I'm trying to find a PCI graphics card to add a second display to my PowerMac G4 tower. The cheapest (in fact only) card I can find is the one on Apple's price list: Apple NVIDIA GEF4 Titanium Graphics Card AUS$960.00 (I presume it is PCI not AGP).
I don't need a particularly powerful card. I'd settle for a Radeon 7000 PCI PC graphics card that I can flash with a new ROM to work with a Mac.
Why are there so few PCI graphics cards available for the Mac OS?
Well, Sonnet has finally come up with an answer!
Sonata SD Macintosh PCI graphics card
Only US$99.95! Definitely not the best graphics card on the market, but it seems it does exactly what people want.
Good work, Sonnet!
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Portland, OR
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Originally posted by veryniceguy2002:
Well, Sonnet has finally come up with an answer!
Sonata SD Macintosh PCI graphics card
Only US$99.95! Definitely not the best graphics card on the market, but it seems it does exactly what people want.
Good work, Sonnet!
Sadly for only $30 you can get a Radeon 7000 that blows it out of the water.
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8 Core 2.8 ghz Mac Pro/GF8800/2 23" Cinema Displays, 3.06 ghz Macbook Pro
Once you wanted revolution, now you're the institution, how's it feel to be the man?
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Chicago
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Originally posted by goMac:
Sadly for only $30 you can get a Radeon 7000 that blows it out of the water.
And with only 16mb the Sonnet card will never be able to do QE with some kind of hack. I would have looked at that card if it was at least $25 cheaper or had at least 32mb.
Anyway, its nothing new since the card is being made by someone else and has been out for a while. Sonnet is just repackaging it and adding their software: http://www.villagetronic.com/e_pr_mpddpro.html
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Last edited by Captain Obvious; May 28, 2004 at 09:51 PM.
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