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Beewee · Feb 1, 2005, 01:12 AM

Ok, I currently own a 867Mhz Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver) with 896MB of RAM.
Also has a Radeon 9000 video card 64MB of video RAM. I am thinking about investing in a new video card for my machine. Newb question: Would this make a noticable difference in gaming or game performance? Is it worth it?

What video card would be the best for my current system and if anyone wants to share other ideas for giving my lil machine an extra kick feel free to list them.
Thanks

Mafia · Feb 1, 2005, 01:14 AM

Originally posted by Beewee:
Also has a Radeon 9000 video card 64MB of video RAM. I am thinking about investing in a new video card for my machine. Newb question: Would this make a noticable difference in gaming or game performance? Is it worth it?

yes it will make a significant difference. but with games like ut2k4 or others that contain a high amount of ai the processor also matters. but you should see a significant upgrade with a new gpu but maybe a processor upgrade too.

Lateralus · Feb 1, 2005, 01:30 AM

You're kind of in the gray-space of upgrading.

If you upgrade the video card to something significantly faster, it will be hampered by the power of the processor. If you upgrade the processor to something significantly faster, your gaming performance will be held back by the video card.

You could have some fun with that machine for around $700. $450 for a 1.73GHz G4 upgrade and $250 for a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB.

Beewee · Feb 1, 2005, 01:36 AM

Originally posted by Lateralus:
You're kind of in the gray-space of upgrading.

If you upgrade the video card to something significantly faster, it will be hampered by the power of the processor. If you upgrade the processor to something significantly faster, your gaming performance will be held back by the video card.

You could have some fun with that machine for around $700. $450 for a 1.73GHz G4 upgrade and $250 for a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB.

Wouldn't the processor be held back by the system architecture? Bus speed or whatever it is?

MORT A POTTY · Feb 1, 2005, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by Beewee:
Wouldn't the processor be held back by the system architecture? Bus speed or whatever it is?

not as much as you might think on paper, but to a certain extent, sure.

but you will definitely get a kick out of a processor or video card upgrade.

I have the same PowerMac as you (single 867Mhz Quicksilver) except I had a GeForce 4 MX and I recently got a Radeon 9800 Pro and I can run UT2K4 at much higher detail, but it's still definitely held back by the processor... this will be fixed in a few short weeks when i get my dual 1.6Ghz (rated to dual 1.73Ghz) processor upgrade from GigaDesigns

but yeah, a processor upgrade will definitely help out, but you'll have to get both a processor upgrade and a video card upgrade to truly make either one worth it for gaming.

Luca Rescigno · Feb 1, 2005, 02:31 AM

In my experience, Mac games tend to be more CPU-limited than graphics-limited. A CPU upgrade will help more, but I'd strongly recommend against dropping too much cash just to make it a good gaming machine. You *WILL* be disappointed. Your PowerMac is already an excellent OS X machine, and nothing will change that. If you're thinking of upgrading solely for the purpose of gaming, I'd strongly recommend building a gaming PC instead. $700 will buy you a fairly nice system, and believe me, a home-built $700 PC will vastly outperform a PowerMac G4 with $700 in upgrades in pretty much any game I can think of. And you can even go cheaper and go for something closer to $500 for a PC if you want.

Keep in mind, I'm only suggesting this if you want to upgrade for the sole purpose of improving gaming performance. If you want better overall performance in OS X, then go ahead and look into some upgrades. A Radeon 9600 Pro from OWC costs about $120 and will get you full CoreImage support. It's not as powerful as the 9800 Pro, but you won't notice the difference unless you're gaming anyway.

Olorin · Feb 1, 2005, 03:09 AM

I'd save whatever money you would use to upgrade your system and then sell your current one an get a G5. A single 1.8ghz G5 with a 9800 will out perform any upgrade you can make to your system.

MORT A POTTY · Feb 1, 2005, 03:30 AM

Originally posted by Olorin:
I'd save whatever money you would use to upgrade your system and then sell your current one an get a G5. A single 1.8ghz G5 with a 9800 will out perform any upgrade you can make to your system.

I don't know... you're really gonna have to sell me on that one.

dual 1.73Ghz vs. single 1.8Ghz... a tough sell buddy.

the system bus will help a great deal, as will the faster RAM... but man, I doubt you'll get 'teh snappy" as much as with a dual processor system.

chris v · Feb 1, 2005, 10:29 AM

You also need to balance the total cost against what you would end up out-of-pocket if you sold your current machine and used the proceeds to but a newer one. If you can sell your current machine for $800.00 on ebay, and pick up a refurb. dual 1.8 from apple for $1600.00, suddenly, dropping 700 bucks on upgrade parts doesn't make as much sense.

Appleman · Feb 1, 2005, 02:19 PM

Yesterday I replaced the standard NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 64MB DDR video memory
in my Dual 2GHz PowerMac G5 with a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL 256MB and in the Medal of Honor games: Spearhead and Breakthrough I do not really see a huge difference as I would have expected. I blame the minimal amount of 512MB RAM which needs to be expanded to at least 1 GB RAM more I guess.

Maybe the game itself isn't that modern to take advantage of the capabilities of this "supercard", while I will see it more when I buy Doom 3? The visualiser of iTunes does a far much better job now: extremely beautiful!

Well, tomorrow I'll get the Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 rpm SATA, let see what that does to overall speed.

Mafia · Feb 1, 2005, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by Appleman:
Yesterday I replaced the standard NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 64MB DDR video memory
in my Dual 2GHz PowerMac G5 with a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL 256MB and in the Medal of Honor games: Spearhead and Breakthrough I do not really see a huge difference as I would have expected. I blame the minimal amount of 512MB RAM which needs to be expanded to at least 1 GB RAM more I guess.

Maybe the game itself isn't that modern to take advantage of the capabilities of this "supercard", while I will see it more when I buy Doom 3? The visualiser of iTunes does a far much better job now: extremely beautiful!

Well, tomorrow I'll get the Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 rpm SATA, let see what that does to overall speed.

lol when you get doom 3 you will see how much better the card is. metal of honor is not that rough of a graphics game, i desperatly recommend atleast another 512 megabytes of ram. thats more important then the raptor drive for the time being. get ram then the raptor.

Appleman · Feb 1, 2005, 05:35 PM

Originally posted by Mafia:
lol when you get doom 3 you will see how much better the card is. metal of honor is not that rough of a graphics game, i desperatly recommend atleast another 512 megabytes of ram. thats more important then the raptor drive for the time being. get ram then the raptor.

Already ordered the Raptor, will arrive tomorrow.
Another 1GB of RAM is coming as well soon.

Zubir · Feb 2, 2005, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by Mafia:
lol when you get doom 3 you will see how much better the card is. metal of honor is not that rough of a graphics game, i desperatly recommend atleast another 512 megabytes of ram. thats more important then the raptor drive for the time being. get ram then the raptor.

The drivers are crap, and it's going to be awhile before they get any better. The 6800 Ultra is brand new on the Mac, and you're paying the price for being an early adopter. The 9800XT would've been a better choice for games. The only reason to have the 6800 Ultra on Mac right now is to run the 30" display.

Mafia · Feb 2, 2005, 12:39 AM

Originally posted by Zubir:
The drivers are crap, and it's going to be awhile before they get any better. The 6800 Ultra is brand new on the Mac, and you're paying the price for being an early adopter. The 9800XT would've been a better choice for games. The only reason to have the 6800 Ultra on Mac right now is to run the 30" display.

i don't have the 6800 ultra. i have the 9600xt

i'll prolly upgrade sometime around christmas next year.

MORT A POTTY · Feb 2, 2005, 01:15 AM

X800XT is a better choice

Appleman · Feb 2, 2005, 04:20 AM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
X800XT is a better choice

The PowerMac G6 also is a better choice, but also not available here in The Netherlands...