What graphics card should I get?

[josh3dmaker]

I have been asking around for information about graphics cards but so far have not been able to find much.

I have a dual 500Mhz desktop with an ATI Rage Pro graphics card, and was thinking of upgrading my graphics card.

Unfortunately, I don't know which card to buy; I don't even know if upgrading is worth it.

Given I have a limited budget:
* Is buying a new card worth the money?
* Which graphics card should I buy?
* Any suggestions on where to get it?
* How much will it cost me?

Thanks.

<Edited this message 2-20-03 for clarity>

[Juxel]

The card you have right now is a decent card. Why are you upgrading: gaming, graphics, or just because? What kind of a computer do you have, and what kind of a budget are you looking at?

-Juxel

[btoneill]

If you're running 10.2 by all means upgrade, you'll see a pretty noticable increase in speed as the Rage 128 doesn't support Quartz Extreme. I added an 8500 to my G4/450 and the speed increase was very noticable and I couldn't imagine going back to my Rage 128 Pro's. As to what card you should get, that really depends on what you want to do and what your existing monitors are.

Personally I would suggest a retail boxed Radeon 8500 as it supports dual heads and has a VGA and a DVI port on it, also the Radeon 8500 will work in any AGP mac. The Radeon 9000 is also a good card, but it has an ADC and a DVI port and doesn't work on all AGP macs due to the power requirements of the ADC port. You could also look at getting an Apple OEM Geforce2 from ebay or somewhere like www.macsales.com but it doesn't support dual monitors and it also has an ADC and DVI port.


Juxel: The Rage series of cards don't support Quartz Extreme, so that it one of the biggest reasons why one would want to upgrade.

Brian

[Arden]

Check out the offerings from ATI and Nvidia, as they both make excellent video cards and are the most popular-they are both used in new computers. The Nvidia GeForce 2 MX is a very low cost card, but it has relatively little power compared to the newer cards out. The GeForce 4 MX is a cheaper, less powerful version of the GeForce 4 Titanium, and either would be excellent for using Quartz Extreme, though the Titanium is better for games and 3D applications that use the card heavily. The Radeon series of cards are also excellent, and they vary enough in price and specs to satisfy any of your needs. Check out their websites, then look around some of the online catalogs like Mac Mall or Mac Warehouse, and the bargain sites such as Ebay, Pricewatch, and so on. You really can't go wrong with any of the latest offerings from ATI or Nvidia.

[josh3dmaker]

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far.

Originally posted by Juxel
Why are you upgrading: gaming, graphics, or just because? What kind of a computer do you have, and what kind of a budget are you looking at?

Well, I want to be able to use quartz extreme and my Rage card is below the requirements for doing so. Second, I want to speed up LightWave, after all I spent a lot of money to get it. Third, video editing and compression can be very slow on my computer, and really need a boost. Also, anything that could potentially increase 2D graphics, i.e. Photoshop, would be great as well. Finally, while it is certainly not crucial, it would nevertheless be nice if I could play some of the newer 3d video games. My feeling is that I have a pretty good processor and with 512 megs of RAM getting a new graphics card would be the most efficient way of upgrading my computer.

My monitor is 17 inch Apple Studio display, and while it would be cool, I don’t want to pay extra money to be able to hookup multiple monitors.

As far as price, I was hoping to spend somewhere around $150 but I would be willing to spend more if that was the only way to get a good graphics card (of course if I could buy a decent card for under a hundred dollars that would be great).

[btoneill]

Well whatever you do you need to make sure it's a mac card. Their are only 3 options for buying a retail boxed card that will work on the mac right now, thats the ATI Radeon 8500, ATI Radeon 9000, and nVidia GeForce4Ti. The prices of these new are:

8500: approx $180
9000: approx $170
GeForce4Ti: $400

You can buy other cards that are OEM pulls from Apple's on some stores and places such as ebay. The most common you'll find are the GeForce2, GeForce3, GeForce4MX, and Radeon 7500 and 8500's. Approx pricing of these are:

GeForce2: $120-150
GeForce3: $200-300
GeForce4MX: $150-200
GeForce4Ti: $300-400
Radeon 7500: $150-200
Radeon 8500: $150-200

Remeber with these cards you'll have no warantee. Also you need to be careful with Raedon 8500's and GeForce2 cards on ebay as many of them are flashed versions of the PC cards. Some of these work fine, some of them don't. Also some of these are not to the same specs as the OEM cards, slower memory, etc. Flashing the cards was alot more popular when the 8500 was $299 retail, but now that it's down to $170-180ish it's not as big a savings from the PC cards (which are around $100-120) and you can have issues with flashing them, as not all brands flash as well as others.

Seeing as you don't care about dual monitors, and I think you have either a Digital Audio or Gigabit tower (both support ADC) your best bet to save cost would be a retail Radeon 9000. There are debates on which is faster, the 8500 or the 9000,and each ends up winning some of the specs, so it's really what you feel like

Brian

[wyvern]

The geforce 4 MX is NOT a cheap GF4 Ti. It is a GF2 core with a couple of extra features (NV10). The GF3 and GF4 are NV20. The GeForce FX is NV30. Get a GeForce 3 or 4 or one of the high-end ATI cards... you'll be glad you did.