Upgrading graphics card on a Ti Powerbook

Ceroc Addict · #1 January 25th, 2005, 09:09 PM

I have a 1 GHz Ti Powerbook and from what I've read on this board, I'll need a new graphics card (I think I've currently got an ATI Radeon 9000) to take full advantage of Tiger.

Can anyone tell me

To what extent is it possible to upgrade the graphics card?
How much should it cost?
How much of a difference will it make to my Tiger experience?

Kap

blue&whiteman · #2 January 25th, 2005, 09:16 PM

not possible. period.

sorry.

cfleck · #3 January 25th, 2005, 09:19 PM

you'd have to replace the whole board and in a laptop, that is essentially the whole computer.

Ceroc Addict · #4 January 25th, 2005, 09:24 PM

Oh well.

What does this mean in terms of using Tiger?

esp. Will the performance of Dashboard and iChat AV be noticably impacted?

Kap

blue&whiteman · #5 January 25th, 2005, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ceroc Addict

Oh well.

What does this mean in terms of using Tiger?

esp. Will the performance of Dashboard and iChat AV be noticably impacted?

Kap

tiger will run fine on a 1GHz G4 powerbook. how much ram you have? as long as you have at least 512 you're good to go although 1GB would be much better.

either way you will be fine with that mac. at least your graphics config. supports quartz extreme.

Ceroc Addict · #6 January 25th, 2005, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue&whiteman

tiger will run fine on a 1GHz G4 powerbook. how much ram you have? as long as you have at least 512 you're good to go although 1GB would be much better.

either way you will be fine with that mac. at least your graphics config. supports quartz extreme.

I've got 512MB (and I'm pretty happy with the performance, running Panther). How much difference would 1GB make?

Kap

ElDiabloConCaca · #7 January 25th, 2005, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ceroc Addict

Will the performance of Dashboard and iChat AV be noticably impacted?

I think that Dashboard and iChat will perform just fine under Tiger even on a G3 iBook... I highly doubt that those two applications will be the benchmark for CoreVideo performance under Tiger. They'd run just fine without the benefits of CoreVideo.

It seems like people are getting very concerned about Tiger's new graphics features ever since Apple published the required graphics cards some time ago. From what I gather, CoreVideo will scale as needed for the hardware running it. Since the low-end machines like the iBook G4s and the eMacs all support Quartz Extreme presently, I don't think that people should be as concerned as they are about the video performance under Tiger on these machines... and definitely not for a 1GHz PowerBook with 64MB of video RAM.

Ceroc: you say you want to upgrade your video card to take full advantage of Tiger, but your video card is only a small part of taking full advantage of Tiger. "Full advantage" would mean the ridiculous NVidia 6800-whatever card in a dual-2.5GHz G5 machine with 8GB of RAM plus 10,000k RPM SATA drives... my point is that your PowerBook will run Tiger just fine, and, most likely, better than it's running Panther right now. I'm sure it will handle CoreVideo routines just fine.

blue&whiteman · #8 January 25th, 2005, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ceroc Addict

I've got 512MB (and I'm pretty happy with the performance, running Panther). How much difference would 1GB make?

Kap

unless you sometimes run 6-8 apps at once you will be fine with 512. 1GB does mean the HD being used for memory only half as much which means some tasks are many times faster. if you multi-task then upgrade but if not stick with what you have.