graphics cards

jonmichael23

jonmichael23

Registered
I know there are mac-specific graphics cards. I don't see too many posts about people upgrading their graphics card and was wondering if anyone could help me. I'm getting a dual 1.25 ghz powermac g4, and it comes stock with the ati radeon 9000 pro, 64 mb vram. This will last me a while I am hoping, but when doom 3 comes out, I am sure I will want to upgrade. I want to either get radeon 9700 pro or 9800 pro w/128 mb vram. I don't think it is possible to put in a new graphics card in the new iMacs, but I'm pretty sure you can in a powermac. Anyone done this? Where's the best place to buy these cards at? Any help greatly appreciated!
 
seems the site offering the discounted G4 and 20" cinema display might not be worth buying from. I've turned my attention to the G5. I will definately be able to get a 1.6, and i might be able to get the dual 1.8. Also if the 1.6 i would like to add a 160 gb hd and ati radeon 9800 pro to it, if the dual 1.8 then id like to get ati radeon 9600 pro, but im afraid to be able to afford the dual 1.8 id have to give up the superdrive and have it with the combo drive. This does not upset me much at all though, seeing as my iMac has a superdrive and I haven't used it once. Also, the combo drive has faster cd burning/and ill still be able to watch my dvds :) . Which do you think would be better? I am definately 90% sure I'd rather get the dual 1.8.....but it all depends how i do on ebay......in any case i am 100% positive i will get enough for at least the stock 1.6 G5......which would be just fine. I am hoping i can get better though.

Anyway, I'd still like to know how graphics cards on macs works. Im guessing that you can only upgrade cards in powermacs, and you have to buy the cards that are for mac. With either G5 im getting, i wont be upgrading for a long while , but I'd still like to know how to do it for the future.

Jon
 
Dollar for dollar, getting the fastest procdessor over other features is probably priority number one. Graphics cards can be replaced by newer and faster ones, you can always add another hard drive or replace a hard drive, and you can upgrade memory in a snap. Processors, however, don't usually offer this level of upgradeability -- at least not at the same price point.

I'll put it this way: I'd rather have a dual-1.8GHz machine with NO RAM, NO hard drive and NO video card than a 1.6 with an 80GB hard drive, Radeon 9800 and 1GB of RAM. In my opinion, I would always take the more powerful machine (in terms of the processor) over the less powerful machine, regardless of specs (unless the specs were REALLY different).
 
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