Video Card

Z

zaxcom

Registered
I want to replace the AGP rage pro video card in my 400mhz G4 sawtooth. I want to put a radeon card in. I went to the store and they had several radeon cards for PC's and a couple for mac, but the price difference was huge. Do I have to use the ones that say for mac, or are they all the same and it is just a way for them to make more money? Should I stay AGP or is a PCI card just as good?


Thanks

zax
 
If you want to use Quartz Extreme you need to have an AGP card. Otherwise, you might as well keep the card you have. As to the PC versions, there are several PC versions of the Radeon 8500 that you can flash to have work in a PC. But, they are only the 64M versions of the cards, and it doesn't always work, and you can have issues, and can possibly toast the card if done wrong. The PC cards that are most known to work are the non-LE 64M 8500 retail box version, which is no longer made by ATI. You can pick these up for about $110 or so from store online. Or, you can pay $180 and get the Mac version of the 8500 from macmall.com. ATI's has lowered the list price on the 8500 for mac to $199, so if anyone is charging more then that, they are using the old price. So, for about $70-80 more you save the hassel, and possible failure/issues/etc of flashing a PC version.

Brian
 
Personally, I would avoid flashing PC cards. It's possible to do it, but IMHO hardly worth it. As btoneill suggests, get a Mac edition 8500, or wait a bit and get the new 9000 Pro. I think either should be less than $200.
 
The problem with the 9000 is, it has an ADC port (not to mention it is slower in many things then the 8500, but thats a different thread)(yes, the retail will have ADC also, it's listed on ATI's website as a new thing they are doing with it). If you don't have any apple flat panels, then if you want to use the 9000 for dual heads, you need both a dvi-vga and a ADC-vga converter. It ships will a dvi-vga converter, but you'll spend another $40 on a adc-vga converter. So, the savings you'll get on the 9000 vs the 8500 (about $40) gets removed if you have to spend $40 on a adc-vga converter. Now, if you have an ADC monitor, by all means get the 9000. But seeing as he has a rage128, it has no ADC port, so it's not likely he has an ADC monitor :)

Brian
 
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