[Nico_from_Paris]

Hi all,

I am going to switch from my old wintel pc to join the mac community I should never have left when I quit my Apple II+ more than 25 years ago.

Gonna buy through Applestore where one can select options to include in the G5 powermacs.

Is it worth choosing the 2x2GHz to have the PCI-X that the 2x1.8 does not have (and have a more upgradable G5) ?

Is it worth adding 60 euro to have the ATI Radeon 9600 XT (128 Mo) instead of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (64 Mo) ? The ATI Radeon 9800 XT (256 Mo) is 390 euro more !!

Thanks !
All the best from Paris !

Nico

[DMBand0026]

Originally Posted by Nico_from_Paris Is it worth adding 60 euro to have the ATI Radeon 9600 XT (128 Mo) instead of the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (64 Mo) ? The ATI Radeon 9800 XT (256 Mo) is 390 euro more !! Thanks ! All the best from Paris ! Nico

Welcome to AppleNova Nico!

As far as the graphics card options on the G5 go, it's absolutely worth it to upgrade to the Radeon 9600XT. Pop for the extra 60 euros, you'll never regret it.

The ATI Radeon 9800 XT is the second best graphics card in the world right now and the best ever available for the Mac. It is specifically made to be used with Apple's new 30" displays. I can almost guarantee that you won't need the kind of power that that card offers. So unless you have the extra cash to burn, stick with the Radeon 9600 XT.

And welcome back to the world of Macs

[Luca]

Sorry man, you got it wrong. The best graphics card in the world right now (for gaming at least, you could make an argument for ultra high end 3D rendering cards being "better") is the Radeon X800XT. Just behind it (and the best available for Mac) is the GeForce 6800 Ultra. The Radeon 9800XT was the best before those two new ones came along in the last month or two. The GeForce 6800 is the one designed to go with the Apple 30" display.

Regardless, the best bargain is the 9600XT for 60 euros extra. If you actually compare prices, the 9600XT is worth more than 60 euros more than a GeForce 5200, so it's a really good deal. The 9800XT is quite a bit more expensive and only a good choice if you want excellent gaming performance. Not that the 9600XT won't give good gaming performance, but it's not as good as the 9800XT.

[Alpha9]

Dude, the 6800 is the best graphics card, for gaming, on either platform. The 9800XT will probably give you marginal performance increase since it's just an extra 128MB of VRAM, which most games to date don't need that much, unless you want to play Doom 3 or something. But, I would suggest the 6800, though, if you're conserving your money, then just get the 9600XT.

[Luca]

The X800XT is still faster than the 6800 Ultra. Not by a whole lot, but it is a bit better.

Not that it matters, because you can't get an X800 for a Mac anyway. You have to "settle" for "just" the GeForce 6800 (which is already insanely fast, twice as fast as the Radeon 9800XT).

I'd agree with Alpha9 to get either the 9600XT or the 6800. 9800XT is not worth the expense considering how much faster the 6800 is, and the FX5200 is slow and crappy.

By the way, video RAM has almost nothing to do with the performance of a graphics card. Most low-end cards are fine with 64 MB, and high end ones don't see any improvement moving from 128 MB to 256 MB.

[sCreeD]

Originally Posted by Luca The X800XT is still faster than the 6800 Ultra. Not by a whole lot, but it is a bit better.

Nope... not for Doom 3 at least.

Looking at the cream of the crop in video cards, it is painfully obvious that ATI is going to have to make some changes in their product line to stay competitive, at least with DOOM 3 gamers. There is no way for a $500 X800XT-PE to compete with a $400 6800GT when the GT is simply going to outperform the more expensive card by a good margin.

And in general, the Nvidia does OpenGL better.

Not that it matters, because you can't get an X800 for a Mac anyway.

True.

Screed

[Nico_from_Paris]

Thanks to everyone for your advice, being not into games I will stick to the 9600 XT card.
And I do not want to be responsible of a new videocard war
Any information on PCI-X slots ?

Nico

[DMBand0026]

Sorry guys

Guess I should have thought more before I posted. I was thinking of the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 ultra, not the ATI 9800 XT. My mistake.

[Moogs]

The extra $$ is worth it to upgrade from the 5200 to the ATI 9600 IMO. You won't regret it.

[Alpha9]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 Sorry guys Guess I should have thought more before I posted. I was thinking of the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 ultra, not the ATI 9800 XT. My mistake.

Thinking about it after we told you

j/k.