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ATI Radeon x800 XT vs New Intel Mac
hmmmmm…
the research shows that i need this graphics card to use Motion 3 and Color…and to stop (or merely slow down?) the often-seen spinning beach ball on my timeline when i make changes. this would cost about $300.
on the other hand, i could just scrap it all and get a new Intel Mac. on the Mac site, i configured one for a mere $13,995. hey, at least i kept it under $14K! : )
i guess i have my answer. just typing out loud here for anyone else in my same, or similar, boat (2 and a half year old dual 2GHz PowerPC G5, with AGP slots, currently with the GeForce FX 5200 graphics card).
thanks again!
mh
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12 Replies
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Don’t feel like you’re alone, many people are in the same situation. Scraping a working G5 along with all PCI-x components such Kona card, SATA card, etc. is, as you found out, an expensive proposition.
David Roth Weiss
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A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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14K? Sounds like you maxed out your Apple RAM. Don’t get your ram from apple. You can get 16GB of RAM elsewhere for well under $2,000.
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We have both an Mac Pro with the ATI X1900 XT and a PPC 2.5GHz with the ATI X800 XT. In Color, the ATI X1900 XT rocks compared to the AGP X800 XT.
If I were you, I’d see if you could get a low end Mac Pro with the X1900 XT. If you’re serious about using Color, it will be well worth your time.
-Russ
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Thanks for the input guys,
Actually, since i’ve never even been able to open and use Color, i guess i don’t know what i’m missing…so to get the 800 and use Color at all would be a plus. I DO like Motion, though, and hopefully the 800 will allow full use of version 3? How does our PPC and 800 do with and XDCam HD, DVCPro HD or HDV timeline?
thanks again!
mh
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$190 on ebay? it doesn’t say, but i would assume it’s a used price?
who are your guys’ favorite vendors to deal with?
thanks again!
mh
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That eBay one is a PC X800 that’s had its ROM flashed to work in a Mac. Note the seller’s details on a few items – the DVI doesn’t work, so you can only hook up analog VGA displays. That’s one of the side effects of flashing the card. The fact that is has “Gigabyte Technologies” on the cooling system is another dead giveaway that it’s been flashed.
For new, Mac Edition X800XTs, give OWC a try: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100435338/
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I think that’s the old card made for G4’s. The G5 if I recall uses dvi monitor connectors.
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These cards were $499.00 for ever but they dropped about 6 months ago. I believe this is AMD’s (who bought ATI a year ago) reseller division.
I had ATI’s site in my favorites pile and this it where it goes now.https://www.directdial.us/us/shop/item/prod.asp?item=100%2D435338
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[mortimer heathcliff] “i configured one for a mere $13,995”
Dude, are you crazy!?! Don’t spend that kind of money on a consumer desktop computer. That’s all it is. In 2008 you’ll be able to get one twice as good for half that price.
I’m going to guess you got an 8-core, 8 gigs of RAM, and the outdated yet incredibly expensive Nvidia Quadro card. Am I right?
I’ll start with the 8-core. It’s very poor value. Period. FCP doesn’t even take advantage of it. Intel just started selling their new Penryn chips – so your 14k machine is already about to have second-tier processors in it.
The RAM. I don’t believe >4GB is going to do anything useful for you. I guess you can have 100 large Photoshop documents open at the same time. That’s about all you’ll get from that.
The GPU. Serious ripoff. Actually all 3 GPU choices for the Mac Pro are lousy, but you picked the worst of all. Do your own research first as I don’t know the specifics, but my understanding is that you can use a lot of PC video cards for your secondary display. So in theory you could get a $250 PC Nvidia 7900GTX and you’ll have the similar Motion performance (on your 2nd display) that you would using the Quadro FX card. Both cards have the same GPU core. One costs 10 times more because it has features that the Mac won’t even take advantage of.
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Mortimer,
I put one of these in over a year ago and have never looked back, same machine as you have. This thing is good for at LEAST two more years I’d say. Works great.
Have a wonderful day.
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