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ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
After reading an interesting comment from Walter yesterday, I may be altering my decision to wait 3-5 weeks for my new Mac Pro and the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT I was going to upgrade to. Walter mentioned not liking the colour of the NVIDIA cards and I was wondering whether or not I should just get the ATI and upgrade to a faster ATI card when released down the road.
I’ve not used an NVIDIA card in a while (and it was PC-based when I did) but most recently had an ATI, which I quite liked until the fan went and killed the card. But being unfamiliar to the Mac upgrade options, I’m not sure I want to wait for an as-yet unannounced/unreleased upgrade to a better graphics option to pair with my recently purchased Dell 2407WFP-HC.
What are the forums thoughts? Walter, you’re expertise in this regard would be greatly appreciated. Honestly, the thought of getting my new machine shipped in 1-2 days is what’s really getting me excited, but I’m really not opposed to waiting the 3-5 weeks (I’ve been waiting for over a year already for this latest version of the Mac Pro).
I should also mention that in addition to the Final Cut Suite, while not an avid gamer anymore, I do expect that I’ll want to check out Call of Duty 4 when it’s released, so I know the NVIDIA will give greater FPS, but my main concern will be for working with FCP.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!
Cory -
1 Reply
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The graphics card really only helps the performance of Motion and Color. Unfortunately, the there aren’t many speed tests with these cards yet.
If you’re waiting for ATI to introduce a new card for the new Mac Pros, it could be a very, very long wait. My thought is that if it was only 3-5 weeks out, then they would have already listed it as an option like they did with the ATI X1900 XT (that was like a 6 week wait when the Mac Pros were first introduced).
With the exception of Microsoft Office :), graphics cards are probably the slowest updated part of the mac world.
I would wait a couple of weeks to see how the current ATI and Nvidia cards compare, but then go for it.
You should keep an eye on barefeats.com. They’ve already posted some speed test that might help you
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT
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