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which G5 and which card?
Went to the Apple store today, saw a great Motion demo and got some interesting advice from the 2 people I spoke to:
First person said money would be best spent getting the dual 2.3 with the ATI Radeon X850 XT, that the graphics card
is really important for Motion 2.
The next advice I got was to go for the dual 2.3 with the Radeon 9650, that the graphics card isn’t going to make any
difference at all with Motion 2.
Both recommended getting 2-4gb of ram, (second guy said over 4gb doesn’t make much difference (!)) and neither of
them rated the dual 2.7 particularly over the 2.3.
I’d appreciate any opinions from user’s here, thanks
Rene
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19 Replies
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If you can afford it- get the 2.7, the X850 and 4+GB of RAM. Graphics card is most important followed by ram and processor.
Noah
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Agreed. The 6800 Ultra isn’t an option anymore, is it?
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Hey Rene,
While a fast CPU and plenty of RAM is helpful, Motion’s performance is mainly dependent on your graphics card. Things like behaviors and particles use the CPU for calculations, but all the filters, compositing and playback are GPU-based. Don’t scrimp on the GPU, if you can avoid it.
You have two serious choices for the GPU: the Radeon X850 and the Nvidia Geforce 6800GT. They are the same price. In terms of overall horsepower, they are comparable. They both have 256MB of graphics memory. The Nvidia card has two advantages, however:
1. The 6800GT can draw images up to 4K (4096×4096). The Radeon is limited to 2K (2048×2048). While you may not being doing projects at >2K, you will find yourself needing to use images that size (like from any recent digital camera). HD footage can easily get grown to >2K in size.
2. The 6800GT has hardware-accelerated 16-bit rendering. The 16-bit rendering on ATI is quite slow, but the Nvidia board runs 16-bit nearly as fast as it runs 8-bit.
I don’t work for Nvidia, but I see people being quick to plug the X850 — which is a great card — but why not go for the card that does more for the same price? The images we work with get bigger all the time, so why be stuck at the 2K limit?
Either way, you definitely want more GPU muscle than the stock card in the G5. Good luck with your purchase and have fun!
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Thank you for the quick replies and advice everyone, much appreciated.
specialcase thanks for the in-depth reply, yes, I think I’m going to go for the 2.3 and get the NVidia 6800GT now 🙂
Rene
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Look at the refurb page at the Apple store you may find something faster and cheaper.
same 1 year waranty and you can add Applecare if you want.
I have bought my last 5 G5’s from the refurb page. no problems.
mdr -
Good idea!
Thanks
Rene
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I take it you all think the 6800 Ultra is no longer viable, just asking,
and if so how come
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Hey Nigel,
The 6800 Ultra is/was a great card, but Nvidia released the 6800GT, which is around 5% slower but at only 2/3 the price. The Ultra was the trailblazer, and the GT is the sweet-spot.
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so how many layers (average) can you get out of a GT in realtime
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Oh sorry:
and is the ATI 850 faster than the Ultra?
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