therealdave Author

Level 1

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What is the best graphics card for my Powermac G5

Hello every1 @ discussions.apple.com!

I am thinking about upgrading my Graphics card. Currently I have a radeon 9600 in My powermac G5 (early 2005 2.3 ghz dual), it works fine but its a bit slow and drops frames on anything HD. I have been looking around and the best card that i will not need to flash/format to work would probably be a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT DDL (I really dont want to have to flash the card as it seems like a slightly complicated process and i would like to keep within all the manufacturers warranties).My main goal is to obtain the best card possible for HD video editing or viewing. I was wondering if there where any superior cards available for my mac that would serve those purposes better.

Many thanks in advance.

All the best.

Dc

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Powermac G5 Dual 2.3ghz Early 2005

Posted on May 31, 2011 3:12 PM

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4 replies

Level 7

24,400 points

May 31, 2011 3:17 PM in response to therealdave

Hi-

The best AGP card is either the Geforce 6800 Ultra or a Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition.

There is an X850 XT OEM card which was the pinnacle of OEM performance, but it is very rare.

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therealdave Author

Level 1

0 points

May 31, 2011 3:30 PM in response to japamac

Hi japamac.

Would those cards give better performance/results than the Geforce 6800 GT DDL?

Many thanks.

D

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Level 7

24,400 points

Jun 1, 2011 2:44 AM in response to therealdave

The performance differences vary by software in use.

Some software runs better with a Geforce, other with a Radeon.

The Radeon cards will do better with games, but the Geforce will likely do better with 3D and pro apps.

http://www.barefeats.com/radx800.html

As far as viewing HD, any one of the cards will give additional horsepower.

I use a Geforce 6800 GT and a Radeon X800 and I don't see any difference between the two with regard to handling video.

Of course, the two cards do much better than the Radeon 9800 series or other offerings OEM.

After that, it's all up to the CPU, free space on the boot drive and RAM.

Oh, yes, one other benefit of the Geforce is two DVI ports.

The OEM Radeon cards each have one ADC, one DVI.

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therealdave Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 1, 2011 4:51 AM in response to japamac

Thanks Japamac, thats really helpful.

I'll probabl stick with the GEforce and try and free a little space on the boot drive and RAM.

Many thanks for all your help.

All the best

D

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What is the best graphics card for my Powermac G5

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