ATI 9600 Pro

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Level 1

105 points

ATI 9600 Pro

I wanted to upgrade my old QuickSilver 2002 4X AGP to a video card that supported Quartz Eztreme and Core Image. Due to budget constraints I went with a converted OEM ATI 9600 Pro 64MB card from OWC (part #APL630ATI96G4) for $79. It does work as advertised - QE & Core Image supported - but seems to lack a little power in the video editing and game departments. The questions are - would I have been better off spending more money on a retail ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 4x/8x AGP 256MB ($200) or the retail ATI Technologies RADEON 9800 PRO MAC EDITION 4x/2x AGP 256MB ($260) and does anyone know for sure if these two cards will work in my computer? Does anyone actually use one of these cards and how well do they perform? I drive only a single 19" VGA display from this main card, but may upgrade to a 19" LCD by years end.

Sorry if these have been answered already but searching the forums still left me confused about these video cards. Thanks in advance for the help, and sorry if the questions are silly.

G4 933 QuickSilver 2002 933, Mac OS X (10.4.5), 128MB RAM,4X AGP,ATI 9600 Pro 64MB,ATI 7000 for dual display

Posted on Mar 30, 2006 12:43 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 30, 2006 1:29 PM in response to frankt

FIRST OFF YOU ARE LUCKY.

9600 cards have been hit & miss in QS & DA machines from day one.

The 9600 with 256 Megs is a pointless waste of $$$ for you.

The 9800 Pro is best card for you.

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Answer 2

frankt Author

Level 1

105 points

Mar 30, 2006 1:54 PM in response to David Pirinelli

Thanks for the quick reply. Don't know what exactly you mean by hit & miss but this 9600 64MB worked flawlessly from the first startup. Just had to make a new CS profile and adjust the monitor size & position settings a bit. Color & display are good.

Guess I might ask mama to get me a 9800 for our anniversary. All the literature I've read about the 9800 makes it sound like a really good card but I was not sure about the compatibility with this machine I have and it is expensive for me. Maybe I can ask OWC if I can exchange this 9600 (only two days old) for the 9800 and some more cash.

Thanks again for the help.

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Answer 3

Mar 30, 2006 3:34 PM in response to frankt

The AGP slot on many Quicksilvers does not provide enough power for the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro PC/Mac 256 MB card. Your 64 MB card may not need as much power, or you may have a Quicksilver that provides a bit more power than most. The 256 MB is the only Mac 9600 card ATI is currently selling. I bought one three months ago for my Quicksilver (2001) and it sometimes worked, but usually would not start after sleep or power off. After a couple of months and two replacement cards, ATI admitted that the card would not work in some G4 models. After I bought the card I found others in these forums had had the same problems since September 2005, and there were many bad reviews of the card in the US Apple store. (I had not seen them before because I am in Canada, and the Canadian Apple store did not sell the card.) I sent copies of the reviews and discussions to ATI. The US Apple store no longer lists the card and ATI now has an article in their support web-site listing G4 models that are not supported with this card. (Search for 737-21888 in ATI's support section to read the article.) Of course they do not warn you in the sales section of the web-site.

ATI eventually replaced my card with a Radeon 9800 Mac Edition 256 MB. This uses a cooling fan, and has one single-link DVI and a VGA, instead of two DVI (one dual-link) ports, but it does work (it gets extra power via a cable to a disk drive power connector). It did occasionally leave small bars of video noise on the desktop. They looked like the video artifacts that others were getting when the over-clocked ATI cards, so I reduced the card's memory clock to 5% below the factory setting and have not seen any more video noise. I did not want to push my luck by trying to get ATI to exchange this card as ATI had been very reluctant to do the upgrade (no exchanges after 30 days, etc. even though I had filed the first complaint immediately, and it was ATI that took two months to admit there was no way to make the original card work in my machine.) I have seen reports of other video cards with memory that was not quite up to the speed specs.

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Answer 4

frankt Author

Level 1

105 points

Mar 30, 2006 4:41 PM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

This 9600 card I bought from Other World Computing <http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/630ATI96G4/> was specially modified to work in the PowerMac G4 Digital Audio/Quicksilver/Mirrored Drive Door machines. I suppose that is why it works as well as it does in my QuickSilver 2002. That is also why the price is low I suspect. OWC also sells a modified 9600 that works in G5 computers as well.

Still, after this discussion, I think maybe an exchange for a 9800 card would be in my best interest. Thanks again for all the info.

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Answer 5

frankt Author

Level 1

105 points

Apr 11, 2006 9:19 PM in response to frankt

The modified ATI 9600 card I installed died after 7 days (black screen). I exchanged it for the ATI 9800 Pro 256MB and all is good now. I'm running both my monitors off of it and I have Core Image and Quartz Extreme support on both screens. Performance is excellent. I also get the extra A/V controls in QuickTime Player Pro that I couldn't have before. The fan on this 9800 does add a small amount of extra noise but not enough to be annoying.

This is a great card and was well worth the extra money. I recommend it to anyone looking to upgrade an aging QuickSilver.

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