Comments on: Best video card for G5 tower?

Question: Best video card for G5 tower?

triolus — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:32:46 -0800

What is the best video card I can upgrade my G5 tower with?

Judging from this thread, it seems I'd have to get a Mac-specific video card to upgrade my G5 tower. I could flash a PC card, but I don't have any windows machines to do that with. What's the "top 3" cards I can get for this machine? I tried looking on xlr8yourmac.com, but the site just isn't designed well, IMO, for gathering information of this type.

Money isn't much of an issue (I'd rather save up for a good card than spend a little on a lower-quality one). However, I'd prefer to spend less than $500 on one. =P

My motherboard only has an AGP slot (no PCIE). Also, it has 1.5GB of RAM, and dual 2 GHz processors. I'm running OS X 10.4.6.

By: triolus

triolus — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:37:05 -0800

Crap, forgot a "< /a>" tag.. and it seems there's no way to edit it.. can any mods help me out?

By: sophist

sophist — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:51:16 -0800

This guy will flash one and send to you for $10.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:07:52 -0800

Yeah, xlr8yourmac pretty much qualifies as one of the most horribly thought-out websites going. Sad, too, since they do some very good work there.

Anyway...since it sounds like your G5 is one of the older AGP (not AGP 8x) machines, your best bet for a Mac-specific card is probably going to be this one. It's a good card, though horribly overpriced considering it's nowhere near ATI's top of the (Mac) line these days. That would be the x800 xt. But it's an AGP 8x card.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:20:21 -0800

Okay...I went back and double-checked the specs and, according to this Apple page, even the earliest G5 towers featured AGP 8x slots. My bad. I assumed 8x was added to the later towers. Sooo...Looks like the x800 xt might be your best bet.

By: triolus

triolus — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:45:26 -0800

Thorzdad: Thanks for fact-checking. =) I wouldn't be too worried about it, though as most video cards are 'backward-compatible' in the sense that an 8x card can run at 4x in a 4x slot.

Since the x800 xt is only about $100 more, I think I'll go with that.. unless someone knows of a killer nvidia card, that is... =)

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:37:15 -0800

True about the "backward compatibility" thing...it's just that it's a waste since you wouldn't be getting the full 8x performance that you paid for if you mounted it in a 4x slot. That's all I was really thinking about there.

Enjoy the new card.

By: Malor

Malor — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:33:30 -0800

You're probably best with an ATI on the Mac. Apple writes the ATI drivers, and they do a better job than NVidia does.

This is exactly backwards to how things are on the PC.

By: clango

clango — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:28:31 -0800

I have the 9800XT in a dual 2.0 G5 and it's pretty awesome. I don't 3-D game, but it drives two monitors VERY smoothly.