Apple Geforce 6600 with 256 MB Ram or keep 9600

[Dreadnought]

Hi,
I have a dual 1.8 G5 with the stock 9600 Pro with 64 MB and play a bit of games. I'm planning on buying a Geforce 6600 made by Apple (or so it's advertised), having 256 MB Ram and PCI-X, Apple's article #MA271Z/A. Here is the link:
http://www.macwarehouse.nl/Detail.tmpl$search?db=db/catalog.db&eqskudata=E558311&cart=3341680591456828
It's a Dutch internet store, so the text is also in Dutch. I have found the card on the Apple website/store but that's with a PCI-Express connector. Anyway, is this card faster then my stock 9600, and is this card comparable to the "windows" version, and which version would that be, GT, PRO, etc.?? Does anyone have some more info about this card? Or do you advise another card? I already found some comparisons at Tom's Hardware Guide.

Greetz, Dreadnought

P.s. also am planning to buy the 23" ACD in January

 

[Sun Baked]

Same part number...

http://www.costcentral.com/proddeta...rce_6600_Graphics_Upgrade_Kit/MA271ZA/G26397/

Says it's a PCI-Express card.

Edit: So you are stuck with your old card. Since PCI (Overclocked) = PCI-X which is not PCI-Express.

 

[risc]

You have an AGP Mac a PCIe (there are no PCI-X video cards) video card will not work in it. If you want to buy a better card for your Mac the options are an ATI 9800 XT, X800 XT, or a 6800 GT or DDL from nVidia.

 

[Sun Baked]

Looking at the specs and seeing it is a PCIe x16 card, Look like only 1 will fit in the dual core.

Will need the 6600LE for the other slots.

 

[Mord]

everyone ignore all other posts, god i wish they called PCIe something more different.

the dual core powermacs use PCIe which is completely different to PCI/PCI-X dual core macs have a 16x slot an 8x slot and two 4x slots however they are all 16x physical slots so you can for example run 4x 7800GT cards if you can get your hands on them they will just run at the speed of the slot, the performance difference will be minimal.

the old PM's have an 8x agp slot and 3x pci-x or pci slots, their are no pci-x graphics cards however pci cards will work such as the radeon 7000/9200 pci. however pci is dead slow and a major bottleneck dont expect good 3d performance only do so if you need more than two displays.

 

[Dreadnought]

I have the old G5, AGP and PCI-X in there.

So, it's probably a typo... too bad. I couldn't find the partnumber from Apple's page, also searched on it, but that came up blank. Well, does anyone knows a card that is payable? They still ask for a 9800 XT 500 Euro's here in the Netherlands.

 

[risc]

OWC ship internationally and they have the ATI X800 XT Mac Edition for just over USD$400.

 

[Dreadnought]

Hmm, that is a little over 400 Euro's including Dutch tax (have to pay that also when I import it ). Still a lot of money. Does anyone know a 6600 with 256 MB (or 128) ram with AGP for the Mac?

 

[Mord]

no such thing, it's either the 9800 pro from owc or the x800XT, or you flash a pc card, google strangedogs their is a forum all about it.

 

[ronfab1]

X800 XT or P9800 Pro Mac for earlier 2.3 G5?

everyone ignore all other posts, god i wish they called PCIe something more different.

the dual core powermacs use PCIe which is completely different to PCI/PCI-X dual core macs have a 16x slot an 8x slot and two 4x slots however they are all 16x physical slots so you can for example run 4x 7800GT cards if you can get your hands on them they will just run at the speed of the slot, the performance difference will be minimal.

the old PM's have an 8x agp slot and 3x pci-x or pci slots, their are no pci-x graphics cards however pci cards will work such as the radeon 7000/9200 pci. however pci is dead slow and a major bottleneck dont expect good 3d performance only do so if you need more than two displays.

Hector, I'm just setting up a newly purchased older model dual processor G5 2.3 with AGP hookup for the stock ATI 9600 card. I want to put the finest ATI card in it I can (some gaming and also DVI output to a high rez projector through a good iScan HD+ processor) and had been planning on getting the X800 XT card. But, are you saying that card would be limited from its 16 pixel pipes to the performance of only the 8x slot? Is the 9800 Pro Mac Spec. Edition card the best I can do in this machine? Or would one of the larger (size wise) NVidia cards actually be a better performer than the 9800, if the X800 XT is wasting money?

Thanks much

 

[risc]

The X800 XT is the fastest gaming card you can buy 3rd party for the AGP Power Mac G5.

http://barefeats.com/radx800.html

 

[Mord]

dont confuse pixel pipelines with pcie lanes, they are independent of each other, the x800XT is pretty much the best card for your G5 their is like 1-2% performance difference between pcie and agp 8x, their really is little difference. bar you can get faster cards like 7800's that run pcie only.

so to clarify:

pci: basic expansion bus

pci-x: faster version of pci

pci-e:serial version of pci, 1/2/4/8/16 lane slots they vary in size

agp 2x/4x/8x: basically super charged pci slots

pixel shaders: graphics processing units, the more the merrier

vertex shaders: same as above but they do vertices

DDR1/2/3: types of memory the higher the number the higher the latency but the higher clock speed available, it's a trade off.

video memory: anything 128MB or above is ok, really does not matter much these days

as far as weather a graphics card is overkill for the bus, you really dont have to worry about it, x800's still show improvement over 9800's in 2x agp slots, only the original pci is too slow, sure faster buses will help, but few tasks are graphics bus dependent.

 

[aafuss1]

Your Mac looks like it's AGP/PCI-X model, so you can't buy and install a GF6600 as that one is PCI-Express x 16.

You'd have to buy a third-party or Apple X800,X850 or 6800 DDL as these will work.

 

[ronfab1]

Thanks very much, and yes I had the impression from a lot of web reading that was the fastest / best card I could put in the older G5 2.3. But then got confused as to whether its performance would be compromised by the older architecture. A few quick answers really help & are greatly appreciated.

Can I also assume the 8x slot is where the X800 XT should go, and that is where the 9600 will already be located from the factory? (this is a refurb purchase)

 

[ronfab1]

Your Mac looks like it's AGP/PCI-X model, so you can't buy and install a GF6600 as that one is PCI-Express x 16.

You'd have to buy a third-party or Apple X800,X850 or 6800 DDL as these will work.

I thought I read yesterday the X850 was limited to PCI Express? Not true?

 

[Mord]

the x850XT mac card is an 8x agp card,

and yes you'd replace the 9600 with the x800XT in the AGP slot, dont confuse 8x pcie with 8x agp, they are completely different.

 

[ronfab1]

Is this person's review grid incorrect, as it shows only PCI Express for the 850 XT or 850 Platinum Edition? The 850 has 2 DVI's out which I really need for both the Apple display and the run to a DVI splitter feeding the iScan.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/176/2/

 

[Mord]

thats just an example of a pc x850XT PE thats pci-e, whoopty do

their are two x series graphics cards available as an agp card, the retail x800XT and the OEM x850XT which is a pain in the ass to get hold of and not worth the extra money, just get the x800XT, they are both agp, their is no mac pcie ati card bar those built into the imac g5 (x600) their are agp/pcie versions of hundreds of graphics cards for the pc, they are seperate and unless this is going to turn into a video card flashing thread ignore them.

acctually screw pci-e, no one in this thread has a pci-e powermac, you all have agp g5's so you have the choice of 9800 pro or x800XT, plain and simple make up your mind.

oh and the 9800 pro has one dvi and one vga port and the x800/x850 have one dvi port and one ADC port.

knowing every specification of every graphics card ever made by heart has it's downsides....

 

[ronfab1]

Thanks again.....much appreciated, and for clarifying about the outputs. Should be just fine with the X800 XT PE.

Apology to Dreadnought as well for going OT with so much Radeon talk.

 

[kwajo.com]

knowing every specification of every graphics card ever made by heart has it's downsides....

okay then, tell me everything there is to know about the Matrox Perihelia and my Rage 128 Pro. GO!

 

[Mord]

The matrox pArhelia is the first 512bit graphics card, matrox announced it in the ti4600/8500 erra, it's quite a crazy card, 8 layer pcb, 512bit memory bus (256-bit DDR) and 4/4 pixel/vertex shaders, it was a DX8.1 card but could do pixel shaders with a large performance hit, unfortunately as great as this card looked when it was announced ATI went and came out with the 9700 pro, which was faster cheaper cooler and fully DX9, they pretty much stole matrox's thunder and no one remembered the card, just as no one but dreamcast freaks remember PowerVR graphics cards.

as for the rage 128 pro, it's a 2 pixel pipeline DX6 card, the pc version ran at 142MHz/125MHz memory/core and i think the mac version ran a fair bit slower at 100/100MHz it was a standard 128bit/DX6 type gpu, bit slower than the competition but did some interesting things with DVD playback, hence apples choice of the card in the B&W G3 and the hardware dvd decoder.

 

[ronfab1]

The matrox pArhelia is the first 512bit graphics card, matrox announced it in the ti4600/8500 erra, it's quite a crazy card, 8 layer pcb, 512bit memory bus (256-bit DDR) and 4/4 pixel/vertex shaders, it was a DX8.1 card but could do pixel shaders with a large performance hit, unfortunately as great as this card looked when it was announced ATI went and came out with the 9700 pro, which was faster cheaper cooler and fully DX9, they pretty much stole matrox's thunder and no one remembered the card, just as no one but dreamcast freaks remember PowerVR graphics cards.

as for the rage 128 pro, it's a 2 pixel pipeline DX6 card, the pc version ran at 142MHz/125MHz memory/core and i think the mac version ran a fair bit slower at 100/100MHz it was a standard 128bit/DX6 type gpu, bit slower than the competition but did some interesting things with DVD playback, hence apples choice of the card in the B&W G3 and the hardware dvd decoder.

I'm impressed, and also with your willingness to share Can I please stray back to the ATI 850 XT PE for a moment?

With the larger fan on the 850 taking up the 2nd slot, like an ATI Silencer 5 would for that board from Arctic Cooling, do they both exhaust the hot air the same direction & is it toward the back of the G5 case? Why I ask is one of the customers reviewing his purchase of an X800 XT with smaller stock fan, on the Apple store site, said that it exhausted the hot air toward the air coming from the computer's PCI fan, rendering both ineffective and heating up the optical bay. He was ordering an aftermarket cooler from Arctic. Is this an issue at all with the heavier duty cooling setup of the 850's or an aftermarket setup like the ATI Silencer 5?

Edit: I was able to find photgraphs confirming that fan on 850 blows out the back of the G5 case, so I don't know what the one dude was talking about when he was reviewing the X800 XT, unless that unit had it going the other way which doesn't make sense.

 

[Dreadnought]

Apology to Dreadnought as well for going OT with so much Radeon talk.

No need to apolgise. I'm just happy that this thread stays alive, I'm learning a bit from your questions to.
The air through a G5 goes from the front to the back. So, that guy reviewing the card must have done something wrong...

 

[ronfab1]

No need to apolgise. I'm just happy that this thread stays alive, I'm learning a bit from your questions to.
The air through a G5 goes from the front to the back. So, that guy reviewing the card must have done something wrong...

Well, if I have your permission & you don't mind on your thread, I'd like to go back to the cooling one more time on the 850 XT PE for anyone who is really up on this. One detailed review felt the top end of the card was really cooled well and not loudly at all even during peak use. However on the bottom side of the card with the brace for the finned copper heat sink & fan, and somewhat of a heat dispersion unit itself (if I recall correctly), he felt the card was still generating a good amount of heat that the card fan on top was not moving out the back. Maybe the PCI fan takes care of rest and it's still not an issue to worry about. Or, I was wondering if anyone familiar with or using a replacement ATI Silencer 5 aftermarket cooling setup for this card knows if it would be worth doing that. They're not real expensive....I think under $30. Is their cooling implementation top and bottom more effective enough to even hassle with it?

 

[Mord]

your looking at the pc version of the x850XT, their is only one mac version and that is one that apple supplied OEM with CTO pre pcie g5's, their are mac and pc versions of the x850XT, they only work on their own platform as they need different firmware, only a card that says specifically that is works in a mac is a mac compatible card.

in essenece just get an x800XT from OWC.