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crazycat

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 5, 2005
1,319
0
What would be a better graphics card for a Mac Pro Desktop?

ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI) [Add $249]

vs

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI) [Add $1649]


I play WoW and soon many more games on my Mac Pro and i would like to know which is better. Anything that will push the frames rate up would help. I habe the ATI in my desktop currently but i might upgrade to the Quadro if it is better.

Thanks in advance.
 
If you are planning to do a lot of gaming stay with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT. It is a very good card for the money. Like they say on apple.com:

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. One of the most advanced graphics cards available, the Quadro FX 4500 provides a 3D stereo graphics port for stereo-in-a-window applications, making it the ideal choice for high-end scientific visualization. But if you really want the best card you can get go for the Quadro, have a look at some benchmarks made by apple:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/graphics.html

But as you can see, you will only get a few fps more with the Quadro. Go with the X1900 XT! :cool:
 
If your main interest is gaming then it's the Radeon X1900XT you want. The Quadro 4500 is for 3D pro applications like Cinema 4D, Maya, etc. and has features that only these pro applications use.
 
If you are planning to do a lot of gaming stay with the ATI Radeon X1900 XT. It is a very good card for the money. Like they say on apple.com:

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. One of the most advanced graphics cards available, the Quadro FX 4500 provides a 3D stereo graphics port for stereo-in-a-window applications, making it the ideal choice for high-end scientific visualization. But if you really want the best card you can get go for the Quadro, have a look at some benchmarks made by apple:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/graphics.html

But as you can see, you will only get a few fps more with the Quadro. Go with the X1900 XT! :cool:

Not really, I don't know what is up with Apple's benchmarks but the X1900XT is still a better gaming card than the Quadro in both price and raw performance, you'd be a fool to buy a Quadro unless you needed it for professional purposes.
 
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