Should I order with the 7800GT?

[RobHague]

I'm going to order my new PowerMac, today, well that was the plan anyways. I was going to use CWONLINE and get it next day so i can finally get back to enjoying OSX since my little break to 'upgrade' to Dual-Core and PCIe.

But i have seen people saying that if you want the 7800GT you should order your system with it, because Apple might not offer it seperatley later. You think that could be the case? I don't mind waiting, but the projected 8 weeks is rather crazy for a system with this card added.

I wish Apple would make an announcement about this or something so I can order with assurance that I will be able to get my 7800GT after Christmas sometime.

 

[VanMac]

I would upgrade the card later, and get it your PM now.

As it is a PCI-E card, I'm sure there will be a multitude of cards available as add on to your mac.

 

[RobHague]

Hope so, would suck to get the PM and then discover no one is releasing any PCIe cards seperatley, and Apple wont sell the 7800GT except with new systems.

Wish i could find some benchmarks of the GeForce 6600 -- I had a 6800 GT in my last PowerMac and i liked to play World of Warcraft, im hoping i dont have to sacrifice 'too' much quality to get it playable. I like to run the game at the native res of my 20" screen.

 

[andiwm2003]

I would upgrade the card later, and get it your PM now.

As it is a PCI-E card, I'm sure there will be a multitude of cards available as add on to your mac.

the mac cards need extra firmware so the standard cards probably will not work.

but so far you could buy the video cards at the apple store later on as upgrade. i guess this time it will be the same.

in addition there might be better cards in the future because ati has cards that offer h.264 acceleration. i would be surprised if apple won't offer those at some point.

i would order now and wait till after christmas. by then you should be able to select from a range of graphics cards and you will have benchmarks for them.

 

[Zoowatch]

if u get your PM with 7800
it is projected to arrive in 8 weeks time
i.e. just before Christmas
a long time indeed...

and who knows 2 weeks later in january 2006
apple announces iLife '06 (inevitable)
and all computer are shipped with iLife '06 starting from that day on...

and u are left with an odd scenario...
u have just received ur PM about 2 weeks ago...
but u are not qualified for iLife '06 cheap CD upgrade
because u ordered ur computer in early Nov '05
but only received ut in late December...

hence Apple is asking u to pay another 69 pounds for iLife '06
this can be depressing to know

 

[RobHague]

Did just that. Should be here tomorrow....

£1815

Dual-core 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processor
1.15GHz frontside bus per processor
1MB L2 cache per core
1.5GB memory (2x 512MB & 2x 256MB)
250GB Serial ATA hard drive
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB GDDR SDRAM

From CWONLINE. I recommend buying from them if you are in the UK incidentally. The service is very 'personal' and i got 512MB of RAM extra for £3.00 so thats that then. Was quite close to getting a PC at one point but the G5 won in the end ^_^

 

[VanMac]

Did just that. Should be here tomorrow....

£1815

Dual-core 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processor
1.15GHz frontside bus per processor
1MB L2 cache per core
1.5GB memory (2x 512MB & 2x 256MB)
250GB Serial ATA hard drive
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB GDDR SDRAM

From CWONLINE. I recommend buying from them if you are in the UK incidentally. The service is very 'personal' and i got 512MB of RAM extra for £3.00 so thats that then. Was quite close to getting a PC at one point but the G5 won in the end ^_^

Nice. Congrats!! Take some pics when it is all setup.

 

[PCMacUser]

Did just that. Should be here tomorrow....

£1815

Dual-core 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processor
1.15GHz frontside bus per processor
1MB L2 cache per core
1.5GB memory (2x 512MB & 2x 256MB)
250GB Serial ATA hard drive
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB GDDR SDRAM

From CWONLINE. I recommend buying from them if you are in the UK incidentally. The service is very 'personal' and i got 512MB of RAM extra for £3.00 so thats that then. Was quite close to getting a PC at one point but the G5 won in the end ^_^

The machine looks fantastic. I hope you enjoy it.

 

[combatcolin]

The card is expensive but insanely powerful.

Should eat WOW for breakfast even at 1920*1200 Widescreen mode.

 

[PCMacUser]

The card is expensive but insanely powerful.

Should eat WOW for breakfast even at 1920*1200 Widescreen mode.

Do you mean the video card? It's not quite insanely powerful. It slots just below the Radeon 9700 Pro in terms of performance. The 6600GT is another story

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Do you mean the video card? It's not quite insanely powerful. It slots just below the Radeon 9700 Pro in terms of performance. The 6600GT is another story

I think he was referring to the GeForce 7800GT, which is insanely powerful.

 

[RobHague]

Indeed, and a 7800 is what ill need for Black & White 2 no doubt well to play it at 1680x1050 with a healthy amount of detail.

I guess i should start saving

 

[Lord Blackadder]

At the moment the 7800 GT is the second fastest card you can buy for PC - only the 7800GTX is faster. ATI's X850 Platinum Edition is significantly slower - although the X1800XT is coming soon...

Assuming that Apple can get a reasonable quantity of these cards built it will definitely be a must have card until the X1800 bercomes available.

 

[combatcolin]

Oh yes indeedy i was refeering to the 7800.

A DC PM 2Ghz and one of those bad boys should keep me going for years...

...but i'll wait for some WOW benchmarks first.

 

[booksacool1]

Dammit apple, why don't you offer the 7800gtx

Me wants the best...

 

[QCassidy352]

Dammit apple, why don't you offer the 7800gtx

Me wants the best...

how 'bout the quadro? only $1700 to add it on...

(although, according to http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html the quadro only barely beats the 7800 in halo and motion benchmarks...)

 

[combatcolin]

You can bet some overpaid moron has ordered the £1000+ Nvidea card just to run itunes with...

 

[Zoowatch]

You can bet some overpaid moron has ordered the £1000+ Nvidea card just to run itunes with...

yes... i know one such person who got Quadro with Quad PM + 500GB hard disk + wireless options etc.
but he's a university professor (not really a moron) who uses PM for visualing 3D protein molecules / membrane dynamics in action.
So his purchase is fully justified.
Fortunately, he's not considering getting 16GB RAM from Apple as well.
I told him about Crucial RAM and I hope he follows my advice...

Some people don't seem bothered at all when he spends more than 3000 pounds at a time in less than 10 minutes.
I bet he doesn't read Macrumors / Think Secret either...
When he heard about Apple releasing new powermac he simply picked up a phone and ordered... then he calmly returned to his work.
i remember the only question he actually asked was: "Are Endnote and MS Office supported in this machine?".
Whether or not it's liquid cooled, DVD-double layer drive or combo drive, PCI-X or PCIe, DDR or DDR2, 4 cores in 1 procesor or 2 cores in each processor don't seem to matter to this buyer at all.

meanwhile, many of us here (including myself) are spending many hours diligently reading up info / discussing options / facing tough decisions and think about the worthliness and all when we are about to invest in such an expensive machine. to people like us, every single detail plus the future prospects of the machine matter a lot.

Apple probably likes this kind of customer (the professor I talk about) more than Mac fans like us.