Radeon 9000 HELP

[OKComputer]

Im upgrading cards in my powermac for 10.2 and Quartz Extreme. How do the 8500 and 9000 compare? why is the 8500 more money than the 9000 anywhere ive found it? yet the 9000 appears to be a better card. Keep in mind my main function on this computer is to use maya. Will I notice a performance difference at all?

[funkywhat2]

i dont know anything about performance, but the price thing i may get.

is the 8500 built by ati, and the 9000 by someone else. my friend has a similar issue with his pc. the 8500 cost almost twice as much as the 9000, but the 9000 wasn't built by ati. just a thought
:) :)

[mozez]

i have a better tip for you if you use maya, dump the mac and get a pc, build a pc actually, build one with a nvidia quadro 4 900 and dual athlons with 1.5 gig of ddr ram, a good system with these basic specs will cost around 2500 to 3000, 500 less than the mac and will run maya 100 times better, and with more options, i use maya 8 hours a day at work, trust me, i've used the mac on dual 1ghz machines, it doesn't even do better than our old pentuim 2s, and it lacks so many otptions from the pc or irix/linux versions, like cloth, alot of dynamics, fur, polygon tools, even 4.5 if you go on alias's site will tell you how much you lose by going on the mac, cause they want the mac version as a 2d graphic design tool, not a full 3d tool, which is why it sucks, i love mac, but if you are a maya guy, no way in hel would i buy a mac for maya, buy a mac for a million reasons, but if your in the biz for 3d, mac is no way to go, no plug ins work on the mac, none, shader support and mel support suck, you want more reasons, i can give you thousands. again, i love mac, but i'd never use maya on one over a pc.

[mozez]

by the way, the nvidia quadro 4 900 is a open gl specific card, for maya it makes everything look better in open gl and run alot faster, able to display and move a huge number of polys in realtime, as well as doing hardware particles and renders very, very fast, i know it might seem like it, but a gaming card is not a CAD card, it does not work the same way for 3d packages, that's why ati sells the fire gl series, and 3d labs has the oxgen and wildcat, the quadro 4 900 is about a grand, ~$950, the fire gl 8900 is like 458, but not as good in maya, max, but not maya, none of these cards work in a mac, sucks i know, i'd buy one for my tower, but anyway, get this card, your maya will fly, you'll love it and your work will show the difference.

[mozez]

last thing, if you have the money, get a wildcat 6xxx, about 2 grand for just the card, has 128 texture memory, 128 video memory, total, 256, it has polygon rendering engines on it, it has so much juice in it, it's insane, it's the ultimate in cards for 3d apps. yes, i want one...

[OKComputer]

okay man...
slow your roll.... Im a 20 year old college student. I got my hands on an edu copy of maya. I dont have the cash to buy a 2000 dollar graphics card. Just for toying around at home and using the main school lab for really intense 3D I am aware of PCs benifits in the 3D world....but Im also aware of my empty pockets...Danke Apple

[topicolo]

OK to all those people who don't know why the Radeon 9000 is cheaper than the 8500. Go to this (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=128806#post128806) thread. I've explained it 6 times now.

[Megaquad]

So.. when is 9700 coming to the mac? same time as pc version or later?

[topicolo]

a couple of months later than next month, which is when the pc version comes out.