video card upgrade?

I hope you mean $150 .. if so it is a pretty good deal ..

You can also look into a modded ATI9600 OWC sells [ the ADC doesn't work but if you don't need that it is a minor issue ] .. those go for $100 I think ..

I am not sure which one of those will be the fastest in games though ..

I also have a MDD Dual 1.25 GHz G4, and have experimented with many grfx cards in it:
Radeon 8500
Radeon 9000
Radeon 9800 (this one is still in it)
GeForce 4 Ti

The Radeons 8500 and 9000 are about the same.
The GeForce 4 Ti is sligtly better at gamimg, but other than that I have not experinced any performance gains over the previous Radeons.

The Radeon 9800 Pro Retail card is the best card out there for the MDD G4.

I assume a US $ 150,- for the GeForce 4 Ti? (not the 1500 you mentioned, I hope )

If you are going to play a lot of games, then it would be an OK deal, although I would try and fine the Radeon 9800.
If you don't play games, then don't do it. The Radeon 9000 is a nice card, and in "normal" use, you won't notice any difference between the two.

Check out for more info regarding performance etc.

Re: Speed

At least on the PeeCee side (the only comprehensive benchmarks I can find) the Radeon 9600 is only a bit slower than a GeForce 4Ti and the 9600 Pro is only a bit faster. BUT, from a price/performance standpoint the 9600 (non-pro) should be a much better deal assuming that's the card OWC was selling for $100.

Here's the numbers: UT2K3 @1024x768 R9000 34.7fps, R9600 44.5fps, GeForce 4Ti 55.3-65.3fps (depending on which flavor you get), R9600Pro 66.7fps, Edit: R9800Pro got 107.6fps, but you'll probably be CPU limited before you get framerates that fast.

Of course that's assuming you play 1st person shooters which can tend to be GPU limited. If you like strategy games like Warcraft III, you tend to be CPU limited (because the CPU has to keep track of all your little guys running around, even the ones off screen not being rendered) and any card faster than a Geforce 4MX (that includes the R9000) should be more than enough assuming you have a hefty enough CPU.

Just my $0.02
If anyone else reading this has a different opinion feel free to correct me, I'm always looking to learn more .

-mcg
Edit: I agree that for your use (only light gaming) buying a hefty card is probably not the wisest thing to do with your money, but if you do decide to shell out the big bucks the R9800 is the best card you can get for a non-G5 mac and SHOULD (in theory) give you a dramatic improvement in GPU limited games.

Last couple of posters have some good info, a G4Ti is a step up from a 9000 make no mistake just as a 9800 is a step up from the G4ti. I feel perhaps that a 9800 is more video then a G4 machine can handle. Though you may not gain frames a 9800 would allow everything handled by the gpu to be in the on position. eye candy improves the experience for me but the best thing is running at the next higher resolution. G4Ti or 9800 should allow that over the 9000.

MrCommunistGen said:

. BUT, from a price/performance standpoint the 9600 (non-pro) should be a much better deal assuming that's the card OWC was selling for $100.

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Yah .. those are pulls from RevA G5s .. thus no pro with 64MB RAM

I do hope they will sell pulls from the RevB G5s .. since those are 9600XTs with 128MB ..

I am in dire need of one of those since my 4MX is crap ..

Mertzen said:

I am in dire need of one of those since my 4MX is crap ..

Click to expand...

My poor tired old 8MB Rage 128 is even worse... I'm running a pretty fully upgraded (and slightly modded) iMacDVSE. Read my sig for more details.

The Rage 128 (pro) cards were pretty bad.....

I had one in my B&W G3 350 MHz, and replaced it with a Voodoo 5 5500 card later on. That made a hell of a difference! Too bad 3dfx bought it.....
At least I still have a Mac "stuck" with Mac OS 9. Running some older games like Unreal, Rune, Carmageddon 2 etc.

My first G4 (a 400 Mhz Sawtooth one) also came with this Rage card, and replaced it later with a Radeon 8500..... That was a heck of an upgrade!

Eh... sorry.... Just woke up from a strole down memory lane

MacsRgr8 said:

My first G4 (a 400 Mhz Sawtooth one) also came with this Rage card, and replaced it later with a Radeon 8500..... That was a heck of an upgrade!

Click to expand...

Drool... I wanna faster mac... <whimpers and sobs>

I just replaced the NVIDIA 5200 that came stock in my G5 (1.8x2) Powermac, with the Radeon 9800 (256 meg), it's a freaking monster....a little pricey though...it was just over 300$, the most I have ever spent on a video card. I'm used to spending 100$ and getting comparable performance for my PC's. I'm a die hard Unreal Tournament fan and just moved up to UT 2K4, which brings anything but the Athlon 64 systems to their knees. I have UT on order for the Mac, but am confident that the G5 system I have will handle it with no problem.

If you're not into die hard gaming, then I would buy as much card as you can afford without hurting too much. I typically look for whatever has just fallen off the price curve, or if you have a friend like me who is constantly upgrading, they are a great source of decent used hardware.

as far as i know the 9600's they are selling at owc are the pro versions... I recently got one, the ati displays drivers say its a pro and even on owc's site they sell it as the pro...

well im seeing it as a stop gap between my old machine and a g5... to be honest, putting a 9800 pro seemed like overkill for a g4.... especially mine...

i was advised this over the 9000 or 9200 128mb versions...

the 9600 will also be a cheap way for you to be compliant with tiger's core vision..

at the end of the day, how long are you looking to keep your tower anyway?

deadfrog said:

as far as i know the 9600's they are selling at owc are the pro versions... I recently got one, the ati displays drivers say its a pro and even on owc's site they sell it as the pro...

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Cool that is is a pro .. I personally want the 128MB of the XT for X plane .. I really wonder why ATI doesn't release a retail version of this .. they don't have anything between the 9200 PCI and the 9800 .. how is that a good situation ??

Mertzen said:

Cool that is is a pro .. I personally want the 128MB of the XT for X plane .. I really wonder why ATI doesn't release a retail version of this .. they don't have anything between the 9200 PCI and the 9800 .. how is that a good situation ??

Click to expand...

This is what happen's when you have become marginalized in the market. its like who cares. ever gone to Ati's or Nvidia web sites? its like who is Mac????

paul84043 said:

I'm a die hard Unreal Tournament fan and just moved up to UT 2K4, which brings anything but the Athlon 64 systems to their knees. I have UT on order for the Mac, but am confident that the G5 system I have will handle it with no problem.

Click to expand...

Well, just as an opposing viewpoint, I've played UT2k4 on a stock 1.6ghz iMac G5 and it wasn't BAD. Certainly not 'on its knees'. It felt like the lack of RAM (only 256MB ) was hurting it more than anything else. And that was with the demo version, which I hear runs slower than the retail. Anyways, just wanted to point out that even the lowly 5200Ultra/64mb can pull off some pretty gaming experiences.

Rob

Dont Hurt Me said:

This is what happen's when you have become marginalized in the market. its like who cares. ever gone to Ati's or Nvidia web sites? its like who is Mac????

Click to expand...

I know .. how hard can it be to make a nice box for the 9600 and sell it for like $150-$175 .. there must be thousands of DA-QS-MDD-G5 owners out there that want better graphics [ and motion / core image support ] but don't want to spend $300 on a 9800 ..

Au contraire

paul84043 said:

just moved up to UT 2K4, which brings anything but the Athlon 64 systems to their knees.

Click to expand...

Actually, I once saw someone run UT2K4 on an AthlonXP 1500 and integrated graphics. They had to turn EVERYTHING down but it ran smoothly.

Mertzen said:

I know .. how hard can it be to make a nice box for the 9600 and sell it for like $150-$175 .. there must be thousands of DA-QS-MDD-G5 owners out there that want better graphics [ and motion / core image support ] but don't want to spend $300 on a 9800 ..

Click to expand...

I totally agree.
At the moment there are only 2 cards available for the AGP 2x / 4x G4's:
The Radeons 9000 (128 MB VRAM) and 9800 (also 128 MB VRAM). IMHO the 9000 is an underpowered card (except maybe for the < 500 Mhz G4's), and the 9800 an overpowered card (except maybe for the > Dual 1 GHz G4's).

An in-between Radeon 9600 (preferably 128 MB VRAM) would be a gr8 choice, as it supports CoreImage and Motion like you said..