Graphics Card Upgrade Powermac G5 2.0 DP

[GlynJones]

Hello all,
Really wanted to update my Powermac this year to a MacPro but as I'm getting married it's going to be an expensive year so I've decided to upgrade the G5 2.0 DP I already have.

At the moment the kit I have is pretty good in that I have 1.5 gig of memory and 250gig of hard drive space but I'm open to suggestions.

The G5 I have is the PCI version so I'm a bit limited as to what I can upgrade but the main area I'm looking at is with the graphics card. I had BTO the ATI 9650 256meg card but I'm looking for something better. I've just started to get into "World Of Warcraft" and would like the best graphics card that is value for money.

I'd really like the X800 but cannot find one anywhere in the UK and the price tag of £300 is a bit frightening. Most sites have this down for ‘in stock’ during February. Is a new card just about to be released? The other card is a ATI 9800 Pro which I can get for £200 and the advantage in that is that it is the G5 version and not the duel G4/G5 all in one version.

If I get the 9800 Pro would I notice a significant difference in "WOW"? Should I hold out for the X800 or stick with the 9650?

Any upgrade advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dreadnought]

I have the same with my G5 dual 1.8. The 9800 is a bit better then the 9650, but the X800 (or X850) is a lot better (then you can play with every setting to the highest). I haven't updated yet, because the prices of these cards are outrageous. However you can buy a pc version and do a firmware swop if you have a pc with AGP. You can find more details about this at strangedogs.com.

 

[GlynJones]

I can get a refurb 9800 Pro 128mg card for £35 that I could flash.

Would I notice any difference as the 9650 I have at present has 256mg of memory?

Has anyone tried flashing a PC card to Mac? If so, how well did it go?

Thanks.

 

[Sdashiki]

I can get a refurb 9800 Pro 128mg card for £35 that I could flash.

Would I notice any difference as the 9650 I have at present has 256mg of memory?

i looked into getting a 9650 256MB to change out my 9800Pro 128MB

the benchmarks just didnt work for me. Even with 256 the 9600 series is "crippled" compared to the 128. Sure, id love the 9800 256MB version, but those are even harder to come by.

The 9650 even at 256MB is not as good a card as it appears to be.

 

[Cromulent]

The 9600 series cards were the midrange cards.
The 9800 series cards were the high end cards of that series.
The X800 cards were the high end of the generation above the 9x00 series.

Therefore going from a 9800 to a 9650 is going to result in a performance drop, even if you do take into account the extra video RAM.

On the other hand X800 will be significantly faster than the other two cards as it is the newer generation of cards.

 

[GlynJones]

Quite interested in doing the PC to Mac flash but I am a bit wary about doing it.

Like I said I could get a cheap 9800 Pro 128k but looking at strangedogs it looks like some cards you have to do some soldering. The card I'm looking at is one of the simple ones (hopefully) so I might give it a try with a refurb card.

Just keen to see if anyone on here has done it and how easy was it.