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@@@can powermac g5 run 2 video cards@@@

M

minkis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 30, 2004
125
0
Nashville, TN
i just got the newest version of the single 1.8 powermac G5 and i noticed that it has three video card slots and i was wondering if you can have more than on card in there at a time and possibly do like what i see some pcs doing where you can run two video cards at a time. i am somewhat of a newbe to the powermac so i would greatly appreciate it if you could help me out. thanks
 
Duff-Man says...those 3 empty slots are not video card slots per se - they are PCI slots, which can accommodate PCI video cards as well as other PCI cards.

The video card you have should support 2 monitors without having to install another card although you may need an adapter to convert either the DVI or the ADC (depends on what you are using) connection to work with whatever monitor you want to connect.....oh yeah!
 
Those are indeed just regular PCI slots [ where as the video card uses an AGP slot ]

You can use either a ATI PCI 7000 [ which is really old ] or the new ATI PCI 9200 ..

Those will allow you to attach additional monitors to the the 2 you can already connect ..
 
ok thats one question down but are you able to use something like 2 nvidia 6800(example) and be able to use both of them simulaniously and get double the performance. thanks
 
minkis said:
ok thats one question down but are you able to use something like 2 nvidia 6800(example) and be able to use both of them simulaniously and get double the performance. thanks
Click to expand...
Duff-Man says....if you want, you can put 3 PCI video cards in and connect monitors to them and use them all....just remember though - these are *PCI* slots - NOT AGP slots so the choice of cards you put in there is limited PCI video cards, which are typically deemed as "low end" these days......oh yeah!
 
Wouldn't it be a bit of a CPU hog tho have zillions of screens attached?

Reminds me of the seen in the Matrix where there looking at the code!!
 
combatcolin said:
Wouldn't it be a bit of a CPU hog tho have zillions of screens attached?

Reminds me of the seen in the Matrix where there looking at the code!!
Click to expand...

I would say that 1 ATI 9200 is probably stretching it for now .. that is why the 7000 doesn't officially support Quartz Extreme since the PCI bus can't pump enough data through .. but they seem to have fixed that for the 9200 ..
 
Hes talking about Nvidia's SLI technology which works like the old 3DfX tech where each card would render half the screen at once. But, no, your Powermac cannot do that, and very very few PCs can. In order to use SLI, you need two PCI Express slots. Currently, the Powermac does not even have one PCI Express slot, instead it uses an 8x AGP slot (which 99% of PCs do, too).
 
crazzyeddie said:
Hes talking about Nvidia's SLI technology which works like the old 3DfX tech where each card would render half the screen at once. But, no, your Powermac cannot do that, and very very few PCs can. In order to use SLI, you need two PCI Express slots. Currently, the Powermac does not even have one PCI Express slot, instead it uses an 8x AGP slot (which 99% of PCs do, too).
Click to expand...

if he found two sli voodoo 2 cards it would work but it would be slower than a radeon 7000
 
CrackedButter said:
If pro's know what they want.

Why doesn't Apple offer them the choice of another mainboard that incorporates a second AGP slot, why must they have one?
Click to expand...


I don't think there ever was a board [ even in the PC world ] that has 2 AGP slots ..
 
Mertzen said:
I don't think there ever was a board [ even in the PC world ] that has 2 AGP slots ..
Click to expand...

I've never heard of it if it ever existed, I would be suprised if so. :)
 
Why have two AGP slots if you van have a 6800 to which you can connect two 30" screens? It would be cool to have four 30" on one G5, but what's the point? Furthermore that would take the space of all your pci slots, you couldn't put another card in. There wil however come more pci X videocards on the market. AGP is getting a little bit old, PCI X will probably replace AGP.
 
There is a dual PCI-Express x16 motherboard for AMD Athlon 64 Processors that can support Dual NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT, Dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, and Dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Graphics Cards.

Although this only works with NVIDIA cards not ATI cards.
 
CrackedButter said:
Now why is that? How come nobody has done this? The advantages are clear.
Click to expand...

Because PCI-Express is taking over. The ATI RADEON X800 XT is the last AGP high-end card from ATI. The ATI RADEON X850 XT PE is PCIe only.
 
crazzyeddie, you basically gave me the anwser i was looking for and i mostly just wanted it for the speed over the amount of screens but it would be cool if the made something equivalent to those rare pc's, i know i would be one of the first to buy it. but i guess i'll just save up all my money and get a nvidia 6800 ultra and still be really fast. thanks
 
Is it really, plain ole AGP slot, or is it a modified slot, that comes with the G5? I was trying to take an AGP card from a G4 and slap it on the G5, and anyway I sliced and diced it, they didn't line up. I thought maybe the the G5s came with PCI-X or something! I didn't find a single, good-old fashion AGP slot.

I think the whole SLI thing, by nVidia (on nForce 4MoBos) is gonna rock. It would be some serious juice, having to 6800Ultra drawing your Half-Life2 or Doom3.
 
mines just regluar pci not a pci-x but i don't want to chop up my card b/c i've still got about 600 dollars to go on the nvidia 6800
 
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