How much are x800's for Macs?

[RobHague]

I was ordering my new apple system from the official apple site, until i saw cwonline.co.uk have some really good prices. I want to order my system right now but ive decided to wait a few more days (the room its going in is being redecorated thanks to unforseen circumstances damn it)

Anyway i was just going with a 9600 that comes with the 2.3Ghz G5 and also 1Gb of RAM, 400gb HDD & the AirPort Express Card. I have a budget which im already blowing but it seemed the best spec to start off with - However cwonline have the X850XT as a BTO for £230! So i might drop the HDD and AirPort Express and grab the upgraded graphics card (hopefully allowing me to enjoy some unexpected Doom3 goodness on that snazzy 20" ACD).

How much are the X850/X800's to buy on their own? I'm having a hard time finding 'mac' versions of them for sale to compare.

EDIT:

Oh and ive heard that the 6800 GT would be a better bet because of its better OpenGL performance (which is true the ATi cards have always performed better with DX than OpenGL) but is there any truth to it? NVIDIA dont make the OSX drivers do they which strikes me as odd.

 

[Patch^]

Well on their own i.e. a retail verision (which you can only get is the x800) is around £400, i think give or take. Plus to buy it from apple i think its £230 or £250 as a bto.

(you can't get a retail copy of x850 for the mac btw)

 

[Lord Blackadder]

The inferior OpenGL performance of the X850 series is partially offset on the Mac by the fact that ATI's Mac drivers are better than nVidia's.

IIRC the performance difference between the two cards is smaller on the Mac than on the PC, and the X850XT only uses one PCI slot (the 6800's fan overhangs the slot next to the one the card is plugged into).

X850XT = better unless you need to run two 30" displays.