Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iModFrenzy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 15, 2015
911
920
Kamino
I was looking around and saw a card called a Radeon X800XT Mac Edition, it is the only card that actually uses GDDR3 ram(or at least the only card I have seen). My question is, is it a good card? It seems like these cards are a bit expensive.
 
As Intell says, they are one of the best.

In the benchmark thread we've had going on here, these actually bench higher than the high-end FX4500 option for PCIe G5s.
 
They are outstanding for pretty much any PPC Mac. Two concerns are power and heat. These cards require an additional connection to the power supply so a marginal power supply may struggle to provide power. Also, these suckers put out a lot of heat, so you may need to take special measures to dissipate the heat so you can avoid crashes and freezes.
 
They are outstanding for pretty much any PPC Mac. Two concerns are power and heat. These cards require an additional connection to the power supply so a marginal power supply may struggle to provide power. Also, these suckers put out a lot of heat, so you may need to take special measures to dissipate the heat so you can avoid crashes and freezes.

Just as a note, they are the best cards in any PPC Mac where they will work, but there are a lot of what-ifs and caveats to that statement

1. Of course, nothing before the Sawtooth G4 even has AGP, so they're off limits for that.

2. The X800 won't work in a 2x AGP slot, so the Sawtooth, Gigabit Ethernet, and Cube(assuming you could shoehorn one in) are off limits

3. They are iffy in a lot of 4x G4s-Erik and I both have had serious issues getting these cards(or at least the flashed versions) to work in Quicksilvers. I've never been successful in getting one to work in a Digital Audio either.

4. They are generally reliable in MDDs, although they do need to be taped

5. They are great and plug-and-play in G5s up through the late '05s

6. They are off limits in the late '05 G5, since those use PCIe. It's a shame, too, as this card benches better than high end FX4500 that was BTO in the '05 G5s.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.