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Most powerful Native Graphics card for PowerMac G5 quad?

R

RedCroissant

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Original poster
Aug 13, 2011
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I know that when the G5 was released, the more expensive upgrade option for the GPU was the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, but is that the best option for the PowerMac G5 quad or are there better ones out there that work natively without having to be flashed?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!
 
RedCroissant said:
I know that when the G5 was released, the more expensive upgrade option for the GPU was the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, but is that the best option for the PowerMac G5 quad or are there better ones out there that work natively without having to be flashed?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!
Click to expand...

the FX4500 and the GTX7800 512MB are the fastest cards available. GTX 7800's are getting hard to find.
 
alexrmc92 said:
the FX4500 and the GTX7800 512MB are the fastest cards available. GTX 7800's are getting hard to find.
Click to expand...

G51989 said:
Not only are they hard to find, they are rather expensive.

If you can get by with 256mb VRAM, I believe most PC versions of the card can be flashed to work in a G5.
Click to expand...

Do either of you know which of the FX4500/GTX7800 are the PM G5 compatible models? I've done a search on eBay and see quite a few and as far as I could tell, none of them stated specifically that they were pulled from/compatible with the PMG5.
 
G51989 said:
Not only are they hard to find, they are rather expensive.

If you can get by with 256mb VRAM, I believe most PC versions of the card can be flashed to work in a G5.
Click to expand...

Mine has 512MB and extra pretty colors (aritfacts).
 
RedCroissant said:
Do either of you know which of the FX4500/GTX7800 are the PM G5 compatible models? I've done a search on eBay and see quite a few and as far as I could tell, none of them stated specifically that they were pulled from/compatible with the PMG5.
Click to expand...

As far as i know the PMG5 versions are impossible to find. I would get a PC version and flash the bios.
 
alexrmc92 said:
the FX4500 and the GTX7800 512MB are the fastest cards available. GTX 7800's are getting hard to find.
Click to expand...

Those are the ones. And don't listen to rabidz7 if he tells you anything newer works.

As others have said, they are getting *REALLY* expensive in the official-Apple versions. If you can find a PC-flashed-to-Mac you'll be in better shape, but even those aren't cheap.
 
alexrmc92 said:
As far as i know the PMG5 versions are impossible to find. I would get a PC version and flash the bios.
Click to expand...

Anonymous Freak said:
Those are the ones. And don't listen to rabidz7 if he tells you anything newer works.

As others have said, they are getting *REALLY* expensive in the official-Apple versions. If you can find a PC-flashed-to-Mac you'll be in better shape, but even those aren't cheap.
Click to expand...

Well that's too bad that they're that hard to find and expensive. I'm already on a super budget as it is and was hoping that this older hardware would be less expensive than what you're both stating.

I also don't have a Windows or Linux-based computer to be bale to flash a card which makes it even more unlikely that I would be able to get one soon as it is.

I really don't have much reason to upgrade anyway; I just wanted to. I'm enjoying the PPC world even more now than I did earlier thanks to the power/speed boost of my PM, so I just wanted to keep upgrading until I made it as powerful and expandable as possible.

That's why I wish there was a dedicated PM G5 quad page that had a giant list of apps/hardware/accessory configurations and links to whatever sites...etc. That would be awesome.

Anyway, thanks for the input and I guess I'll just have to keep looking every once in a while for a price drop.
 
I think the ATI X1900 is better than QFX4500 if you are gaming or for consumer applications. If you are using your quad as a work station for anything like CAD, then the QFX would put you in a better position.

Look for the openmark results threads here and you will see what I mean.
 
Dual PowerMac G5

I have a dual 2.7 G5 with a ATI Radeon 9650 graphics card. It's got 256 mb vram. Is there anything better than this video card?
 
just out of curiosity: What is the most demanding game you can play on these Powermacs? Considering you could take newer PC card and flash it. I guess Doom 3 on hi settings?

I always wondered how far you could push the last Apple PPC. I know some people who edit 720P videos but I wonder if multicam 1080P would be possible (while previewing natively) - maybe with SSD as scratch disk?
 
@ RedCroissant: I know there is a possibility of flashing ATI cards with only having one Mac at hand (not possible with NVIDIA). But I am not sure whether that goes for the PCIe cards and G5s. If it worked, the farthest you could get for PCIe ATI cards is the X1900 / X1950.
But this is only a vage hint of mine, wait for the others to talk about that, I am not really into flashing.

Here is the advice for an AGP ATI 9800 (for the Dual 2,7GHz), http://www.cubeowner.com/forums/index.php?showforum=28
Also see this, if you have a PC (you'll find the ROMs there, too) http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ati-flash
 
Cox Orange said:
@ RedCroissant: I know there is a possibility of flashing ATI cards with only having one Mac at hand (not possible with NVIDIA). But I am not sure whether that goes for the PCIe cards and G5s. If it worked, the farthest you could get for PCIe ATI cards is the X1900 / X1950.
But this is only a vage hint of mine, wait for the others to talk about that, I am not really into flashing.

Here is the advice for an AGP ATI 9800 (for the Dual 2,7GHz), http://www.cubeowner.com/forums/index.php?showforum=28
Also see this, if you have a PC (you'll find the ROMs there, too) http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ati-flash
Click to expand...

Thanks for this but the only other machines i have are PPC Macs and my wife's iMac. Plus, I don't want to have to deal with flashing the card if I don't have to. The display I have now works fine(with the rare instance of the brightness level adjusting itself to the highest setting), but I was just hoping to get something else that would allow me to use: different displays, multiple displays, or even a good one that would make it more feasible for me to use a larger HDTV.

OpTic Jayex said:
I found this on eBay. Is this it? I already have 256 mb of vram. What's the difference between this one and my current one?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-...378?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item33850f4082
Click to expand...

I don't know if that would work or not but it looks like the PC version which I would have to flash.

OpTic Jayex said:
I found this too. would this work?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Power...848?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3384d3d380
Click to expand...

This would not work since it's an AGP card ad not the PCI-e version that the PMG5 quad requires.
 
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