Hey all. I bought a new Powermac yesterday from the Apple Store here in town. I was planning on picking up the 128g nVidia card at CompUSA. Should I wait for the Radeon 9700? Advice?
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nvidia or radeon
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I think I found the answer
Found an old thread that addressed this issue. Any idea when teh Radeon 9700 will be available?
Found an old thread that addressed this issue. Any idea when teh Radeon 9700 will be available?
Wait for the new Radeon 9800.
9700 is sooo yesterday...
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030306/index.html
9700 is sooo yesterday...
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030306/index.html
Tuff call, sure the 9700 is the best available for the mac at this moment but is it really available? with new products from ati and nvidea coming soon this is a hard call. wonder what the Apple brains will do on this one. Either way both companys are moving ahead with their product lines which is more then we ever got out of motorola. Ati's history with mac and drivers has been suspect to say the least but i have no solid answer for you. I guess if i ordered a mac today it would be the geforce 4 tit since they have yet to ship the ati 9700 and who knows how long it will take? On the other hand if i could wait a month or so then it would be the ati 9700 but if they just announced the 9800 how long till apple uses it. Confused? I am.
Well...
ATI and Nvidia both make good products. The difference in performance between their high end stuff is probably negligible. As long as the Macintosh drivers aren't an issue, and video out options are the same, I'd go with the product that cost less.
ATI and Nvidia both make good products. The difference in performance between their high end stuff is probably negligible. As long as the Macintosh drivers aren't an issue, and video out options are the same, I'd go with the product that cost less.
On the PC side, the Radeon 9700 is a good 1.5-2.5x faster than the fastest Geforce 4, the Geforce 4 Ti 4600. If you want the fastest card you can get your hands on for mac, definitely go with the Radeon. In addition to having better hardware, the Radeon should have better/more efficient mac drivers than Nvidias mac drivers.
Re: nvidia or radeon
ok the nvidia Ti card has been availible for the mac for over a year now, its old, and not worth the money, if it was an extra $100 then its a good deal but the 9700 destoys the Ti card. for the time being enjoy the 9000, i have it and works great in the original 1.25.
Tyler
ok the nvidia Ti card has been availible for the mac for over a year now, its old, and not worth the money, if it was an extra $100 then its a good deal but the 9700 destoys the Ti card. for the time being enjoy the 9000, i have it and works great in the original 1.25.
Tyler
Re: Re: nvidia or radeon
Maybe this is the best advice because when better cards come and they will you can get one of those latter. In the mean time save a few bucks.
I cant imagine you needing more than a Radeon 9000 at this point. None of the games even fully use the GF4Ti, let alone the power of the 9700. Stick with the 9000 until the games start actually using that power.
Radeon
Always wait for Radeon, I used to buy nVidia and I was so pissed off, I decided to go with Radeon this time and was pleasantly surprised.
Always wait for Radeon, I used to buy nVidia and I was so pissed off, I decided to go with Radeon this time and was pleasantly surprised.
Hey, iJon
Actually, nVidia didn't come out with anything new that is "badass". Their new cards are just FX derivatives for the masses (cheaper/slower). The only thing that is sort of recent from them is the quadro FX, but, I have yet to see any plans of it coming to the mac (but if i'm wrong... that would be okay with me). Oh, and if you haven't noticed, the 5800 FX ultra is still hard to find in most places.... they really messed up with that one.
And, ATI also announced some new cards today, except they also announced a card that is faster than their current offering. Also, in April, the 9800 pro is supposed to have 256mb. (as a note, matrox has had their paraphnelia (spelling?) with 256mb forever now, and most higher level cards have such options anyway).
I personally would get a card from ATI, they have improved dramatically recently.
Tomasz
Actually, nVidia didn't come out with anything new that is "badass". Their new cards are just FX derivatives for the masses (cheaper/slower). The only thing that is sort of recent from them is the quadro FX, but, I have yet to see any plans of it coming to the mac (but if i'm wrong... that would be okay with me). Oh, and if you haven't noticed, the 5800 FX ultra is still hard to find in most places.... they really messed up with that one.
And, ATI also announced some new cards today, except they also announced a card that is faster than their current offering. Also, in April, the 9800 pro is supposed to have 256mb. (as a note, matrox has had their paraphnelia (spelling?) with 256mb forever now, and most higher level cards have such options anyway).
I personally would get a card from ATI, they have improved dramatically recently.
Tomasz
haha well they looked badass, still are in my opinion. on my pc i will continue to go with nvidia just because ati's drivers have been bad in the past and many peopl i work with and talk to have the same feelings from their expereinces. on the mac i could care less what card i have because i dont play games on my mac. i still feel sorry for mac users who have to pay 400 dollars for a geforce 4 ti 4600 when in the pc world you can get them for about 200. i think ati will slowly steal the mac market, just because they offer a wider variety of cards on the mac side. nvidia just has the 4600 you can buy, you cant buy the 4200,4400,4800,mx,fx or any of that stuff. at least ati allows people to manage their budget with their cards on the mac side.
iJon
Here is the geforce4 titanium replacement by nvidea. hopefully apple will use it. Maccentral reports that the fx chip uses the same architecture as the gfforce4 tit so it should be a easy upgrade sort of speak for apple. And it wont sound like a vacume cleaner as the 5800fx does nor use 2 slotts.
