Upgrade G5 video card?

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cardwellm

Guest
What options do I have to upgrade the video card in my G5? It currently has a GeForce FX 5200. My main interest is getting 256 MB of video memory. I know about the Radeon 9800 but do not want to spend that much money (nearly $400). Please tell me there are other options. Thanks!
 
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cardwellm said:
What options do I have to upgrade the video card in my G5? It currently has a GeForce FX 5200. My main interest is getting 256 MB of video memory. I know about the Radeon 9800 but do not want to spend that much money (nearly $400). Please tell me there are other options. Thanks!

if you want 256 VRAM you have to shell out for radeon 9800.
you will never get good graphics card for cheap.
 
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C

cardwellm

Guest
MAC-simus said:
if you want 256 VRAM you have to shell out for radeon 9800.
you will never get good graphics card for cheap.

Well, if this were a PC I could get a 9600XT with 256MB for under $200. Thats the type of thing I'm looking for. I have a specific need for the memory, this isn't for running games.
 
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C

cabs

Guest
Hi all

I have upgraded my PC (gaming machine) with a new GForce 6800 Ultra and I have a spare ATI Radeon 9800XT. I want to put this in my G5 (dual 2gb) but it needs a power connecter from the psu. This is easy on the PC as the innards are ugly and messy as sin. But the Mac g5 is so tidy inside there's no power cables trailing anywhere. How do I get the 9800xt running? Do I have to get a mac specific one? If so then.. d'oh!

Regards

Cabs
 
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C

cabs

Guest
MAC-simus said:
why dont you guys check on ati's website
www.ati.com


Did that thnx.. got it powered but I dont get a picture on the mac itself... just stays grey screen...

out of interest is there a difference between a standard 9800xt and a mac specific 9800 card? I tried looking on ati website but there's no drivers for a 9800xt card for panther (there's a 9800pro for panther 10.3.3 but I am runnign 10.3.5 and have an xt card).

There's just nothing on screen when it boots.. anybody help?

Thanks in advance

Cabs
 
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C

cabs

Guest
Right i have found that I need to flash the bios of the card. No problem only you can't flash it until the mac card is plugged in. So how can I flash it if I can't see anything on screen.

Chicken and the Egg

So am still stuck ":)
 
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B

BeanyBean

Guest
cabs said:
Right i have found that I need to flash the bios of the card. No problem only you can't flash it until the mac card is plugged in. So how can I flash it if I can't see anything on screen.

Chicken and the Egg

So am still stuck ":)

Ok what you gotta do is plug in a PCI Mac sound card into one of your pci slots in the G5 at the same time as you have the 9800XT in your agp slot. I know that from past experiences in flashing video cards, and I also know that your G5 can use a pci video card, because I have used one in mine. I used a Radeon Mac Edition PCI (no longer sold -- its equvilent to a pc Radeon 7200), BUT a Radeon 7000 PCI Mac Edition should work fine as well. So plug the 2 cards in at once, and you can flash the 9800xt. Ok, now where I am stuck is at getting the right flashing software. What are you using??@!? I can't find anything anywhere to flash a pc radeon 9800xt to a mac 9800XT. Any help you can give would be great.

Thanks

Dan
 

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