Mac Cinema Display 20" to a G4 tower

Have an older G4, would like to hook up my 20" cinema display. says needs a NVIDIA or an ATI Radeon 7500 or higher. googling nvidia just got me confused, but there are ATI Radeon 7500 available out there.

What information do I need to bring to the table in order to find out which PCI card will work with my older G4?

Can't use the G5 the cinema display came with, dead power supply. stupid big money to fix that.

BluesForDan said:

Have an older G4, would like to hook up my 20" cinema display. says needs a NVIDIA or an ATI Radeon 7500 or higher. googling nvidia just got me confused, but there are ATI Radeon 7500 available out there.

What information do I need to bring to the table in order to find out which PCI card will work with my older G4?

Can't use the G5 the cinema display came with, dead power supply. stupid big money to fix that.

Click to expand...

Two questions:

1. There were two 20" Cinema Displays...one with the plastic housing & one with the aluminum housing...which one do you have?

2. It's sort of unusual that a monitor has a minimum video card requirement (other than the 30" Apple monitor). I'm curious...can you post a link mentioning the video card requirement for the monitor?

Thanks,

- Nick

Sounds like the display is the silver central stand model and to use that with a G4 suggest getting an ATI Radeon 9000 Mac Pro, or even better will be a 9600 Mac/PC model. Mac graphic cards are much dearer than PC versions, and other than the 9600 Mac/PC, PC cards will not work with the Mac.

The cards mentioned carry both ADC and DVI ports.

pigoo3 said:

Two questions:

1. There were two 20" Cinema Displays...one with the plastic housing & one with the aluminum housing...which one do you have?

2. It's sort of unusual that a monitor has a minimum video card requirement (other than the 30" Apple monitor). I'm curious...can you post a link mentioning the video card requirement for the monitor?

Thanks,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Hi Nick,

It is the aluminum housing. I'll look for the minimum video card requirement, this was on the outside of the original shipping box.

all I could find was a .pdf and it repeats what I posted.

harryb2448 said:

Sounds like the display is the silver central stand model and to use that with a G4 suggest getting an ATI Radeon 9000 Mac Pro, or even better will be a 9600 Mac/PC model. Mac graphic cards are much dearer than PC versions, and other than the 9600 Mac/PC, PC cards will not work with the Mac.

The cards mentioned carry both ADC and DVI ports.

Click to expand...

I'm leery of the 9600, everybody mentions the G5 in their ebay ads, I think the 9000 is the way to go.

thanks for the help, everybody.

BluesForDan said:

Hi Nick,

It is the aluminum housing. I'll look for the minimum video card requirement, this was on the outside of the original shipping box.

Click to expand...

What I'm really wondering is if you REALLY need a minimum of a Radeon 7500...or if that was the first video card Apple used in their computers that had the correct port(s) for the 20" Aluminum Apple cinema display.

Usually monitors are pretty "generic"...and will work with any computer/video card as long as you have the correct port...or video adapter.

Have you actually tried using this 20" Apple display with your G4...and if so did it work...or were you not able to try it because of a video port/connectivity issue?

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

...or were you not able to try it because of a video port/connectivity issue?

- Nick

Click to expand...

yep, no DVI port, only ADC

BluesForDan said:

yep, no DVI port, only ADC

Click to expand...

That's kind of what I was thinking. The Radeon 7500 might have been the first or oldest video card that Apple supplied in their computers that had a DVI port...and that's probably why there's the requirement for the Radeon 7500 card.

It's not that the card itself is special in any way...it simply has a DVI port. Thus any video card with a DVI port...or if you can get a ADC to DVI video adapter (not very common or cheap)...then you could simply use the video card currently in your G4.

HTH,

- Nick

p.s. Actually...here's an ADC to DVI adapter from Amazon for $28.49...not too bad.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000067RLH/?tag=macforums0e4-20

The problem being Nick he will need the other way about DVI/ADC and Apple did sell them for $199.00! They connect to mains power. Here is a supplier much cheaper:-

http://www.svideo.com/dvi2adc.html

harryb2448 said:

The problem being Nick he will need the other way about DVI/ADC and Apple did sell them for $199.00! They connect to mains power. Here is a supplier much cheaper:-

Apple DVI to ADC

Click to expand...

Harry,

You're right...the adapter you linked is what's needed if someone has one of the older "plastic" Apple monitors with the single cable with the "funky" ADC connector (power & video cable). The OP has one of the newer Aluminum 20" Apple displays that has the video cable with a DVI connector.

If I understand correctly...the OP's G4 has a video card with an ADC port...and the monitor has a DVI cable...that's why I suggested this ADC to DVI adapter:

- Nick

G5 dvi connection problem, I need a connector just like this one but the other way around, can any one help.
I want to connect my 22" cinema display (plastic)from my old G4 to my G5 dvi1 port

This is the closest pictuer so far,

"well done Captain"
"why thank you Mr Spock"