8x Radeon 9800 Pro

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Does anybody know when (if ever) dealers will be able to offer an AGP 8x version of the Radeon 9800 Pro card in G5 systems? I know the retail version is only AGP 4x/2x so I expect it to be significantly slower for some operations.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Tidris,



    I assume that you know that the G5-BTO 9800 is AGP pro/8x, and that what you are asking is when will you be able to buy THAT card.



    I don't know when, but that brings up a different question:



    Why?



    The only Mac that supports AGP pro/8X is the G5. It is the ONLY Mac that would significantly benefit from the heftier AGP bus.



    Even the MDD Macs are only AGP 4X. Putting the 9800/G5 model in it won't do much (if anything) to help out, will it? Even if the GPU can render more info, the pipeline is only 4X.



    Not trying to poop on your idea/question, just want to know what I'm missing.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jccbin

    I assume that you know that the G5-BTO 9800 is AGP pro/8x, and that what you are asking is when will you be able to buy THAT card.



    Yes, buy the 8x card (or a G5 configured with the 8x card) from a dealer instead of the Apple store. Last time I checked dealers weren't offering a G5 configured with the 8x card.



    Quote:

    I don't know when, but that brings up a different question:



    Why?




    It's because the Apple store charges me sales taxes while out of state dealers would not. Because of that I would consider moving my existing G5 order from the Apple store to an out of state dealer if they could offer the 8x Radeon card in the near future.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    reactorreactor Posts: 27member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidris

    Last time I checked dealers weren't offering a G5 configured with the 8x card.



    Perhaps dealers don't advert the G5 with a 9800 Pro, they sure will sell them. Just as BTO. I didn't order my G5 at the Apple Store, but it's still coming with the 9800 Pro.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidris

    .....I would consider moving my existing G5 order from the Apple store to an out of state dealer if they could offer the 8x Radeon card in the near future.



    This could be a problem, as most companies don't take overseas orders, and if they do, mind the trouble you're in should the G5 behave oddly.

    Just buy somewhere else than from the Apple Store, saves you large amounts of money on RAM as well
  • Reply 4 of 16
    zapchudzapchud Posts: 844member
    Don't worry, the difference between using 8x and 4x AGP is nowhere near as significant as one could logically imagine. The difference is usually not more than a couple of percents, so you can be quite confortable with the purchase of a retail 9800 card.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by reactor

    Perhaps dealers don't advert the G5 with a 9800 Pro, they sure will sell them. Just as BTO. I didn't order my G5 at the Apple Store, but it's still coming with the 9800 Pro.



    That is a surprise. I tried to place a G5 order at a couple of non-Apple internet dealers but there didn't seem to be a way of specifying the 9800 Pro card option.



    Quote:

    This could be a problem, as most companies don't take overseas orders, and if they do, mind the trouble you're in should the G5 behave oddly.





    I wasn't thinking about ordering from another country, just from another U.S.A. state. A dealer in another state doesn't have to collect sales taxes for my state. I would expect the local Apple store to honor the Apple warranty regardless of where I bought the machine.
  • Reply 6 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Zapchud

    Don't worry, the difference between using 8x and 4x AGP is nowhere near as significant as one could logically imagine.



    I would expect that having twice the data transfer rate will make a significant difference in some operations.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by reactor

    Perhaps dealers don't advert the G5 with a 9800 Pro, they sure will sell them. Just as BTO. I didn't order my G5 at the Apple Store, but it's still coming with the 9800 Pro.





    Forgot to ask, which dealer did you buy it from?
  • Reply 8 of 16
    zapchudzapchud Posts: 844member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidris

    I would expect that having twice the data transfer rate will make a significant difference in some operations.



    Yup, of course, but when it is not the bottleneck at 4x, having support for 8x will result in little gain



    http://www.extremetech.com/print_art...a=32560,00.asp



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Extremetech

    Summary: Overall, AGP 8X does nothing to improve the performance of the NV28 over the NV25 in our testing, irrespective of test resolution. We could present you all the usual suspects in terms of our data graphs, but what you'd see is equal-sized bars in just about every graph.



  • Reply 9 of 16
    reactorreactor Posts: 27member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidris

    Forgot to ask, which dealer did you buy it from?



    I got it from mail-a-mac in the Netherlands.

    It's not an option on their website, but I sent them a tender application with the machine specs (9800Pro, 2.5Gb ram, no modem).

    I got a reply the other day with a price-tag added.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Zapchud

    Yup, of course, but when it is not the bottleneck at 4x, having support for 8x will result in little gain



    http://www.extremetech.com/print_art...a=32560,00.asp




    I understand the bottleneck concept, but the article concludes by saying:



    " Based on our initial testing, AGP 8X on today's architectures and with current applications doesn't appear to deliver any appreciable performance improvement for nVidia boards. The Radeon 9700's potential benefit from AGP 8X is still something of a question mark."



    The architecture they are refering to is a single 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 motherboard with a 533 MHz bus which apparently was state of the art when the test was done last year. I expect the results would be quite different on a dual 2 GHz G5 with dual 1 GHz buses.
  • Reply 11 of 16
    markivmarkiv Posts: 180member
    You can buy Radeon 9800 pro from http://www.ati.com, the direct link would be https://apps.ati.com/naorder/index.asp. I hope this would help some one
  • Reply 12 of 16
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    I didn't buy my dual G5 with the ATI 9800 pro. The 9600 pro is quite sufficiant with todays games. Doom 3 will be a harder task and even the power of a 9800 pro won't be enough.



    At the end of the year, ATI will have presented his new core, the RV 400 who will have an estimate number of 200 millions of transistors. You can bet that this video card will be very powerfull. I will upgrade my G5 later, for a price that will be not so much different from the upgrade price that Apple ask for the 9800 pro.



    I expect that the 9600 pro of My G5 could be used in my G4 533 to replace the old geforce 2 mx.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Powerdoc

    I expect that the 9600 pro of My G5 could be used in my G4 533 to replace the old geforce 2 mx.



    Are you sure of that? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the voltage used in AGP 8x pro cards isn't compatible with slower AGP buses, or something to that effect.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    tidristidris Posts: 214member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Tidris

    Are you sure of that? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the voltage used in AGP 8x pro cards isn't compatible with slower AGP buses, or something to that effect.



    Here is a web site on that subject.



    http://www.ertyu.org/~steven_nikkel/...atibility.html



    It specifically says near the end: "An AGP Pro card will not work in an AGP slot."
  • Reply 15 of 16
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Tidris,



    Most Apple-Authorized resellers CAN get the BTO options you want.



    I deal with a reseller called Solutions Plus, out of western New York State. I ordered my BTO G5 from them.



    web site is http://www.solutionspluswny.com/index.php



    and the fellow in charge is Garret (one t) Cleversley.



    The sales email is [email protected]



    They handle Apple Loans, and all the usual stuff as well.



    Also, If you'll contact me off-board (johncorbin at macdotcom), there may be pricing options (That goes for anyone, really.)



    Hope to help!
  • Reply 16 of 16
    a2daja2daj Posts: 30member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Powerdoc





    I expect that the 9600 pro of My G5 could be used in my G4 533 to replace the old geforce 2 mx.




    An ATI employee mentioned that the OEM 9600 will not work in older machines because it's set for 8xAGP only. If it could be used in older machines, then they would probably be selling retail 9600s right now.
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