Video cards for G4 350

Jump to First Reply
master chiefmaster chief
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
we're planning to upgrade our 50+ macs at work to Panther in the next 4-6 months and it was recommended that their video cards should be at least 32MB. We have about 15 machines that don't make the cut. 13 are G4 450's with 4X AGP and two are G4 350 with 2X AGP. I am currently looking at the ATI cards and from what I can tell the ATI radeon 8500 4X AGP will work for the 450s. I can't seem to find anything for the two 350s. The ATI radeon 7500 looks to be a 1X AGP card. Is that correct? Can a 1X card run in a 2X slot? probably not vice versa though (2X card in a 1X slot)



Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. What about the Nvidia cards? would any of those fit the bill?



Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    mr. thermistormr. thermistor Posts: 20member
    A 1x card should be able to run in a 2x slot.

    A 2x card should be able to run in a 1x slot.



    10.3 would drag on those machines.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 2 of 7
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    A few clarifications first:



    There are no Macs that have 1x AGP slots.

    All 350, 400, 450 and 500 MHz PowerMac G4s use 2x AGP slots.

    All 466, 533, and higher MHz PowerMac G4s use 4x AGP slots.

    PowerMac G5s use 8x AGP slots.



    The Radeon 7500 originally shipped with the 800 MHz PowerMac G4, which has 4x AGP. That card will work in the PowerMacs with 2x AGP slots as well.



    I think the Radeon 8500 would be way overkill for general office work and such. It's a gaming card, with a high price. Although it should work in all PowerMac G4s.



    A good option is the old, standard Radeon AGP. They don't sell them anymore, but if you can find a place to get a bunch of 'em, they support Quartz Extreme and will work in all the PowerMac G4s your place of work has. Unfortunately you haven't actually said what type of work these G4s will be doing, so I don't know if the Radeon is suitable. But it should increase performance by quite a bit in Panther.



    And Panther will NOT drag on those machines, not if you get them QE-compatible video cards that is. I have a dual 450 with a Rage 128 and it's fast enough even on this machine, except for graphical effects (which will improve once my AGP Radeon arrives).
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 3 of 7
    master chiefmaster chief Posts: 25member
    Thanks for clearing that up... We are a magazine publisher but these particular machines are not going to be used for any heavy-duty design work. They are set up for our editors to do their story lay-outs in Quark. They are also using Photoshop a little for converting from RGB and JPEG to press-ready files. We are really looking for something that will run Panther since all the other Macs in our office are going to panther soon.



    Thanks again!
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 4 of 7
    dviantdviant Posts: 483member
    I have a G4/450 Sawtooth with a 32mb Mac Edition Radeon (recently purchased off ebay for $35). Panther runs real good on it. I highly recommend Panther for your machines. Only time it feels slow is when I occasionaly use demanding programs like Photoshop.



    Just make sure you don't buy those 32mb GF4MX OEM cards OWC has. They worked great with 10.2 but are currently not playing nice with Sawtooths + 10.3
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 5 of 7
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    I'd get the NVidia GeForce 4 32MB AGP Graphics card from macsales.com, It's only $69, which is much cheaper than the Radeon 7000( Which is BTW PCI, which you don't want) This is fast enought for QE, and should be a good upgrade. Anyone's comments on this?







    Also, if your upgrading to Panther, make sure you have alot of ram in your machine, I assume you already do because your a magizen publisher
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 6 of 7
    master chiefmaster chief Posts: 25member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Altivec_2.0

    I'd get the NVidia GeForce 4 32MB AGP Graphics card from macsales.com, It's only $69, which is much cheaper than the Radeon 7000( Which is BTW PCI, which you don't want) This is fast enought for QE, and should be a good upgrade. Anyone's comments on this?







    Also, if your upgrading to Panther, make sure you have alot of ram in your machine, I assume you already do because your a magizen publisher



    Yeah we are upgrading the RAM in some of the older machines. I didn't even consider the 7000 precisely because it was PCI - I am looking at the 7500.



    Anyone have any thoughts on Nvidia? I had always heard that ATI cards were usually better - but I guess it depends on the particular card. I am sure some NVidias are better than their ATI counterparts...
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 7 of 7
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    In general I'd consider the GeForce 2MX to be equal to or slightly worse than the Radeon Mac Edition. Then there's the Radeon 7500, and slightly above the 7500 is the GeForce 4MX. Above that is the Radeon 9000 and GeForce FX5200 (which isn't much better than the 4MX), then the Radeon 8500, the Radeon 9600, and the GeForce 4 Titanium. Top of the heap is the Radeon 9800.



    The main advantage to the Radeon 7500 over the Radeon, outside of a small gain in speed, is dual monitor support. The Radeon Mac Edition doesn't support dual monitors, if that's a concern. Also, the Radeon 7500 wasn't available in a retail version, so it's not very common. Combined with the fact that it's one of the best graphics cards that will fit properly in a PowerMac G4 Cube, it might be tough to find one for a reasonable price. It's only worth about $60 or $70 considering the price of other video cards, but I've seen them sell for well over $100, even as high as $200 on eBay. The Radeon Mac Edition might be a better choice. It's cheap and it works fine with Quartz Extreme, and there aren't any problems when used in Sawtooths like there are with the GeForce 2MX and 4MX.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
Sign In or Register to comment.