Radeon 9800 & Sawtooth?

mandricard

To the board geniuses:



If anyone can help me out with my conundrum, it would be much appreciated:



Background: I have a Sawtooth G4 that I upgraded to a Dual 1Ghz G4 with a Powerlogix card. I have a Radeon 8500 in it now. (the machine is old, but it is rock-solid, and I want to get a bit more time out of it yet... perhaps until the Intel switch).



My questions are



1) Will a 9800 even work in it? (i.e. will my older AGP slot be even compatible?)



I THINK it is a 2X slot, which I think the 9800 which says "2x or 4x compatible" is ok with, but I am not sure.... anyone know for certain?)



and



2) Will a 9800 even be a help?



i.e. is the only real difference going to be felt if I can saturate the AGP bus (which, obviously, I won't be able to do, as the 9800 can take a much bigger bus than I have). Or, to use the obligatory car metaphor: I do not want to put a Ferrari transmission on a Honda Civic.... It would just do no good.



It does not seem wise to me to even try and get this card if it is not going to give me a boost. The move to the Radeon was an incredible change from the Rage Pro that came with the machine.



Lastly, would it be wiser to get a different card? If so, which one? (and/or

Should I get a PCI card instead, and leave the 8500 in there for a second monitor?)



Thanks in advance!



Hoping to get this aging beast to Spring me through the intel switch Eternally,



Mandricard

AppleOutsider

chris v

It should work. Looks like there's an AGP 8x card for the G5 and a 2/4X for the G4.



http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%2...ies/100435050/



You could give them a call to confirm.

mandricard

Thanks!



I guess my question is not only "will it work?" but also "is it worth it?"



-Mandricard

murk

I'm not certain, but I think I once read that the Sawtooth power supply would have to be upgraded.

mandricard

I read, I think at xlr8yourmac that it was not a problem in terms of power... but I am more concerned about the cost/benefit issue, esp. with the older machine & its 2x AGP bus.



Mandricard

AppleOutsider

maaaaark

I had a 9800 Pro working in a 466 G4 Sawtooth ( the A/V one ). So... there is your answer?



I'm contemplating swapping out my 128MB 9800 Pro for my 256 9650. Not sure what will be better (we're talking WoW here)

dave marsh

I upgraded my old Sawtooth with a Sonnet 1GHz accelerator, Pioneer DVR-108, 896MB RAM, a Seagate 120GB HD, and an ATI 9800 Pro (128MB) video card, and it all worked fine with the standard power supply. Of course, my PCI slots were all empty.



I had previously upgraded the standard Rage card to an ATI 8500 (64MB) video card before the 9800 upgrade, and to be fair, I saw NO difference in video performance after moving to the 9800.



I just replaced this Mac with a new G5 Tower and moved the 9800 over to it, replacing the stock 9650, again I have to say I haven't noticed any difference. However, the 9800 has 8 pipelines versus the 4 in the 9650, so I expect any games I play will benefit. Now, if only they'd offered the X850 they announced today a couple of months ago! I hope ATI doesn't wait too long to offer a retail equivalent, perhaps lowering the price of the X800 a bit.

mandricard

Thanks Dave, that settles it. I will just sit tight on the trusty 8500. Your advice sounds good, as I am basically in the same boat as you *were*. Enjoy that new machine... I am green with envy.



Mandricard

AppleOutsider

dave marsh

Mandricard - I think you're making the right decision. I felt a bit let down after I installed the 9800 in the Sawtooth. The bus in the Sawtooth just didn't have enough bandwidth to take advantage of the 9800.



maaaaark - I don't believe the 8x AGP ATI 9650 (256MB) card currently being installed in the new G5 Towers is compatible with the 2x AGP slot in the Sawtooth, if that's the card you're referring to.

dfiler

The sawtooth has a 2x AGP slot. To run a 9800 pro in that machine, you'll simply have to tape two of the connectors on the card. Keep in mind that you only have a 220 watt power supply so this card plus a bunch of harddrives and PCI cards could be a bit much for it.

dave marsh

I ran the 9800 Pro in my Sawtooth with NO modifications for months before I upgraded to my G5. The only downside is that the Sawtooth didn't have the bandwidth to take full advantage of the card. I don't recall if any of the connectors extended outside the Sawtooth's slot, but if so, they certainly didn't come in contact with any other electronics.