Interested in the Radeon® X1900 G5 Mac® EDITION RoHS 256MB PCI Express®
I've been eyeing the new Radeon X1900 for my G5 Mac, but I have a couple of questions.....firstly is my first generation G5 Mac PCI Express compatible....and since my G5 is the 1.8 Ghz single processor model, but had the 900 mhz bus, will I see a noticable jump in my computers ability to play high graphic intense games a lot better, or does my processor still keep things like frame rate and other things still where they are right now. I still have the stock NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra-64MB DDR installed if that helps. Thanx in advance to anyone that knows the answer to a couple of my questions. Cheers!
Comments
.....firstly is my first generation G5 Mac PCI Express compatible....and since my G5 is the 1.8 Ghz single processor model, but had the 900 mhz bus...
CAUTION!!! The PowerMac G5 you have (single Core 1.8 GHz) is NOT, I repeat, NOT equipped with PCI-e ("Express") slots that this card needs. Your G5 has PCI-X slot(s).
And secondly, if I remember things correctly, the graphics card in your system runs in an AGP slot. So the card mentioned above will not work at all because it's the completely wrong slot! You might have to look for a AGP version graphics card.
Btw, you're by far not the only one who might have gotten confused by all the PCI-X vs. PCI-e debate. Even some computer shops still don't know the difference...
Btw, you're by far not the only one who might have gotten confused by all the PCI-X vs. PCI-e debate. Even some computer shops still don't know the difference...
Naaaahhh, he's about about the 20th person I've run across that's gotten those two confused.
Now, to add to gwoodpecker's email, since you have a PowerMac G5 with an AGP graphics card, the best graphics cards for that Mac would be either the Mac version of the Geforce 6800 Ultra (a hard to find OEM AGP card - there is a GT version as well) or the Mac retail version of the ATI Radeon X800XT. I recommend the ATI Radeon X800XT as it performs about the same as the Geforce 6800 Ultra, is a smaller card, and has more software support if you are gaming (download ATI's display control panel). If you are current with your MacOS neither of these cards require you to install drivers as the drivers are part of the MacOS (except for the ATI display control panel I indicated). Make sure you get the Mac version of the card. It's a nice card, I have it in my PM G5 DP2.5.
I'm pretty sure you won't see any other new AGP graphics cards released, as ATI and Nvidia are now concentrating on PCI-Express graphics cards.
CAUTION!!! The PowerMac G5 you have (single Core 1.8 GHz) is NOT, I repeat, NOT equipped with PCI-e ("Express") slots that this card needs. Your G5 has PCI-X slot(s).
Btw, you're by far not the only one who might have gotten confused by all the PCI-X vs. PCI-e debate. Even some computer shops still don't know the difference...
I blame the working group for naming the newer standard PCI-express. It's not often that an incompatible standard is named similarly to a previous standard. The other time is not quite the same, but similar confusion existed regarding extended vs. expanded memory.