Video Card for Mac g5 dual 2.0
 

ok, so i need a better card. I have nvidia 5200 ultra that came with the mac. I need the best card for FCP. suggestions????

(moved this thread to our Mac forum)
What do you hope to accomplish with a new card? I don't think you will get any performance improvement in FCP. Motion and Color are more dependent on video cards. My dual G5 died a couple months ago - no sign of life at all - and some quick troubleshooting didn't turn much up. At this point, I don't think it's worth any real expense or effort to fix. Unless you can find something cheap, maybe not such a good investment to upgrade a G5 these days, since yours might also be DOA one morning like mine :-(

There were also some issues finding cards which work properly on the G5's as I recall, so be sure to confirm that the one you choose works with your specific G5 model.

liqud cooled?
then this page might be of interest for all g5 users....

good luck...

PowerMac G5 Coolant Leaks/Repairs

I had been looking for the same answer for my dual 2.3 G5. Until it broke a month ago. Essentially, the only card that would make a significant difference is the Nvidia 6800GT, which sells for more than $500 last time I checked a couple months ago.
You should seriously consider if a 4-5 year old computer is worth such an investment.
The repair for mine would have cost anything between $700 and $1800. That made it (somewhat) easy to decide to buy a Mac Pro instead. That's probably not the answer you're looking for, but there's really hardly any graphics cards available for G5s. Did you check Otherworld computing? 2D & 3D Accelerated AGP 2X/4X/8X Video Cards for performance display + up to two displays at OtherWorldComputing.com
Be careful you select the right one. I was always confused by the AGP/PCI/PCIe etc....

Best,
Dino

Sam, give the ATI Radeon 9800 pro a try. It's an AGP card with more speed and more memory and you can find them on ebay or from mac resellers for about $99 and up. It should give you some improvement in video playback and Quicktime rendering. And if you aren't thrilled with the performance you're not out a lot of money. I've upgraded two G5's with this card and I'm happy with the results. After that your next choice is a MacPro.

See, that's where I think it gets complicated and confusing. The oldest G5's has AGP cards but the newer ones switched to PCI express. I remember this created a problem at the time for people who were running older versions of FCP. When you started FCP it looked for the AGP card, and it didn't find one on the newer machines (which had the faster PCIe cards), so it would quit.

As you can see, Dino is in pretty much the same boat as me. Really doesn't make much sense to put significant money into a G5 unfortunately. But aside from that, as I asked before, what are you trying to improve in FCP? A better graphics card won't speed up rendering, and in fact I don't think it will have any effect at all.

thanks for all of the imput guys. i am sorry to hear that some of you have macs that burned out. thats scary. I still have my original g3, g4 silver and quad working in perfect condidtion. I was told that a better video card would give me better viewing results. I was also lead to believe that large video memory would help render faster. is this info wrong? I have 64mb card now and just ordered Video Card NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT from a ??????(i know how chris hates us to post non sponsors lol). I use FCP 5.1, Digital performer, Logic Pro, and adobe. I have been in the recording field for over 15 years and very new to video(3yrs). Another forum(yes, i cheated on dvinfo, shame on me) spoke vigorously about updating the card. My overall reason was that editing video on dual screens looked terrible, but the final product when burned looked great. i just spent 349 for this card? dumb move?

ps......i dont care hopw old my macs are, i keep all of them up to date!

Sam, from what I've read in the past the video card doesn't do a lot in FCP. Rendering is a CPU-bound task I think. But since you've taken the plunge, why don't you run some of your own "before and after" tests and then report back to us with actual data. I'm sure there are others around here who would be interested in the results. Heh, maybe you'll convince me that it's worth fixing my dead G5/2.5ghz :-)

Your issue with the video on the second screen might just be the limitations of FCP's digital cinema desktop mode for displaying video on a computer monitor.

great idea boyd!

ps...let me know if you want to sell your dead G5!

I also had a G5 issue. I was the proud owner of a Dual 2.7 that blew a line and sent a small amount of coolant thru the processors and eventually right down to the motherboard. I took the unit to what is recognized as the top service facility in L.A. and they were unable to get the machine working again after three part swaps with Apple.

Yes, that is not a typo. Apple sent 3 new motherboards, 3 new revised cooling systems and 3 power supplies over a 30 day period, and the machine never saw life again. They finally replaced it with a MacPro 2.66.

The service facility mentioned that they had seen a "few" of these, and in most cases the machine never returns to service. As a matter of fact they have started informing customers that if they don't have Apple Care, it's probably best to just get a new box - because even if they do get it to startup again, in most cases the machine will be back within a few days - down again!

And it's not just this service facility that has had a problem like that. I have read posts from users worldwide that have had the same experience.

If you plan on fixing it and paying out of pocket, expect to shell out around $1500.00 and even then there is no guarantee that it will work properly.

if you have a AGP G5 mac, you want a ATI X800 card. its 1/2 the length, 1/2 the width ( doesn't cover next PCI slot) , and much lower power consumption then the 6800GT, and out performs it by 5-10%. also the X800 card works much better with the MXO if you have one of them around. the older ATI 9800 is a dog.

also FCP very much does use the graphic card, but apple doesn't clearly document exactly what. based on personal experience its clear that basic transforms - scale, position are done on the GPU, and it seems the 3 way color corrector also is. a faster card will change what will play in RT on the TL, especially for SD.

if you can get one for $100 from ebay, great, otherwise I'd save the cash and look at a macintel machine.