Video Card Question.

[courtlevephoto]

I'm using a power Mac G5. CPU's 2, 2ghz with 6gb of memory. I currently have a ATI Radeon 9600 XT video card with 128mb of ram. I am curious to know if I upgrade this memory card if PM would benefit from the upgrade? On another note, curious if a program like LightRoom would also benefit.

But since this is a PM forum, more interested in learning if PM would render files faster, etc..

thanks.

[Kirk Baker]

Court,

I'm using a power Mac G5. CPU's 2, 2ghz with 6gb of memory. I currently have a ATI Radeon 9600 XT video card with 128mb of ram. I am curious to know if I upgrade this memory card if PM would benefit from the upgrade? On another note, curious if a program like LightRoom would also benefit.

But since this is a PM forum, more interested in learning if PM would render files faster, etc..

You would be far better off getting a new Intel-based Mac than upgrading the video card in your PowerPC G5-based Mac.  It would cost a lot more than upgrading the card, but the benefits would be much more dramatic.

-Kirk

[courtlevephoto]

Um, yeah. But were looking at a cost difference of thousands... I think I could get a new video card for less than $500.00. A new machine is going to run $2,000-$4,000.... PM runs fine on this machine. Lightroom however... another story. But tough to ditch a machine that works flawlessly... I have no doubt a new machine would be sweet. I also use a mac book pro and it's faster than my desktop, so I can get an idea of the performance update, and a new tower would be even faster I'm sure.

Again, PM works just fine and is fast enough in most cases. Just trying to learn if an updated video card would benefit PM at all?

thanks.

[Hayo Baan]

Again, PM works just fine and is fast enough in most cases. Just trying to learn if an updated video card would benefit PM at all?

Well, given that newer video cards are usually mostly faster with respect to 3D drawing, and that PM (mostly/only?) uses 2D drawing, there would probably not be a direct benefit to the speed of PM. Mac OS X uses 3D effects for many aspects of its UI, so there you may se some benefit, but I think you'd be better off saving for a new system anyway.

Cheers

[Kirk Baker]

Um, yeah. But were looking at a cost difference of thousands... I think I could get a new video card for less than $500.00. A new machine is going to run $2,000-$4,000.... PM runs fine on this machine. Lightroom however... another story. But tough to ditch a machine that works flawlessly... I have no doubt a new machine would be sweet. I also use a mac book pro and it's faster than my desktop, so I can get an idea of the performance update, and a new tower would be even faster I'm sure.

Again, PM works just fine and is fast enough in most cases. Just trying to learn if an updated video card would benefit PM at all?

Not really.  Your current video card is more than adequate already.

-Kirk

[rjp]

Um, yeah. But were looking at a cost difference of thousands... I think I could get a new video card for less than $500.00. A new machine is going to run $2,000-$4,000.... PM runs fine on this machine. Lightroom however... another story. But tough to ditch a machine that works flawlessly... I have no doubt a new machine would be sweet. I also use a mac book pro and it's faster than my desktop, so I can get an idea of the performance update, and a new tower would be even faster I'm sure.

Again, PM works just fine and is fast enough in most cases. Just trying to learn if an updated video card would benefit PM at all?

thanks.

I can't see throwing 500 at a video card when you can get a new "refurbished" 2008 24" imac 2.8 from Apply for 1199 now. Of course I do see your point about it being hard to abandon a machine that otherwise still works perfectly. Looks like the comments indicate not much PM boost from the video card anyway.