ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP Mac Edition
The Radeon 9800 Pro is an AGP 8x card compatible with AGP 2x and 4x slots. It was a build-to-order for the 2003 Power Mac G5, 2004 Power Mac G5, and 2005 Power Mac G5. Apple's version of the card included 256 MB of RAM.
Flashed AGP 8x video cards are not compatible with the Mystic/Gigabit Ethernet, Digital Audio, Cube, Quicksilver, and Mirror Drive Door Power Mac G4 without modification. As explained by The Mac Elite, Apple uses pins 3 and 11 on the back of the card to power ADC monitors. These pins must be disabled or your Mac will not boot with the card installed. Full details and instructions are on the Mac Elite website.
This video card requires more power than the AGP slot provides, so you will need to tap power from your Power Mac's power supply, which may require a power splitter.
ATI's version of the card shipped with 128 MB of RAM, 256 MB in the Special Edition.
Benchmarks published by Bare Feats show the Radeon 9800 has about twice the frame rate of the Radeon 9600.
Details
- GPU speed: 380/400 MHz
- Video memory: 128/256 MB
- Memory speed: 680 MHz
- Memory bus: 256 bits
- Resolutions: 640 x 480 to 2048 x 1536
- Ports: DVI-I and ADC on Apple version; DVI-I, VGA, and S-video on ATI version
- Dual monitor support: yes
- Cooling fan: yes
- Minimum OS: Mac OS X 10.2.5
- Compatible with: Sawtooth, Gigabit Ethernet, Digital Audio, Quicksilver, Quicksilver 2002, Mirrored Drive Doors, FireWire 800, Power Mac G5 models with AGP (excludes Power Mac G5 Dual and G5 Quad, which use PCIe)
Online Resources
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition, ATI
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, Inside Mac Games, 2003.09.18
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, MacUser UK, 2004.02
- PC Card Conversion to Mac: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, Thomas Perrier. How to flash the PC version for use in a Mac.
Benchmarks
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro: Killer Graphics for the Rest of Us?, Bare Feats, 2003.07.17. AGP Radeon 9700 and 9800 in Mac and PC vs. Radeon 9000 and GeForce 4 Titanium in Mac. "The first thing I noticed is that the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition (or 'ME') is no faster than the 9700 ME."
- The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Special 256MB Mac Edition versus Other Radeon Graphics Cards, Bare Feats, 2004.06.09. Various versions of 9800 vs. Radeon 9600 and GeForce 5200.
- Shootout: Five Graphics Cards on One G5/2.7, Bare Feats, 2005.05.05. The Radeon 9800 SE benchmarks quite a bit better than the 9600 XT, but well behind the Radeon X800 XT and GeForce 6800 UL.
- Question: Can You Upgrade a G4 Power Mac To Go as Fast as a G5 Power Mac?, Bare Feats, 2005.09.22. Short answer: No, and with dual 800 MHz G4 CPUs, there's little difference between the Radeon 9600 and 9800. But put in dual 2.0 GHz CPUs, and the 9800 easily runs ahead of the 9600.