Ask Jacob
ATI Card Options for Your G4
Friday, May 26, 2006 / Hardware
Currently I am running a Dual 1.42 GHz G4 with 1.5 GB of memory. Currently I have the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, I would like to update this card to something that will be able to handle all my design programs and of course games. Will the ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition work with my G4? If not what is the best for my G4.
The sad news is that the Radeon X800 XT will not work in your G4. That card uses an 8X AGP slot and your G4 only has a 4X AGP slot. Unlike other components that can operate at slower speeds so as to work in a slower slot, this card is physically different and will not even fit in your computer.
The best ATI card you can get for your G4 is going to be the Radeon 9800 Pro (ATI PN 100-435058). This is a good video card with 256MB of RAM, but even ATI admits that it is a few steps behind the X800 XT. In addition, the 9800 only has DVI and VGA display connecters where the X800 XT had DVI and ADC.
