NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL vs ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

[james]

My father in law uses Final cut pro HD with his Power Mac G5 for video editing.

What are the pros/cons of the NVIDIA vs ATI Radeon?

His current video card is 64MB video ram.

When would one know that it is time to upgrade to a better video card?

Also, need to know whether there will be a noticeable difference by upgrading to the NVIDIA or ATI Radeon.



James

[Henjie]

Originally posted by james
My father in law uses Final cut pro HD with his Power Mac G5 for video editing.

What are the pros/cons of the NVIDIA vs ATI Radeon?

The GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL is much faster than the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac SE for gaming and apps like Motion (Render RAM Preview).

The GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL can drive two of Apple's 30" Cinema Display 'coz it's got two dual link DVI ports. The Radeon 9800 Pro Mac SE can't even drive one 30" Apple Cinema Display (no dual link DVI port).

The GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL is much more expensive though, and it's only available through the Apple Store as a BTO option. It's also a big-a*s video card, blocking the PCI-X slot adjacent to the AGP slot (a problem if you need all the PCI-X slots in your Power Mac G5).

When would one know that it is time to upgrade to a better video card?

Also, need to know whether there will be a noticeable difference by upgrading to the NVIDIA or ATI Radeon.

Final Cut Pro render performance is CPU-bound, not GPU-bound. Upgrading to a faster video card won't give you any noticeable boost in rendering performance.

But if your father-in-law is thinking of adding Motion to his suite of apps, then he should go for the fastest video card his budget allows since Motion uses the GPU when rendering effects that utilize pixel shading.

An excellent alternative to the GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL is the Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition. It only has one dual link DVI port but it's much smaller, quieter, and cooler than the GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL (and cheaper, too). Performance equal to or better than that of the GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, and it doesn't block any PCI-X slots. ;-)


~Henjie

[james]

Thanks for all the inputs Henjie.

My father in law thought that increasing ram and upgrading his video card will speed things up in FCP.

Is it correct to say that if he wants his render performance to improve in FCP, the only way is to upgrade to a G5 with faster processing speed?


James

[Henjie]

Originally posted by james
Thanks for all the inputs Henjie.

My father in law thought that increasing ram and upgrading his video card will speed things up in FCP.

Is it correct to say that if he wants his render performance to improve in FCP, the only way is to upgrade to a G5 with faster processing speed?

Yup, that's pretty much it. Upgrade to a dual-proc G5 (if he's using a single-proc G5) with faster CPUs. You won't get twice the performance vs. a single-proc G5 with the same CPU, more like 1.5x, but the difference is certainly nothing to scoff at. :-)


~Henjie

[james]

Thanks! :yes:

[Edited on 5-13-2005 by james]