Mac Question

[Zach M]

My grandma is the biggest mac fan I know. She has a lot of money, and loves technology (that's right, I said my grandma). Anyway, she just bought a new 30" Cinema HD display, and offered to give me her old 21". This has given me reason to buy a mac and spend money on one that will last a while. I am going to get one of the new dual 2.7 G5's with 2GB of RAM and a 400GB harddrive.

Here's my question. I am a graphic designer who also does a lot of video editing. I was looking at the graphics cards and wondering if it's really worth it to spend an extra $405 to upgrade. The computer comes standard with an ATI Radeon 9650 with 256MB DDR SDRAM. For the extra money, I can upgrade to the NVIDEA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL with GDDR3 SDRAM. Do any of you have any experience with the two of these cards? What benefits will I have if I upgrade.

[JamesWatts]

Unless you are going to be playng games on it. There realy is no reason for the extra power. Besides the point that its cool to have the best...lol

The Ultra is mainly made for running the 30 inch displays.

The Radeon will be just fine if you dont want to drop the extra money.

I Just ran 2 full screen 1080p HD clips one on each Monitor. and they both played perfectly.

-james

[Zach M]

as far as I know, the ATI will run the 30" also, but the NVIDEA is able to run two. I don't play games and there is no way I will be able to afford two 30" displays, so I think I'll stick with the ATI unless someone convinces me otherwise.

[Bowen]

Zach M, you'll be just fine w/ the ATI

[RD]

Everyone's advice above is good. I just wanted to add one observation. Check with your Granny and find out whether the 21" has an ADC or DVI connector. Most of the original 21" cinema displays were ADC only which Apple has now officially dumped in favor of the more universal DVI connector. With one of the new 2.7's you're probably doing to need a DVI to ADC adaptor which I believe run about a $100. You're stuck getting at least the regular video card with the dual 2.7 unless you do a build to order direct from Apple in which you may be able to delete it and save some $. You can probably pick up an ATI or Nvidia video card with ADC for cheap right now and save the $100 for the adapter as well. I was a big fan of ADC because it gave you more USB ports and power thru the computer as well. If you decide you don't need a dual 2.7 the original dual 2.0 came with an ADC and DVI combo card. If you think you will want a 30" someday then it's probably wise to get that (besides isn't that the std video card in the new 2.7's?)

[JamesWatts]

2 30 incher's is.......dare i say........over kill. i would go with 2 of the 23 inch monitors.
-James

[scott a]

overkill? what is that? ive never heard of that word before

[89comp]

I'm seconding James. I've worked on a single 30" and it was too big, so dual 30"...no way.

Dual 23" will let you edit HD in full size and still have some room left over. Plus the dual 23" are more affordable.

I have the 256 MB Raedon card and it pushes my dual 20"s fine while playing 2 1080 clips simulatenously.

[Zach M]

I don't think working on a single 30" would be too big, you have less space on that than you do on two 23's. Two 30's would be a lot of work space though. You'd have to swivel your head so much to look across the screen.

[89comp]

and pickup the mouse several times to get it across the screen. It still looks nice though when its sitting on your desk.

[dmb]

Theres a place near where I live that has two 30" screens set up... They couldn't actually fit both on the one desk, so they have two pushed up against each other.... And looking at my desk theres no way I could fit them.... I'm fine with dual 19" though