ATI Technologies Inc. has announced the Radeon 9600 Pro PC and Mac Edition, the first graphics card to support both platforms. While maintaining all the key software features for Mac OS X and Windows XP that users of ATI products for the Mac and PC have come to rely on, the Radeon 9600 Pro PC and Mac Edition offers dual-link capabilities to support ultra high-resolution flat panel monitors like the Apple 30-inch Cinema Display. The AGP based Radeon 9600 Pro PC and Mac Edition is available for $199 MSRP.
This new card features one of ATI’s most popular graphics processors for AGP systems – the Radeon 9600 Pro – and includes 256MB of dedicated high-speed memory, has 128-bit memory interface and advanced DirectX 9.0 shader support with floating point precision. Users will experience tremendous graphics performance, plus the ability to drive ultra high-resolution monitors up to 2560×1600 resolution or better thanks to the card’s dual-link DVI display support.
“By providing one card as a solution for two distinct platforms, ATI is making purchasing decisions easy for the computer user. There is no confusion as to whether the card will work in a Mac or a PC, because the Radeon 9600 Pro PC and Mac Edition will provide incredible performance and image quality in both,” said Rich Heye, Vice President, Desktop Discrete Graphics, ATI in the press release. “As ultra-high resolution monitors have become increasingly popular for mainstream users, the dual-link functionality has become an important feature of graphics cards and ATI is unmatched in the consumer space at this price.”
The dual platform Radeon 9600 Pro PC and Mac Edition is AGP 2.0 compliant, compatible with both AGP 4X and 8X systems, including Apple’s Power Mac G4 series, Power Mac G5 and tens of millions of PC’s sold over the last few years. The card can be booted in either platform and software drivers are included for both. ATI Displays, the fully optimized Mac OS X OpenGL driver, features advanced capabilities such as Versavision, enabling screen rotation from Landscape to Portrait mode. For PC users, the Radeon 9600 PC and Mac Edition will feature ATI’s award-winning Catalyst Control Center, where users can personally tweak settings to fit their needs.
More info here.
Can I put it in my Mac mini? I’m hoping so, just like my Intel chip from my old Dell PC.
Can I put it in my Mac mini? I’m hoping so, just like my Intel chip from my old Dell PC.
Can I put it in my Mac mini? I’m hoping so, just like my Intel chip from my old Dell PC.
I think this is tremendously good news for us. Hopefully they’ll extend this to other cards, and nVidia will for forced to follow.
Trying to hunt down a reasonably priced and well specced Mac Graphics card is nigh on impossible (at least in the UK). I still have a 64MB 9600 standard card in my G5. Maybe one of these would be a decent upgrade for me. I’m planning on upgrading from FCP4 to FCP5 Studio, and I doubt that Motion is going to like my existing card very much.
Let’s see…
9600 Pro
256 MB
Dual DVI
and
4X AGP
G4 compatible
and
$199
Hmmmm. Sounds like a lot of G4 users will be upgrading their graphics cards.
Along with you Hywel I too find it nigh on impossible to get a new graphics card for my Mac G4 here in the UK. I won’t bother with my G3 Yosemite.
I still use the same card the G4 Dual 450 came with when semi-new as I bought it off a friend who did not see at the time why there are dual cpu systems on the shelf and offered this Mac at a discount.
The card is an ATI 128 Rage Pro. FCP4 is fine with it, just about, but again like you FCP5 or Motion in all likelyhood will not work with it.
ABOUT TIME. How many times have you been livid that you can’t get the cheaper card because you needed the “Mac Version”
Will this card work in my Powerbook?
MDN Magic Word “expect” as in I expect people to think I’m on crack for asking..
Hywel,
I’ve got the Production suite (FCP 5) running on my G5 with an FX5200 64MB card, and Motion 2 ran okay. I’ve just recently upgraded to the ATI 9650 256MB card that I bought off Ebay ($120 American dollars) and it works like a dream. I still want to increase the RAM to about 6 gigs (running 2.5 gigs now).
If it is hard in the UK, imagine how it is in Portugal! I strived for a long time but was able to find a decent card for my old dual 450 G4 – in Germany, through an online store there.
Hopefully this is the beginning to the end to these kind of problems. I guess ATI is seeing the future:)
Well it’s about time somebody gets it right and release a cross platform card! +1000 to ATI for this, and I’m generally an nVidia fan. I hope to see them follow suit with the next generation high end cards they have comming, I forget the core name but it’s their answer to the 7xxx series from nVidia. I would also really like to see nVidia do this, especially with their high end cards. Making a card cross platform can save end users between $100 and $500 on average if their a Mac/Windows user, because if they only need one system with a high end card, and they want it to be their Mac, they can take their old card out of their old PC and put it in there, or, for the more serious gamer, take their high end card out of either system for the best gaming performance on either platform. Now, granted, that’s not the easiest thing to do, certainly not a good thing to do on a regular basis, but I think this could be good for the Mac gaming market, as it will open up more possibilities of gamers switching, or at least trying the Mac for gaming, because they can cut significant cost off of a new Mac machine by buying a cross platform card for their PC.
9600pro pc version costs about $75 online. I suppose the $199 quote is not what these dual platform cards will cost if one shops a bit, but the “savings” imagined by this only exist if one is used to being gouged by mac proprietary hardware.
please.
Now that the Mac will be embracing Intel Inside, all of these 3rd party manufacturers are going to have to lower their prices since they have basically been selling PC products to Mac users at higher prices. I am sure the cards have been compatible for some time, only the software has been changed to protect the innocent.
now users can run DUAL Apple 30″ Cinema displays on their G4 towers…
That’s a pretty good price for a card that can do that
Plus it works in most of the PowerMac G4s
I didn’t realize at first that this is the *same card* for Windows or Mac. I thought they were just simultaneously releasing two different cards. Way to go ATI! Break down another barrier!
I might have to get one… even tho I don’t really need it.. lol
they already have. some guy has been running a flashed FireGL3 with a X800 driver and had dual link dvi on it
what do you guys think of the converted pc radeon 9800 for mac. Is it worth a look, or should I not bother?