XYMer's Home away from Home

Video card is an XT-800 with ADC and DVI (or some kind of digital output, I don't know the difference, if there is one) in a G5. Will this monitor work with it?

http://store.apple.com/us/product/M9179LL/A

Checking out some auctions on eBay - one is in town, and so there wouldn't be shipping if I win.

According to the XT800 specs, it only does up to 2048x1536, or 2048x1280 for wide screen. It should still work (via the DVI port), but won't be able to use its native resolution. Though, specs have been known to be wrong before.

You need dual-link DVI to run that display, which basically means a single DVI connector contains two DVI channels that get bonded together to give it enough bandwidth to run at larger resolution.

According to Anandtech the ADC port is single-link DVI, and the DVI port is dual link. This means you can't drive two 30" displays but you can drive, say, a 24" (over ADC) and a 30" (over DVI).

To be fair, those are analog display modes, so it can run at those resolutions over VGA.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... &#10722854

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... &#10568907

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... &#10652957

See japamacs post here on the best AGP cards for G5s...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... &#10460940

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... &#10319750

I'm confused by the answer. So the XT-8000 won't power this at its full resolution (which is the whole point)?

It looks like this will... NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL 256MB (AGP)? (But I've been looking for a spare video card, and there is one on eBay for $200).

Hm, looking at a picture of the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 I can see two DVI outputs, is that what is meant by dual DVI?

The XT-800 has a DVI and ADC but I have an ADC to DVI adapter, allowing one to plug a DVI monitor into that port (the ADC to VGA adapter is very, very rare - but not this one).

So, would using this adapter make this card work as a dual DVI and drive this monitor at the full resolution (which is what I need)?

Plan B, Apple Genius Bar? (Admittedly this is a 3rd party hardware question, but I can try.)

Here is the definition and differences of the DVI connectors.

Take a look as the graphic listing on the left hand side. It shows the difference between a single link DVI cable connector and a dual link DVI cable connector. Dual link connectors will have no gap in the large block of pins. Single link will.

Single link DVI will work up to 1920x1200, so you need a dual link connector (and card that has an available port specified specifically as Dual Link DVI. Unless you have some cheapo Chinese ripoff variant of the XT800, it should have at least one DL-DVI port. In fact anything past the 9800 series should have at least one DL-DVI port on it, so yes your card should drive the 30" display. But it will only be able to drive one such display. The other must be at or below 1920x1200 native resolution.

Uhm, are you saying that the single DVI out will drive a 30 inch at 2560 x 1200? That's what I need.

A single dual-link DVI connection (over a single cable) will do what you need. The X800 apparently supports dual-link connections from its DVI port, so it'll work.

- Anonymous

Please reread my post:



You need a cable that has the Dual Link DVI connector that looks like the second connector list on the left of the page I linked you to.

Edit: Jeez this forum's quoting mechanism sucks balls to clean up manually.

BTW, if you can snap a clear photo of the card's connectors I'm sure any number of folks will be able to tell you whether the DVI connector on your particular card is dual link or single link. You need dual link to drive the 30".

Yeah, it looks like it would work...

http://www.welovemacs.com/cinemadisplay.html

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonx800/radeonX800xtme/

But when I discussed this with someone in the PC department at MicroCenter his opinion was that 256 MB was too weak to provide a decent video experience. Yet multiple sources indicate that isn't so.

Well, even with this information, before I commit to bidding a LOT of $$$, I'm going to try one more thing... Dunno if they'll go for it, but ask if they'll allow me to bring down my G5 and hook it up to the display model (with the bait that I'm looking to buy one, not a lie), to see if it works.

Picture of one:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/mac ... index.html

OK, that pic shows the 800XT as having an ADC port on the bottom. Only the top port will allow you to natively run the 30" display if I'm correct. At that point the ADC port was a single link DVI+USB/power, so you need to use the top port on the card.

Yeppers, I did - that is, test it out at MicroCenter (they allowed me to hook it up with a display model), and I got the full 2560x1600. Cool beans!

And thanks again to Xike for this machine. It is still working away.

If you're not doing complicated 3D stuff, that's completely silly. For simple frame buffering of 2D graphics you'll only be using 16 MB. Although the OS can use more in routine operations, you're unlikely to see much real world benefit beyond some critical threshold that is far lower than 256 MB. And if you don't have any problems and you're satisfied with performance, who cares?

- Anonymous

Yup, I agree. But in fairness, the REASON he said it was "weak" was because of the sheer number of pixels in the 2560x1600 resolution, he said the card should have a minimum of 512 MB. But in the articles I linked to, one indicates that this 256 MB card was in response to Apple's specifications for the 30 inch Cinema display. One of the Macintosh sales staff said that his understanding was that 128 MB or less won't power the display, and 256 MB and above would. He still let me test it though. That was really nice.

Anyway, the auction still has a couple of days, so I will bid the most I'm willing to spend.

Heh, when it comes to auctions I only bid as short a time as possible before the end - 5 minutes or 5 hours, all depending on how soon I'm going to be by the computer when the auction closes.

I remember when eBay used to send SMS messages to your phone, for free, when an auction was about to close.

But, as Anon said, it doesn't take more than a few MB to run 2D on the display, even at 2560x1600. 16MB sounds about right for 4MP in 32-bit color.

I don't think that is because of the memory in the card; there may simply be no dual-link DVI cards with less than 256 MB.

- Anonymous

I will say that if you want to run a game in 3D at 2560x1600, you will probably need a video card with 512MB or 1GB... and a lot more horsepower than a X800 XT, which is about the most powerful card you can get for that model (unless you resort to flashed PC cards), so it's kind of a moot point.

So, in other words, if you end up wanting to play a game on your new shiny display, just run it at a lower resolution.