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GOT G4? You could extend the useful lifespan of a Mirror Door or a QuickSilver with dual processors. Got G5? You could see better performance from your games and graphics apps. In either case, check out the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro PC & Mac Edition video card.
This PCI graphics card works out of the box in either a PC or a Mac, and it's about time for that. We've always been annoyed that we had to find a "special" card to upgrade a Mac. Historically, Mac cards cost more than the same PC version. Had cards always been dual-platform, more Mac users may have been more active in upgrading their video cards.
The 9600 is the new baseline for graphics, as it's the stock card for new Power Mac G5s and iMacs. The last two ATI cards were G5 only, so it's pretty cool that this is available for older G4's, as well. It will only work in G4's that have a 4x or better AGP slot. This means that dark grey G4 won't work with the card.
Specs include four parallel rendering pipelines processing up to 1.6 billion pixels per second, two parallel geometry engines processing up to 200 million vertices per second, 8.6GB/sec memory bandwidth and highprecision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support. Translated if you don't speak geek: these numbers are about 25 percent of the totals for ATI's high-end X800 XT ($400; www. ati.com) graphics card.
The 9600 has two DVI connectors, which we like very much. This means it doesn't have the ADC connector that older (translucent) Apple Cinema displays had; those displays won't work unless you buy an adapter for $150 from an Apple dealer. Modern displays are much better then the original Apple displays (and third-party LCD makers use the DVI standard), so we would use the adapter budget toward a bright new display. You could pick up a run-of-the-mill, DVI-to-VGA adapter for a few bucks if you have a VGA monitor.
VersaVision allows a display to work in portrait (vertical) mode, rather than the standard horizontal position. For multi-track audio editing or page layout, this is a nice option. Please note that you should not use any of the Apple Cinema displays in portrait mode even with a proper stand, as they will become damaged due to overheating. A large number of third-party displays can be rotated without heat issues.
We tested the ATI 9600 on an old "Quicksilver" Power Mac G4 867MHz and a Power Mac G5 1.8GHz. Benchmarking the 9600 against a GeForce2 MX, which came stock with the G4, revealed little difference in day-to-day administrative tasks, which didn't surprise us too much.
Aspyr Doom3 ($50; www.aspyr.com) technically worked on the Quicksilver when we lowered the specs of the game to 640x480. It played like slide show, but before it didn't work at all. For a game like GooBall ($25; www.ambrosiasw.com), the 9600 improved performance quite a bit and made it more fun to play. Compared to using the GeForce 2 MX (stock on the Quicksilver) GooBall ran really smoothly.
However, if you're really looking to play games, you may be better off buying a Sony PS2 ($150; www.sony.com) or Microsoft Xbox ($150; www. xbox.com). For the same you could have a console and a game or two. Even though the 9600 boosted our old G4 enough to run a program like Apple's Motion, we found it less then ideal to use on the slower QuickSilver processor, because it made the final rendering of a motion graphics scene very slow.
The 9600 would be perfect for someone upgrading to a 20" or larger display(s). It also allows G4 Power Macs to work with a 30" Apple Cinema display whereas this monitor only worked on G5s with an ATI X800 or nVidia 6800 card before.
Should you upgrade? If you have a Quicksilver as your main machine, it's pushing close to five year old, and you should honestly think about a new Mac. However, if you can't replace it, the 9600 card helped ours along. Just don't expect to play modern games. A Mirror Door G4 will run way better with the 9600; it'll be better than a new Mac mini. If you have a G5, consider the Radeon X800 instead. It's about four time the card for only about $200 more.
–JOHN FOSTER
Radeon 9600 Pro PC & Mac Edition: 
ATI Technologies, Inc. | www.atitech.com | 888-974-6728 | $200
Pros: VersaVision, as a cross-platform product, it should be easy to purchase everywhere.
Cons: Doesn't work with dark gray Power Mac G4s.
Requires: 4x or better AGP slot, Power Mac G4 or G5
macHOME recommends: A new display with that video card
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