Hi,
I'm eventually negotiating for a powermac 7.3 G5 dual @ 2ghz the only problem is the Nvidia graphic card. My question is: would I be able to swap the Radeon card form my dead dual powermac G4 MDD @1.2ghz and install it in the "new" g5? Thanx in advance!

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Short answer is no. Longer answer is yes, but you will have to make a modification to the card. It's been a while since I've thought about this, so someone else can probably answer better than me.

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That would depend on what type of card your G4 has. So what is the type and the manufacturer, and is it genuine Apple?

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Going from G4 to G5, aren't there some pins that need to be eliminated either by taping the card or cutting the traces? Or is that the other way around?

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Other way around. A G5 card is an AGPx8 one, while the G4's have either x2 or x4.
BUT! Genuine Apple cards do have an additional connector (aside from AGP pins) that supplies the card with additional voltage for the ADC connector (and probably some current for the card itself). The trouble is, the connector is placed differently in a G4 and in G5. Moreover, the genuine Apple cards have to pass the "USB hub" and "power-on" signals through to the ADC monitor and hence I believe the "AGP x4" in a G4 cards is not really a standard x4 AGP connector. I mean - you could try, but that's kind of scary experience. I guess in the best scenario the card just wouldn't work, and in the worst one - hmm... How far is the nearest fire station?

Thanx for the replies!
The card should be a ATI-Radeon-9000-Pro-64mb but for what you are saying better go for another G5 with his own Radeon...

@ maurenson

If the price of the G5 is good, you could just buy a G5-compatible Radeon card separately. They go for around 30 EUR including shipping.

The g5 is priced at a mere 30Euros so the price is a bargain... I thik if I buy it i'll have to pay more for the shipping than for the mac And so a card will cost me like the computer

@ maurensen

It is a mistake to compare the price of the card to the computer though. That is like saying you would not buy a Ferrari with one flat tire for 10 EUR because buying a new tire would cost several times what the car is priced at.

The important thing is the total cost of ownership.

If you add everything up, do you get an amount that you are comfortable with? Are you fine with spending 100 EUR on a complete computer? If yes, then just go for it.

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There are always two more options:

1. to flash a standard PC card with Apple BIOS, but there are disadvantages too - first of all, that's quite a lottery, so it's only worth the hassle when you've got some very cheap AGP cards around. The second thing is - the flashed card may misbehave (DVI port working only in analog mode, or the card performing worse than it theoretically should).

2. To buy a standard PC card with R500 GPU - those cards don't need an Apple BIOS to work with MorphOS (but you loose everything before the OS starts, so no Open Firmware or Apple boot menu). Moreover, I'm yet to ecounter a working out-of-the-box AGP X1950 myself.

No,
for me 100 euros are too much for another computer. About 50 eur would be ok for another toy in my house but at this point this game is too expensive for me. I've always an Ibook to play with so i'll stay for it for now.
BTW thanx very much to all for your suggestions my friends!