Which video card ?

[Frank Doorhof]

At the moment I'm running a 2008 macpro 8 core.
As video card I own the original ati and a 3870.

I would like to go to one card thats faster to run three monitors at once.

I'm in doubt between the 5770 or the 5870. Difference is 200,00 euros.
I'm willing to pay that if I really see a difference of course.

I'm 90% in Photoshop, some aperture and final cut pro.

What to do ?
Will the 5770 be a big step up from the 3870 ?
Or will the 5870 be better and noticeable better in Photoshop.

There are so many conflicting messages on line and apple and adobe are also not clear about the real benefits. Because I mainly work with large files like most of you I thought let's ask here.

[Steve Weldon]

I went through a progression of cards made possible by a friendly dealer.  My take is the 5770 is a fine card, the 5870 is significantly more powerful and noticeable in CS5 and LR3.. but it really shines when rendering.  I couldn't help myself and ended up with the 5970 and it has gobs of power.. basically it's two 5870's running a slightly lower clock speed, but on one card.  The 5870 is long, the 5970 longer.  Make sure either fits your case.  I had to rearrange my drive bays and ended up with the 5970 extending slightly into an empty bay.  I think.. either will benefit greatly from an aftermarket cooler such as the Artic Cooler.  If you run a web search on 5870/5970 'defective fans' you'll find that after a few weeks of use they start rattling something fierce and their temps are often in the 70-80c range at idle, up to 95c under load.  With the Artic Cooler I idle at 45c and full load is 55c.. this is in a 40c ambient temp room.  And no noise.  Really, none.

So.. the 5770 is fine if only doing images, no gaming, and very limited rendering.  The 5870 for games and if you render any video, even flash movies will show benefits.  And the 5970 for games, rendering video, its just all out fast.  Faster than a 7880 workstation card I also tried.  This surprised me.  I think its being held back by the driver though not sure.

Three monitors pose a problem.  If at least one of your monitors has a displayport input then no problem.. because one must be DP.  Or you must use an ACTIVE mini-dp to DVI adapter.  AFAIK there are no ACTIVE mini-dp to HDMI adapters, but if anyone knows of one please tell me..

There is a single card out there.. I think the 5870.. that takes care of this on card and does away with the displayport requirement.. so you might want to look at it..

[Dustbak]

I know I am getting the 5870 for my 2009 8-core Macpro. BTW, the 5870 is definitely working on your MacPro but I have not heard of anyone using a 5770 yet on that machine. I currently use a flashed 4890 which is faster than the 5770.

I would love the comfort of not having to tweak my kext files with every MacOS update which is why I am getting the 5870.

The other thing which is important to me is that Phocus loves video memory and a fast card.

[Frank Doorhof]

Well the 5970 will not fit in the macpro I guess because I also want to keep everything original.

Switching a monitor to minidisplay also is no problem.
So it will be the 58 than, now waiting till it's released

[gazwas]

Looking at the same two Apple cards for my 2008 MacPro.

Knowing nothing about the inside bits of computers (hence being a Mac user) is it just a case of plugging the card into the same slot where the HD2600 GPU is at the moment?
I have read people mentioning you need one power cable on the 5770 and two power cables with the 5870..... whats that all about?? 

Using my machine for photography only, what will improve in CS5 and Capture One with the 5870 over the 5770? I thought most of the functions in these two programs are still very much CPU based apart from some flashy stuff (CS5) that doesn't really matter.