Best Video card

I've been running a couple of shows on my macbook pro up to now, one outputting to 3 screens using matrox triple head, the other with two soft image blended, all has gone well so far, so its probably time to quit while i'm ahead and build a proper media server, so far these threads have answered most of my questions so i'm going to go with a 4 core machine 3.0Ghz instead of 8 and spend the money on ssds instead, the only question unanswered is which graphics card to use, i have a show coming up with 2 layers of 720i hd footage alternating between layers , its spread over 5 screens using 2 triplke heads, (same layer on each screen for most of show with static images going to single layers for one part of the show) , am open to suggestions on 8 core machine if someone reckons its going to make a difference,

But what is the best video card?
Am guessing the most powerful open gl or is catalyst designed for a specific one?

Hi Mick

If you have the pre Jan 08 Quad machine, then the X1900XT is the card that is widely used. If its the post Jan 08 machine, then the jury is still out on the card to use as there has been none available to test yet! Last time I spoke with Richard, his 8800 had still not arrived, so there are no test results from him yet.

Nev.

I think it was determined that for the newest series of Mac Pros the 8800 was the way to go. Someone should confirm that, but I think it has been comparable to the x1900's. I bought an 8core mac pro 2.8ghz with that card and I played around a little bit and so far its been pretty good.. haven't had all that much time though to really mess with it lately..

Ryan

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Originally Posted by ryanww

I think it was determined that for the newest series of Mac Pros the 8800 was the way to go. Someone should confirm that, but I think it has been comparable to the x1900's. I bought an 8core mac pro 2.8ghz with that card and I played around a little bit and so far its been pretty good.. haven't had all that much time though to really mess with it lately..

Ryan

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its very tricky to make any recommendations when so much keeps changing.

leopard was pretty lame until 10.5.2 - its still very difficult to tell.
drivers are upgraded so frequently.

some bugs still being reported by users in the bigger world.

All i know for certain is the the x2600 is pretty lame - it doesnt like large screen resolutions. or things like triple heads.

Thanks,
x1900xt it is then
Mick

Mick,

Hold On! Before you get an x1900 consider this. x1900 is for the pre 2008 machines.

If you are buying a new Mac pro and you haven't gotten it yet, you will be buying a generation 2 Mac Pro. For the gen 2, the best card is the 8800. Gen 2 Macs also are 8-core by default so don't step down to the single processor 4 core because it's not worth the savings.

I have one of these machines now and it is running two TripleHead2Go devices and is outputting 6 screens 1024x768 at 75Hz or 6 screen 1280x1024 at 60Hz.

It works for me, is rock solid, and with the two ssd disks, I am running 16 layers with issues.

Oh, and make sure you run all the Leopard Updates. Before I did the graphics update, my box was only running half as many layers. Also make sure to go into quicktime settings and enable legacy codecs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SourceChild

Mick,

Hold On! Before you get an x1900 consider this. x1900 is for the pre 2008 machines.
Oh, and make sure you run all the Leopard Updates. Before I did the graphics update, my box was only running half as many layers. Also make sure to go into quicktime settings and enable legacy codecs.

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x1900 is supposed to work on post 2008 macs... according to a bug report i filed.
It only worked after 10.5.2 - luckily this happened just in time for sinatra.

i believe we are going to try and do this on radiohead - but i made sure that andy bought both 8800 and x1900. just in case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SourceChild

It works for me, is rock solid, and with the two ssd disks, I am running 16 layers with issues.

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SourceChild,

For the moment i havent got ssd but 2 raptors. Will the performance more or less stay the same compared to the mac pro 2,66 X1900?

Anyone else?

Thanks!