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Advice on video cards and displays

F

faumble

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 8, 2008
141
0
In need of some quick advice, any help is much appreciated. Im setting up 4 displays on a macpro but I am still debating between buying an ati HD2600 or a geforce 8800 as my second card, currently I have a geforce 8800.

I know the second card wont help me performance wise, it will only be for setting up 2 more displays, so thats why I am thinking the best pick is the ati because its cheaper. My only concern is any issues combining the cards might bring either at OSX or on Windows. Anyone has this setup or knows if combining them might bring any issues? I use photoshop, final cut and maya.

Thanks in advance,
-J
 
Sometimes mixing ATI and NVidia cards can cause some problems, though this is not always an issue. As far as video cards go I would stick with one vendor. That is not to say that you could not use a lower end NVidia card if price is an issue. But if you want DX10 in Windows on both cards you might as well stick with the 8800's.
 
i also wanna know this. my friend told me vista dont like 2 diffrent graphic drivers. dunno if its true, but also intrested in this.
 
On MacOS X you can mix ATI and and Nvidia cards. I don't have a clue about windows.
 
Thanks Kosh66, In windows you can too, the thing is if it brings any problems or not... I remember someone had this setup and post it here on the forums but cant find the thread :( anyone ahs seen this post?

and roblin, on windows, either vista or xp, it sdoesnt matter, it depends on the drivers of ati and nvidia, if they behave well together.
 
What I was hinting at is yes you can mix them. However, the drivers can conflict with one another and cause problems with one another. Chances are more likely in tasks that take advantage of the Video cards GPU. I would not even try it for gaming in Windows:eek:. Remember when software takes advantage of the GPU's it is having them process data when sending to two video cards the software would be having each process a part of that data. However the way the drivers handle interactions between the graphics card and OS varies greatly between vendors which increases the possibility of errors.

This thread talks about it some with a Geforce 7300 and Radeon X1900XT. Specifically Aperture had problems.
 
Thanks velocityg4, appreciate it.
Its a tough decision, don't want to spend 200 more for the 8800...is it the gt7300 a solution? or they have to be the same card to be sure of no driver conflicts? If anyone has an atiHD2600 and a Geforce 8800 I would really appreciate any feedback, thanks in advance.
 
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