ATI Radeon HD 5770 vs 5870 1GB

[Cutra]

quick question

While I currently have an ok card in my mac pro the ati 2600 I"m really debating getting the 5770 for the 269.00 from Apple.

One big question will be other than frame rate will i see a difference in pictures and picture quality or will my screen look the same?

What do you guys think?

 

[derbothaus]

Hi guys.
I'd like to amplify the question.
Currently Apple is offering custom set ups for the Mac Pro. The first one with two 5770 cards and the other with one 5870 card. Are the two -slightly inferior- cards togetter better in performance and speed than the one faster card, or the two cards set up it's just for multi-displaying purposes only and will not affect the overall graphic performance?

I work in video post-production and 3D for broadcast, so I'll like to know which set up I should choose for the new Mac Pro I intend to get.

The 2 cards are not linked for performance. You get 2 cards in OS X for extending display support. OS X does not offer a "crossfire" solution. The 5870 would be the much faster option for raw performance doing 1 thing like gaming. But at the same time does not offer that much more for OpenGL pro app performance relative to the 5770. There is an apparent Apple Pro apps ceiling. Things don't scale. So I don't really recommend the 5870 unless you are gaming. Or until there are more uses for OpenCL.

 

[chris2002]

You don't need the 5870.

Hell, Flash video doesn't even use the GPU, so really your GPU choice doesn't matter at all.

You're joking, right?

 

[goMac]

You're joking, right?

Nope.

The only GPUs at present which support Flash's H.264 hardware acceleration are the 9400m, 320m and 340m. And besides that Flash has no GPU acceleration.

5770 and 5870 don't matter at all for Flash.

 

[derbothaus]

Nope.

The only GPUs at present which support Flash's H.264 hardware acceleration are the 9400m, 320m and 340m. And besides that Flash has no GPU acceleration.

5770 and 5870 don't matter at all for Flash.

He's not joking. It is all too true.

 

[llirik]

Reviving a bit of an old topic, but I'm trying to decide on this as well.

I actually have an early 2008 Mac Pro and decided to upgrade it a bit instead of getting a toped out iMac (i save money a bit, and the 4 internal harddrives are quite necessary for my work).

This is what I do with my machine:

- Design... lots of Photoshop at print resolutions.
- Photography... Aperture 3 mostly, and it hangs a bit here and there
- Video Editing... don't really do anything too big on top of Color Grading. A bit of After Effects here and there.
- A little gaming here and there, not much at all though.

The machine is currently:
- 2 x 2.8 quad-core
- 14 Gb 800mhz ram
- 256 SSD main drive
- the stock NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB card

so now... i think the card is old and suffering a bit with age and I want to upgrade. I use 2 monitors, so as I understand, have 2 cards at 1gb doesn't actually equal 2gb. I only really use one monitor for most of the work, with the second to speed up workflow.

On this thread, there seems to be a differing opinion as to which card is actually better. For my uses above... will i actually see 5880 gains? I dont care so much for the "loudness"... my card now gets really loud when playing on Steam as it is.

Also, since i still DO have the original card (doubt there's much resale at this point)... is it compatible to use both cards, so i can have my primary on one, and the secondary on the other? Or is it just one or the other? I haven't been able to find any info on that.

Finally... im thinking of getting the Thunderbolt Display.... i know the thunberbolt options won't work with the actual Mac Pro... but can the minidisplay still be linked and used just as a display to the thunderbolt. I dont really care to get the Cinema display as i do have a 2011 Macbook Pro and want to take advantage of that.

Thanks for the help!

 

[jb60606]

Hi folks, a few quick questions

I have a 5770 in a 2008 (3,1) Mac Pro and I want to start gaming a little.

1.) Would buying a second 5770 and crossfiring them equal or - better yet - surpass the capability of the 5870?

2.) I'll be playing on a 30" ACD. Does this make either option moot?

3.) The only game i'd be playing is CS:GO, probably natively through Steam rather than through Windows.

Specs:
(2008) Mac Pro 3,1
8x 2.8Ghz XEON
14GB RAM
4x SSD
30" ACD

Thanks

 

[SDAVE]

Hi folks, a few quick questions

I have a 5770 in a 2008 (3,1) Mac Pro and I want to start gaming a little.

1.) Would buying a second 5770 and crossfiring them equal or - better yet - surpass the capability of the 5870?

2.) I'll be playing on a 30" ACD. Does this make either option moot?

3.) The only game i'd be playing is CS:GO, probably natively through Steam rather than through Windows.

Specs:
(2008) Mac Pro 3,1
8x 2.8Ghz XEON
14GB RAM
4x SSD
30" ACD

Thanks

No.

Just keep the 5770 in that slot and get a recent nVidia card, but read up on ones that don't require external power supplies.

The 5770 is super old, but still a great card. I was playing Black Ops II at almost maxed on a 30" ACD.

Note, if you put in an nVidia card, you can use that under Windows AS WELL as under OSX, but you won't see the boot EFI menu, so you need to switch DVI cables every time you want to play a game under Windows.

 

[jon66]

Do you think is worth it to buy a 5870 at a Mac Pro 2 1 that has PCIe 1.0 slots? I´ve got a 5770 which is damaged. This card (5870) will provide any improvement over the 5770? Thanks

 

[judino28]

I did the exact upgrade that you're contemplating. I did see an improvement going from the 5777 to 5870 (both benchmarks and gaming performance confirmed this). However, when I upgraded to a flashed 7950, I saw a HUGE improvement coming from the 5870. If you can score a 7950 for a good price, I'd say that's the way to go in 2019.

 

[h9826790]

5870 is about 100% faster than 5770.

7950 is about another 100% faster than the 7950, plus much more VRAM (relatively).

The above figure assume NOT VRAM size limited. If run out of VRAM on 5770 or 5870, the 7950 will be much much faster.