2010 MP: 4+ Display Setup 5870 + GT120

[skiffx]

Just wanted to report that for those who are interested in running more than 3 monitors in 2010 MacPro, having 5870 + GT120 works fine. I chose this instead of dual 5770s to use the more powerful 5870 (it beats 2x5770s in crossfire as well) for gaming in windows, and be able to do my work in OSX on 4 displays plus stream movies to a tv.
Also wanted thank everyone who helped in the forums with this idea

 

[Justinf79]

Nice. I'll be adding a 5870 to my MP along side the existing GT120. I've only got one display though. Eventually I'll want 3 monitors.

 

[now i see it]

thanks for that info

 

[seek3r]

Just wanted to report that for those who are interested in running more than 3 monitors in 2010 MacPro, having 5870 + GT120 works fine. I chose this instead of dual 5770s to use the more powerful 5870 (it beats 2x5770s in crossfire as well) for gaming in windows, and be able to do my work in OSX on 4 displays plus stream movies to a tv.
Also wanted thank everyone who helped in the forums with this idea

Awesome! That helps with my question from a while ago, thanks for the post!

Out of curiosity, is there a performance difference from the 5870 when the GT120 is in there or not? I've been wondering how having both drivers loaded effects OSX!

 

[Justinf79]

Awesome! That helps with my question from a while ago, thanks for the post!

Out of curiosity, is there a performance difference from the 5870 when the GT120 is in there or not? I've been wondering how having both drivers loaded effects OSX!

Well, a program could make use of the OpenCL API and use both of the GPU's for calculations and stuff.

 

[Crike .40]

I apologize for resurrecting this old thread

I have a 2009 quad core that originally used a gt120. In August '10, I replaced it with the 5870 and had been living happily ever since. I was being an insomniac tonight and was looking through various upgrades (3.33 proc, ssds, etc.) and ran across this thread running both cards simultaneously. I decided to give it a shot and reinstalled the gt120 in slot 3 (with the 5870 in slot 1). Everything is working great with both installed either in mirrored or extended display.

That being said, I lose roughly 3 FPS when full-screen gaming by having the 2nd display plugged into the either card with extended desktop (game running on the 5870). I lose an additional 10 FPS or so when running in mirrored mode if the 2nd display is plugged into the GT120 but not when the 2nd display is plugged into the 5870 (it remains the same as when I run extended).

It isn't an issue for me personally, because I don't ever run mirrored - but I am interested as to why I take more of a penalty when using additional hardware.

Anyway, I thought I'd but this up here as another anecdotal confirmation of success, with the caveat that the performance was not quite as I'd expected.

 

[Cindori]

my guess is that when in mirrored mode, the two displays are synced to the same framerate. since the gt120 is weaker, your 5870 will downsync to fit the gt120 capabilities, making you lose 10 fps.

but when second display on 5870 in mirror mode, you only lose 2-3 fps from having the 5870 rendering the second image, which hogs up some performance.

just a theory tho.