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Aside from gaming, is there any reason to get the Radeon 4870 video card upgrade?

M

mcgowan7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 18, 2008
13
0
Hi.

I'm debating on whether I want/need the ATI 4870 video card upgrade in my (very) soon to be purchased Mac Pro.

I've read alot of stuff, some people say the stock video card is fine. Others balk and say its way underpowered and overpriced. They compare it to other gaming cards.

For the purposes of this post, Lets take gaming OUT of the equation... I have a gaming PC/PS3 for that.

Questions:
- Other than gaming, is there any reason to upgrade the video card?
- What differences will I see between the gt 120 and ATI 4870 cards in my applications. (any apps).
Note: I will run either card in dual head config attached to two 24 inch monitors.


-Mike
 
In theory (maybe), Snow Leopard will be able to make better use of the 4870 than the 120's for general-purpose calculations; might make a difference particularly with highly-parallelizable calculations (image processing, audio processing, etc.)

Though barefeats seems to show coreimage running slower on the 4870 right now (but that's probably a driver issue that will be resolved by the time snow leopard rolls around).

Maybe.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Graphically? :p

The GT 120 is just a rebranded 9500 GT.
Click to expand...

No, technically. Saying something sucks eggs adds zero value to a discussion. And rebranded this or that is a meaningless statement too, unless it is placed into some sort of context.

Besides, based on the reviews I've read, the 4870 blows. And quite loudly too, thanks to its fan.
 
Cliff3 said:
No, technically. Saying something sucks eggs adds zero value to a discussion. And rebranded this or that is a meaningless statement too, unless it is placed into some sort of context.

Besides, based on the reviews I've read, the 4870 blows. And quite loudly too, thanks to its fan.
Click to expand...

Added to my post. Barefeats benched the GT 120 measurably lower than the 8800 GT, which came fairly close to the 4870 in some tests.

Sucks eggs is quite a valid assessment for such a card being in a workstation computer.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Added to my post. Barefeats benched the GT 120 measurably lower than the 8800 GT, which came fairly close to the 4870 in some tests.

Sucks eggs is quite a valid assessment for such a card being in a workstation computer.
Click to expand...

Link please?

The GT120 is doing what I require, which is not GPU intensive (VMWare, Photoshop, Lightroom). I would not be too quick to assume that your definition of what a workstation should be is universal.
 
HELLO!!! Back to the original question please..

People are pointing to bare feats gaming benchmarks, and I made this post because all I can find are gaming benchmarks.

The question is:
ASIDE from gaming, would there be any other reason to upgrade the video card?
What apps would take advantage of the beefier video card?
Will the GT120 handle leopards eye candy exactly the same?
 
cmaier said:
In theory (maybe), Snow Leopard will be able to make better use of the 4870 than the 120's for general-purpose calculations; might make a difference particularly with highly-parallelizable calculations (image processing, audio processing, etc.)

Though barefeats seems to show coreimage running slower on the 4870 right now (but that's probably a driver issue that will be resolved by the time snow leopard rolls around).

Maybe.
Click to expand...

Maybe you guys missed this.

If Snow Leopard lives up to its pre-billing, a better GPU will basically be like giving your CPU an extra shot in the arm...in effect the ability to up it's Ghz.

It's not just to play games.
 
The Rominator said:
Maybe you guys missed this.

If Snow Leopard lives up to its pre-billing, a better GPU will basically be like giving your CPU an extra shot in the arm...in effect the ability to up it's Ghz.

It's not just to play games.
Click to expand...

That is a decision that can be deferred until Snow Leopard is released and its effects on application performance have been assessed. (edit: in short, you can always upgrade your Mac Pro later if changes in the computing environment reveal a compelling reason to do so. )
 
Cliff3 said:
That is a decision that can be deferred until Snow Leopard is released and its effects on application performance have been assessed. (edit: in short, you can always upgrade your Mac Pro later if changes in the computing environment reveal a compelling reason to do so. )
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wouldn't base my decision on what SL may or may not do either. I'd at least wait to see if Apple drops a driver update which improves coreimage performance in the mean time.
 
cmaier said:
Yeah, I wouldn't base my decision on what SL may or may not do either. I'd at least wait to see if Apple drops a driver update which improves coreimage performance in the mean time.
Click to expand...

Either the OP needs a computer now, or he doesn't. If he doesn't need one now, then yes he should wait. Otherwise, you go with what you know.
 
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