Can you run a Radeon 5770 and 5870 together in the Mac Pro?

[Fesco]

Hi all,

I have a 2010 Mac Pro currently using the 5870 graphics card to run a 22” monitor. However, I am going to add a second 27” screen to my setup. I do a lot of heavy 3d modelling so GPU power is very important. I spend hours and hours panning and zooming in dense models so I would like to dedicate the 5870 power to this, rather than it running dual monitors.

I have read that you could use a GT 120 to drive extra monitors but I’ve also heard really bad reviews for its performance, making it really painful to spend an extra £120 on it. The 5770 is £80 more and has a lot more power than a GT 120.

Is it viable to use PCI Express Y-splitters to run a 5770 and 5870 together? If so how would it work? What are the dangers in doing this?

I have done some research and apparently you can use PCI Express Y-splitters to run two high-end cards on the Mac Pro, though, I couldn’t find a lot of info on the subject. I’m not really computer literate but I’m willing to do some moderate internal tinkering in order to run two decent cards (which is really surprising for a Professional computer).

Thanks for your patience; I just want to make sure that the GT 120 + 5870 is the only viable route for multiple screens.

 

[goMac]

Is it viable to use PCI Express Y-splitters to run a 5770 and 5870 together? If so how would it work? What are the dangers in doing this?

Nope.

What are you doing on your second screen? Unless you're doing 3D gaming, the GT 120 should work just great. Haven't noticed any performance issues running my second display on one.

Just keep the 3D modeling on your primary display if performance is an issue.

You're also not likely to notice an extreme performance increase as much as a significant more amount of free VRAM.