Configuring a new Mac Pro - 2nd Hand - Best setup?

[ZAK248313]

Hi guys-

Just picked up a spare machine for the office off Ebay. Only a few months old and got it for a pretty good price.

Processor: Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 2GB (2x1GB)
Hard Drive: 320GB
Graphics: 2 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB

Never setup one of these with 2 graphcis card's and was wondering what the best config is?

I'm waiting on a couple of Dell Ultra Sharps to arrive (Again, spare machine, the ACD's are on all the good ones!)

There's 2 DVI outputs per card. (4 DVI outputs total)

Should I be putting 1 monitor per card? Or putting both on the same card? What are the advantages / disadvantages of this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[chrismacguy]

The only way the arrangement will affect is if the speed of the PCI-express cards is different. (Check in system profiler). Unless you do high graphics intensive work, you probably wont notice.

 

[ZAK248313]

Its mostly used for Final Cut Pro, Uncompressed 10bit editing.

??

 

[Dr.Pants]

In my opinion, plugging in one monitor per card is the best idea for editing at that resolution. Not to mention that, unlike in the PC, video cards cannot SLI/Crossfire… Plugging both monitors in one card will make that card do twice the work and the other will do no work at all (except draw power).