Do I need to upgrade my GT120?

[dubaimac]

Evening All,

Should I get a 5770 or a 5870 or stick with two GT120's?

I have 2 x 27 monitors now, I use an Atlona HD 620 to plug in my PS3. I will be playing COD,C&C 3 and GTA. What will actually notice? I read in another thread here that there really isn't much difference in terms of openGL in the 5770 and 5870?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[xispec]

I was in the same situation as you, trying to decide if I should upgrade to the 5870 from the GT120. I also use the Altona adaptor to play PS3 on the 27" and I barely do gaming on the PC. I was leaning towards getting the 5870 to play a newly release game but that was a huge dissappointment cause the game failed and wasn't living up to it's hype. So I am currently waiting it out untill I really feel I need the graphics upgrade. I only play older games and SC2 on the MacPro and I am fine with playing everything in the lowest settings possible on SC2. So I will wait it out till I really need to upgrade and maybe...just maybe a even better card will come out. If not I'll be getting the 5870 when I feel like getting one. For now I will be sticking with my 2x GT120s

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

The cinebench and xbench results of the ATI 5870 are quite disappointing. But I think it's worth to upgrade if you play games.
http://www.barefeats.com/wst10g6.html
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal05.html

 

[dubaimac]

my confusion deepens. Since I have two 27 screens, if I plug them both in to one card, then the resources of the card are being shared between the two screens. Now with the 2 x GT120's I have one screen on each card. What sort of difference would I notice having one card the 5770 powering 2 monitors. Should I get a 5870 powering two screens or two 5770's powering two screens.

Hope I have made my point clear, is two better than one? Albeit a lower spec card.

 

[ActionableMango]

What sort of difference would I notice having one card the 5770 powering 2 monitors. Should I get a 5870 powering two screens or two 5770's powering two screens.

Hope I have made my point clear, is two better than one? Albeit a lower spec card.

For gaming, get a 5870 on your primary monitor. Keep the secondary monitor on one of your GT120's.

There is no reason I can think of in your situation to get two 5770s. Even if you want to hook up both monitors to the 5870, it will still be much faster than two 5770's.

 

[Shademaster]

The 5870 is at least 8 times faster in gaming performance (2236 vantage points versus the 17500 of the 5870) than the gt120.

I wouldn't worry about a second card for the second monitor. In my experience it doesn't degrade performance.

 

[goMac]

I wouldn't worry about a second card for the second monitor. In my experience it doesn't degrade performance.

It's not really a performance issue as much as a VRAM issue. Running two displays off the same card splits the VRAM in half. For some games, like Starcraft II, that means you can't run on ultra settings anymore, as that requires the full gig of vram.

Keep the GT 120 in as a second card to run the second display. That way you'll avoid this situation. That's why I have a GT 120...