Mac Pro 3.0 Dual Core Xeon GPU upgrade? (for aperture)

[CPPhoto]

I have a Dual Core 3.0ghz Xeon 2007 revision (MB052LL/A) with a x1900 GPU

What would be a good upgrade to bring in new tech (do i have open CL?) for snow leopard and an impeding upgrade to aperture 3.0.

The machine is mainly for aperture, photoshop, etc so any help/specifics would be a huge help

Im not a huge guru on computers so something that i can just pop in would be good..no flashing or any of that

THANKS

 

[gugucom]

An Apple HD 4870 would be a drop in replacement except you would need to buy a second PCIe cable.

The ATI HD 3870 Mac & PC has a bad heat sink and will only stay relatively quiet if you replace it with a 2 slot heat sink, so no good for you.

The Apple GTX 285 and GT 120 will not run in your Woodcrest Mac Pro.

Your only alternative is a patched PC HD 4870 which is sold turn key by 3rd party vendors. It will have two DVI ports instead of the MDP and DVI of the Apple version.

Other than that there are only 1000$ plus workstation cards. Take your choice.

 

[Macinposh]

What would be a good upgrade to bring in new tech (do i have open CL?) for snow leopard and an impeding upgrade to aperture 3.0.

Dont know about aperture,but I have a MP1.1 for LR+PS+FCP.
I updated to apples 4870.
Quick and painless.

PS : Practically no performance boosts.No surprise though.
Liquify and coulple other filters seem to work quicker though.

LR : Zooms seem to be snappier. No speed difference in rendering as they
use cpu.

FCP : playback is smoother. and you can finally use color properly.



In short: I would perhaps not notice anything if somebody would secretly switch back to my old 7300... Well,perhaps in color but otherwise...pfft...




I personally was thinking of upgrading my 5160 (4x3.00) to 5365s (8x3.00s).
But the benefit is just not there with the progs that I use.

PS will be (maybe) optimized in the next rev.
LR would benefit from them,though. But it works quite well even now,so...
FCP will be (maybe) optimized in the next rev.

So,I probably will just continue using the machine for the next 18-24 months and update when the programs actually utilize all the power.
But,I will get a SSD or two for raid0 for video.
And Matrox MXO2 mini with MAX for encoding. The speedup from that card is insane. Cuts encoding times down to 1/7th or 1/10th of normal...
For 700$.

 

[CPPhoto]

An Apple HD 4870 would be a drop in replacement except you would need to buy a second PCIe cable.

The ATI HD 3870 Mac & PC has a bad heat sink and will only stay relatively quiet if you replace it with a 2 slot heat sink, so no good for you.

The Apple GTX 285 and GT 120 will not run in your Woodcrest Mac Pro.

Your only alternative is a patched PC HD 4870 which is sold turn key by 3rd party vendors. It will have two DVI ports instead of the MDP and DVI of the Apple version.

Other than that there are only 1000$ plus workstation cards. Take your choice.

what is the deal w a second cable?

 

[Macinposh]

what is the deal w a second cable?

dont know what gugu is after on this one,but he might be aiming at if you intend to have 2 gfx cards in the machine,the old x1900 and the new one.
that way you woldnt have enough power as the x1900 needs one extra power cable from the motherboard, and the possible 4870/90 would need two.
or both of the mobo slots.
that way you would need to leach extra power for the,say x1900, from elsewhere.
from the optical bays molex cabling.
for wich you would need the neccessary cabling.

 

[gugucom]

The X1900 has only one power cable, but the HD4870 usually has two due to higher power consumption. I was forgetting that Apple probably supplies the cables (I never bought a 4870 from Apple) but if you buy a patched PC product make sure you get a second cable as well.

 

[bozz2006]

apple does ship their 4870 with two cables.