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Mac Pro + 8800GT + Secondary card?

island

island

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I have the new Mac Pro with 8800GT video for the primary card. Which is my best bet for a secondary card to run an extra monitor for basic parallels and web work?

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or GeForce 7300 GT options? If the ATI is a good idea, can it mix with a Nvidia card?
 
Get the HD 2600 XT as a secondary card. It's a much better performer for the price when compared to the 7300 GT.
 
I may be getting a 8 core with the 8800 soon. Has it been confirmed you can use the 8800GT and the HD2600 xt? I would be using 3+ monitors
 
you can use both at the same time, what we dont know is if it will bring any problems (like when you played games with the 7300 and 1900x the third monitor didnt appeared, got solve by apple with an update though🙂
Keep us posted pls, I will have the same setup, and sure the 2600 is the way to go.
 
If you have the money (and aren't using the other power cable), you can even get another 8800 GT and run two at once.

MikeL, unless you've tried it, there are confirmed reports of the 7300 working in the new Mac Pro...
 
Tallest Skil said:
MikeL, unless you've tried it, there are confirmed reports of the 7300 working in the new Mac Pro...
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say it if I hadn't tried it. Unlike many here, I relate experience rather than conjecture.

The card is recognized only as a VGA video card, and outputs no video. This is with an 8800 GT in the first slot.
 
MikeL said:
I wouldn't say it if I hadn't tried it. Unlike many here, I relate experience rather than conjecture.

The card is recognized only as a VGA video card, and outputs no video. This is with an 8800 GT in the first slot.
Click to expand...

Huh. Weird. Oh! Maybe the one I'm thinking of only had the 7300 in. That might be different... Well, that sucks for people who want a cheap third-monitor card for their Mac Pro...
 
aaronw1986 said:
I may be getting a 8 core with the 8800 soon. Has it been confirmed you can use the 8800GT and the HD2600 xt? I would be using 3+ monitors
Click to expand...

Yeah I would love to hear from anyone that has tried to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Don't want a fight club inside my tower! 😛
 
Lol, one day you open the case and the GT has a knife on it and the 6 ping molex power connector on the 2600XT is slit 😛
 
Tallest Skil said:
If you have the money (and aren't using the other power cable), you can even get another 8800 GT and run two at once.
Click to expand...
Even if you have he money, it wont be wise to buy another 8800, it wont help in performance, you cant do sli, so the only thing it helps with is to add 2 more monitors, thats why the 2600 is the best choice.
 
faumble said:
Even if you have the money, it won't be wise to buy another 8800, it wont help in performance, you cant do sli, so the only thing it helps with is to add 2 more monitors, thats why the 2600 is the best choice.
Click to expand...

Can't do it... in OS X. And if the performance was the same on the 2600, there wouldn't have been a month's wait for the 8800 GT. What if, say, I/he want/s to game in 3840x1200? Then one monitor per 8800 GT gives you psuedoSLI performance over two screens.

Half-Life 2: Episode 3, everything maxed, 8xAA 16xOtherThing, 3840x1200.

Thing of beauty.
 
island said:
Yeah I would love to hear from anyone that has tried to make sure nothing goes wrong.

Don't want a fight club inside my tower! 😛
Click to expand...

I bought my MP with the 2600XT to get earlier delivery, and have recently flashed a PC 8800GT. Both cards work fine together in both OSX and bootcamp with XP SP2. 8800GT is in the bottom slot and 2600XT is in slot 2.

I have only two monitors connected - one on each card.
 
mrcandy said:
I bought my MP with the 2600XT to get earlier delivery, and have recently flashed a PC 8800GT. Both cards work fine together in both OSX and bootcamp with XP SP2. 8800GT is in the bottom slot and 2600XT is in slot 2.

I have only two monitors connected - one on each card.
Click to expand...
Thanks! good to know
 
Say you have both of those cards (2600XT and 8800GT) in the MacPro, would Motion 3 detect which graphics card is faster to render or do you have to set it up to recognize a certain card? Or are we just taking 256 and adding it to the 512 making it a 768 graphics card? Anyone?
 
Say you have both of those cards (2600XT and 8800GT) in the MacPro, would Motion 3 detect which graphics card is faster to render or do you have to set it up to recognize a certain card? Or are we just taking 256 and adding it to the 512 making it a 768 graphics card? And I suppose when you load a game you can tell which card for it to use?
 
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