What video card would you recommend?

[John Musbach]

Hi, my mac specs:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro2,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 8 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP21.007F.B06
SMC Version: 1.15f3
ATI Radeon X1900 XT:

Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1900
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x7249
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A52027-140
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.140
Displays:
Cinema:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1680 x 1050
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

Currently when doing gaming on our mac our video card likes to overheat on us so we're considering upgrading to a better video card. What would be our options? Perhaps rated in order of lowest end possible upgrade to highest end? Thanks!

 

[Umbongo]

ATI Radeo 3870 is what you should look at in my opinion:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI Technologies/100435928/

2600XT - reasonable gaming performance, good under OSX
8800GT - decent gaming performance
3870HD - slightly lower gaming performance than the 8800GT, much better under OSX.

Both the 3870HD and 8800GT have their share of issues, so search the mac pro sub forum before ordering.

 

[John Musbach]

Thanks!