Decent Graphics Card Upgrade Options For MP 3,1 (Early 2008)?

[elcdbot]

I have a Mac Pro 3,1 early 2008 that's served me very well. I used to freelance edit so I needed a powerful machine at home, but I landed a fulltime gig and so the Mac Pro is mostly used for casual computer stuff at this point. However, I'd like to upgrade the graphics card to something a little more modern since I get warnings when I do fire up FCPX and After Effects CC about the Radeon 2600 being obsolete. My upper limit would be around $500 since I don't want to dump too much money into a six year old machine.

I don't need anything amazing or high end, just something that would work for those programs and drive a 27" monitor. Preferably something Mac compatible that I don't have to flash and has boot screen compatibility.

Thanks!

 

[flowrider]

Same question asked here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1741930/

Lou

 

[gpzjock]

If you forgo bootscreens you can buy a very powerful card that should work if you check with MVC first.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127756
You will need to buy a Mac power cable too.

AMD as an alternative could be http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202099
and http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261503960855 and still have plenty change of $500.

 

[LiamHD]

I believe you were linked to my thread a couple of posts back. I purchased a Nvidia GT210 and although it lacks a boot screen its still a great card. I no longer get the error when opening FCP and the card is great for what I'm doing with it.

 

[elcdbot]

I ended up scavenging a GT 120 off a colleague's old Mac Pro for free. Not a huge upgrade but it at least gets rid of the warning dialogues. I might bite the bullet on one of the cards you guys' linked if I feel this isn't up to snuff. Thanks for the help!

 

[LiamHD]

I ended up scavenging a GT 120 off a colleague's old Mac Pro for free. Not a huge upgrade but it at least gets rid of the warning dialogues. I might bite the bullet on one of the cards you guys' linked if I feel this isn't up to snuff. Thanks for the help!

The Nvidia GT210 is the card I purchased and i am currently running.

 

[Macsonic]

I ended up scavenging a GT 120 off a colleague's old Mac Pro for free. Not a huge upgrade but it at least gets rid of the warning dialogues. I might bite the bullet on one of the cards you guys' linked if I feel this isn't up to snuff. Thanks for the help!

Congrats on your GT120. Good that you got it for free. In the future, if you plan to get a second card to upgrade your GT120, you may consider the Radeon 5770 HD or Radeon 5780 HD. These are all Mac edition cards as from your posting you prefer Mac cards. Another option is the Nvidia 285GTX Mac edition but this card is quite old and slower than the 5780HD though the price has gone done to less than $200. A client of mine purchased my extra Nvidia 285GTX for his 2009 Mac Pro. He does video edits on Premiere Pro and uses the Mercury Playback engine a lot. His GT 120 was sometimes slow and stuters when playing HD videos. The 285GTX was handling it satisfactory from the last feedback I got. He would prefer getting a higher card but due to budget constraints have to make do with a cheaper card.