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Dual ATi 5770 Myth

D

DonMega

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 8, 2007
119
0
Okay,

I was in an Apple Retail store which shall remain nameless. I was asking about an upgrade from the OEM 5770 to the OEM 5870 and was ready to plunk down my money. The "Genius" that talked to told me that it would be a better buy to purchase another OEM 5770 because my 2010 Mac Pro would be able to use the processing power of that second card even though nothing is plugged into it.

WHAT????? Is he thinking about Crossfire capability on a PC? Please tell me that this is a myth and this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Or is this somehow true?

CONFUSED!
 
perhaps he meant OpenCL

but no, a single 5870 will be faster


apple ppl usually dont know what they are talking bout
 
DonMega said:
Okay,

I was in an Apple Retail store which shall remain nameless. I was asking about an upgrade from the OEM 5770 to the OEM 5870 and was ready to plunk down my money. The "Genius" that talked to told me that it would be a better buy to purchase another OEM 5770 because my 2010 Mac Pro would be able to use the processing power of that second card even though nothing is plugged into it.

WHAT????? Is he thinking about Crossfire capability on a PC? Please tell me that this is a myth and this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Or is this somehow true?

CONFUSED!
Click to expand...

as far as i know macs donnot support crossfire, and unlinked cards will provide no benefit to monitors not hooked directly to them.
 
Yeah, OS X doesn't do crossfire. Not sure what that guy was thinking, but you were correct in your thought that the 5870 would be better. Sometimes people at the apple stores have no clue what they are talking about.
 
Thanks guys, I didn't think that was right. Okay, a corollary to that first question. My main apps are Aperture 3.x, Adobe CS (soon to be 5.5), and every now and then COD MW as a stress reliever :D. Will I really benefit on the production side? I know COD will but my main concern is Aperture and it's brushes and adjustments.

Thanks in advance,

NO LONGER CONFUSED!
 
DonMega said:
Thanks guys, I didn't think that was right. Okay, a corollary to that first question. My main apps are Aperture 3.x, Adobe CS (soon to be 5.5), and every now and then COD MW as a stress reliever :D. Will I really benefit on the production side? I know COD will but my main concern is Aperture and it's brushes and adjustments.

Thanks in advance,

NO LONGER CONFUSED!
Click to expand...

Ahh, the search function. I just found my answer. I'll stick with the 5770 for now.
 
Apple does have an option on the online store to configure a Mac Pro with 2 5770's. My understanding is that this simply doubles the number of displays, but not the graphics speed. Maybe he was referring to this.

just my $0.02
 
Cindori said:
perhaps he meant OpenCL

but no, a single 5870 will be faster


apple ppl usually dont know what they are talking bout
Click to expand...

Yeah... my bet is the "genius" heard part of the marketing spiel that Apple tells its retail staff about OpenCL and CUDA and never learned more about it. I remember trying to talk to a friend of a friend Apple Specialist about some CUDA work I was doing a bit ago and he had the same issue.

As Cindori said Apple ppl usually don't know jack
 
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