Flashed 5870 vs 5770 - Does it matter?

[Loyalty4Life]

I am going to buy one of these three video cards from eBay. I know NOTHING about flashing and don't want to do it. I am happy to buy the card from someone on eBay.

5870 ($320)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-ATI-5870-1-...eo_TV_Cards&hash=item35af9543d6#ht_2591wt_963


5770 ($209)

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Mac-Pro-ATI...eo_TV_Cards&hash=item1e5f686903#ht_3123wt_963


5770 single slot (more quiet video card) ($219)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=130446904745#ht_2959wt_963



Based on these three, which one would you recommend for me? I'm looking at the these three main things in the card, in order:

1) Graphics power
2) Price
3) Ease of installing card
4) Quiet card



These are just my guidelines. If you have a personal recommendation out of these three, I would be greatly appreciative to hear what you would recommend. I have a late 2006 Mac Pro.

Many thanks.

 

[Hellhammer]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/296?vs=294

5870 is roughly twice as fast as 5770. For only 53% more $, the 5870 sounds like a better deal. Obviously, 5870 is a bit louder as seen in AT's benchmarks but that's only when it is under load.

 

[Loyalty4Life]

Thanks for the reply.

The auction for the 5870 says it comes with a Crossfire cable for Windows. Am I going to need to install that with the Mac Pro? What exactly is that? Is it hard to install? I use Boot Camp and also VMware Fusion.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thanks for the reply.

The auction for the 5870 says it comes with a Crossfire cable for Windows. Am I going to need to install that with the Mac Pro? What exactly is that? Is it hard to install? I use Boot Camp and also VMware Fusion.

CrossFire lets you "combine" two GPUs in order to get better performance. You need to connect the GPUs with the cable. You are not going to need that unless you are going to run a CF setup, but sounds like you are not.

 

[Loyalty4Life]

CrossFire lets you "combine" two GPUs in order to get better performance. You need to connect the GPUs with the cable. You are not going to need that unless you are going to run a CF setup, but sounds like you are not.

Okay. So I won't need the CF cable as I'll only be using this one card.

Many thanks for your help!

 

[Loyalty4Life]

Okay - one more question. And thanks for your help!

What is "5.0 GT/sec Link Speed"? Evidently I'll only get 2.5 GT/sec with my 2006 machine.

What does this mean, and how does it affect me?

 

[dimme]

I would spend the extra few dollars and get a "real" ATI card from Apple. You don't know what you will run into in the future.

 

[Hellhammer]

Okay - one more question. And thanks for your help!

What is "5.0 GT/sec Link Speed"? Evidently I'll only get 2.5 GT/sec with my 2006 machine.

What does this mean, and how does it affect me?

That's the speed of the PCIe. Your Mac Pro has PCIe 1.1 which can deliver 250MB/s per lane while that and all today's cards use PCIe 2.x which can provide up to 500MB/s per lane.

It may affect the performance a little but 5870 is still faster. There are some benches in Barefeats

http://www.barefeats.com/wst10g3.html

I would spend the extra few dollars and get a "real" ATI card from Apple. You don't know what you will run into in the future.

That extra few dollars is 130$.

 

[aliot]

I perfer pay $230 for a xfx 5870 and flash it myself.Pay 80 bucks for labour fee just not so smart for me.

 

[Loyalty4Life]

The 5870 card on eBay has two DVI ports and an HDMI port, which seem much more friendly than the Apple proprietary MiniDisplay ports.

How hard is it for a noob like me to update the ROM if/when it's updated, and what's involved in doing so?

 

[gpzjock]

Flashing a card ain't for noobs, unless they do the homework first.

Start here: http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,322.0.html

 

[minifridge1138]

How hard is it for a noob like me to update the ROM if/when it's updated, and what's involved in doing so?

Updating the rom is not hard assuming:
1) You can find a new rom that will make your card work with the new version of OSX
2) You didn't upgrade the OS and end up with a graphics card that no longer works.

2 is not such a problem as long as you remember to image your hard drive to an extra, bootable drive before you do an OS upgrade. Then if there's a problem you can go to the backup drive.