GT 120 in 2010 MP

[strausd]

Hey, I am considering getting a GT 120 for my MP to run another monitor. I am wondering if anyone has any experience with doing this and what you think. My main application is Maya and I was curious if running any other windows on the monitor on the GT 120 would cause some problems with openGL in Maya. Also, how slow are these GPUs? I don't plan on doing anything major with it besides having some windows open like my hypershade, UV texture editor, and stuff like that, and possibly a movie every now and then. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[bluesteel]

i'd be interested in knowing the same thing

 

[Transporteur]

I can't speak for Maya, but unless you've got another Nvidia card in your system, the GT120 will be chosen by default for GPU acceleration by some applications.

If Maya explicitly offers a selection of GPUs, you'll be fine though. Hardware wise, the GT120 is fully compatible with the 2010 machines.

I can't tell you how fast the GT120 is. In my system, I can't even play a video on the monitor connected to this card, but then again, my graphics system is completely messed up (4870+120, mixed landscape and portraits screens).
If the GT120 is the only card in the system, playback is just fine.

I'm not sure if your card (I reckon either AMD or Quadro) will play better with the 120, but considering the price of the card and the extremely good resale value, it might be worth a shot.

 

[strausd]

I can't speak for Maya, but unless you've got another Nvidia card in your system, the GT120 will be chosen by default for GPU acceleration by some applications.

If Maya explicitly offers a selection of GPUs, you'll be fine though. Hardware wise, the GT120 is fully compatible with the 2010 machines.

I can't tell you how fast the GT120 is. In my system, I can't even play a video on the monitor connected to this card, but then again, my graphics system is completely messed up (4870+120, mixed landscape and portraits screens).
If the GT120 is the only card in the system, playback is just fine.

I'm not sure if your card (I reckon either AMD or Quadro) will play better with the 120, but considering the price of the card and the extremely good resale value, it might be worth a shot.

Right now I have a 5870 in there. If it causes problems, I can always just buy an active adapter from accel, this one in particular. Then I can just use the 120 for my TV.

So has anyone else had any playback problems with a 120/5870 combo? Also, does anyone have any experience using that adapter to get 3 monitors working on a 5870?

 

[Transporteur]

Also, does anyone have any experience using that adapter to get 3 monitors working on a 5870?

That very adapter is AMD certified and works fine with a triple monitor setup on the Eyefinity cards. There are several users that use that adapter with no problems whatsoever.

 

[strausd]

That very adapter is AMD certified and works fine with a triple monitor setup on the Eyefinity cards. There are several users that use that adapter with no problems whatsoever.

Awesome! Do you know if having 3 monitors run on a single card can slow it down any?

 

[Transporteur]

If your application is dependant on as much VRAM as it can get then yes, multiple monitors on a single card will result in performance decreases.

Your 5870 has 1GB of RAM, divide that with the amount of monitors you want to connect to it to get the VRAM available for each monitor. Regardless of the resolutions, each monitor will get the same amount, so two monitors 512MB each, three monitors 333MB.

For normal desktop use 333MB is perfectly fine (I'm running 256 for each monitor and never experienced any slow downs), but it might actually be not enough for 3D software like Maya.

 

[strausd]

If your application is dependant on as much VRAM as it can get then yes, multiple monitors on a single card will result in performance decreases.

Your 5870 has 1GB of RAM, divide that with the amount of monitors you want to connect to it to get the VRAM available for each monitor. Regardless of the resolutions, each monitor will get the same amount, so two monitors 512MB each, three monitors 333MB.

For normal desktop use 333MB is perfectly fine (I'm running 256 for each monitor and never experienced any slow downs), but it might actually be not enough for 3D software like Maya.

I think I will have to try it out to see if there are any major slow downs. I'll probably check to see if having both GPUs causes any openGL slow downs too.

Does anyone have any experience with Maya slow downs while running 3 monitors on a card or openGL problems with a 5870 and GT 120?

 

[minifridge1138]

I'm running a 5870 and a GT120 in my '09.
I have no issues.
I don't use Maya much, but everything works fine.