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pirateyarrr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
125
0
Supposedly I can drive up to 2560x1600 on each monitor (I have 2 old 1080p monitors already) with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120. I'm adding a third monitor to the mix (with a second GT 120 card) and wanted to know if anyone's encountered any issues with adding a new/newish monitor to such an old setup. Thanks.
 

Berenod

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2020
125
170
Concur here, the gt120 is a very slow card, and would likely struggle at the higher resolution.
If I remember the more decent card sold at the time of the 4.1(2009) was the GTX 285.
You probably can pick them up at a decently low price (have some lying around, not really bothered selling due to low prices), only thing is you'd only have two DVI connections ...
 

StuAff

macrumors 6502
Aug 6, 2007
391
261
Portsmouth, UK
The GT 120 is absolutely hopeless as anything other than a backup or to give you a boot screen if you have a non-Mac EFI GPU. 4K is impossible with those, 2560x1440 would be very, very, very (add more verys) slow. Even at current inflated prices, you should go for one of the supported Radeon RX4/500 series models.
 

pirateyarrr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
125
0
The GT 120 is absolutely hopeless as anything other than a backup or to give you a boot screen if you have a non-Mac EFI GPU. 4K is impossible with those, 2560x1440 would be very, very, very (add more verys) slow. Even at current inflated prices, you should go for one of the supported Radeon RX4/500 series models.
Wrong.

It took some experimenting, but I got it working with a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable. (the mini-DP-to-HDMI only gave me 1080).

Performance is great. All three monitors are running beautifully with no lag.

Just posting this on the off chance that anyone else with an old Mac Pro tower is considering adding a video card to add a third monitor (1440p). It can be done, with very satisfactory results.
 

StuAff

macrumors 6502
Aug 6, 2007
391
261
Portsmouth, UK
Wrong.

It took some experimenting, but I got it working with a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable. (the mini-DP-to-HDMI only gave me 1080).

Performance is great. All three monitors are running beautifully with no lag.

Just posting this on the off chance that anyone else with an old Mac Pro tower is considering adding a video card to add a third monitor (1440p). It can be done, with very satisfactory results.
I didn't say it wouldn't work at all. I knew it would work (even on Mojave and later). I actually bought one, specifically to drive a second monitor. Still got it, in its box now. But, in my case, it was only as boot screen/backup for a non-Mac EFI GPU. No Metal support. No 3D acceleration worthy of the name. Performance is much worse than a 5770, let alone newer cards. If it somehow does everything you want it to do as your only GPU option, fair enough- particularly the way GPU prices are at the moment (I could still get my money back for my RX 580 after four years of use!). GT120s are still cheap (£25 on eBay). But you could have spent a bit more, driven all those monitors from one card, at much higher performance, given yourself the option of running Mojave and later OSs, and perhaps be wondering why you didn't do it sooner.
 

pirateyarrr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
125
0
Given that I'm running a 2009 Mac Pro, Mojave probably isn't in the cards. It was a chore to even get High Sierra going (which is what I'm using on that machine). Just wanted a simple way to use 3 monitors for normal mundane tasks. Photoshop is the extent of the heavy lifting that this machine does.
 

StuAff

macrumors 6502
Aug 6, 2007
391
261
Portsmouth, UK
Given that I'm running a 2009 Mac Pro, Mojave probably isn't in the cards. It was a chore to even get High Sierra going (which is what I'm using on that machine). Just wanted a simple way to use 3 monitors for normal mundane tasks. Photoshop is the extent of the heavy lifting that this machine does.
As I said in my earlier post, fair enough. I can't remember HS being any problem to install on my 4,1, but it was some years back. Also it was on an SSD, which (even running on the internal drive bus, let alone on a SATA PCIe card) is way, way faster than HD. Brilliant bang-for-the-buck upgrade. You'd need a Metal GPU to install Mojave (installer won't work with any incompatible cards, like the 120s, fitted, even if no monitor attached to them).
 
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