What would be a nice graphics card update from an ATI Radeon HD5870?

[chrono1081]

Hi guys,

I do a lot with 3D modeling (especially texturing) and I'm finding that Mudbox is kind of laggy when painting higher res models and was looking to maybe upgrade my graphics card.

I've been out of the graphics card loop for about 3 years so I'm not sure what is good out there that would work in my Mac. Generally Quaddro and FirePro cards are out of my budget but I'm after any suggestions someone can give.

Can anyone recommend a card that would be a moderate to significant upgrade to my current card?

 

[WMD]

Virtually anything, at this point. The 5870 is a 3+ year old card.

If you're looking for 100% support, there are Mac versions of the 7970 and GTX 680 that have been pretty well received. They also cost a pretty penny ($500-600), but less than the workstation cards you mentioned.

I mostly follow nVidia, so... The GTX 660 is about $200 and should still be faster than the stock Mac Pro cards. (Mountain Lion should support it.) You might need a special power cable, if the one that ships with it (or any normal PC card) doesn't fit; I believe OWC has that for $20.

 

[bsbeamer]

can use almost all PC variants of the GTX 680 and save a few hundred, as long as you can deal without having the initial system boot screen. look for 2x6-pin power and generally those are safe options. read through the sticky, has a lot of useful info.

 

[applegeek897]

Just get a GTX 670, its a great card as is fast and affordable, it has also come down in price due to the arrival of GTX 700 series.

 

[nigelbb]

I believe that for CUDA the GTX570 is still faster than the 660/670/680 so if like me you are using Premiere Pro & Resolve then the GTX570 is the best card to get. You will struggle a bit to find a new one although some retailers have old stock. There are plenty of used ones on eBay at good prices.

 

[The-Pro]

I believe that for CUDA the GTX570 is still faster than the 660/670/680 so if like me you are using Premiere Pro & Resolve then the GTX570 is the best card to get. You will struggle a bit to find a new one although some retailers have old stock. There are plenty of used ones on eBay at good prices.

Correct, 5xx cards are better for 3D modelling and CUDA uses etc then the 6xx cards. the 6xx cards are much better for gaming though.

Get a GTX 570 that uses 2x 6pin power

 

[Mr_Ed]

Just get a GTX 670, its a great card as is fast and affordable, it has also come down in price due to the arrival of GTX 700 series.

+1

I've been using an EVGA GTX 670 SC (4GB VRAM) for a few weeks now and it seems to work fine on Mac OS with the known caveat that you don't see anything until it is booted, so you can't do the 'Alt' button to select boot volume. It also works great when I boot Windows 7 for gaming.

 

[666sheep]

This comparison should be adequate for OP's usage type:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1563706/

 

[applegeek897]

+1

I've been using an EVGA GTX 670 SC (4GB VRAM) for a few weeks now and it seems to work fine on Mac OS with the known caveat that you don't see anything until it is booted, so you can't do the 'Alt' button to select boot volume. It also works great when I boot Windows 7 for gaming.

If you want to boot into Windows you can use a small little application the sits in the menu bar called bootchamp.

 

[chrono1081]

Wow I thought I lost this thread for good! Thanks guys for all of the suggestions