Graphics card for original MacPro 1,1

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MacPro, 8GB RAM, Twin 30" ACDs, Many TB of hard drives
Hey guys, I have a MacPro 1,1 with a RadeonX1900 in it and the card is starting to act stupid .... so I need to replace it.

Can anyone suggest a suitable replacement. FYI, I have two 30" Cinema Displays, so I need a card that handle driving both of them (or two cards I suppose, if that's an option).

Also I am not looking forward to spending $500 or more on a card ... I hope I can get something in the $200 range.

Thanks,

Allen
 
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4,1 4x2.66, 8gb, HD7950, 1.1TB Fusion (Sam840 SSD & 1TB Cav Black), 2x1TB Cav Black 2TB Cav Green
Easy one, Apple branded HD 5770. I installed one in my 1,1 and it works perfectly, just make sure you have 10.6.4 or better. The card has a single Dual Link DVI, you'll need a MiniDP to Dual link DVI adapter for the second 30. The card is 250 from apple, I got mine at a local Apple store, they don't generally stock them but they had one in for upgrading new units so I didn't even have to wait for it to ship.

Great card, a 5870 would be even cooler, but the cost is obscene, and the 5770 eats everything I throw at it without complaint. It is also WAAAYYYY cooler and quieter than the 1900, and uses a lot less power.

You can always go the flashed card route, but the apple tax on the real plug and play cards wasn't enough to get me to have to mess with it.

Chad
 
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Chad,

Thanks for the response. I'm going to go with your recommendation and get the 5770 and the adapter. I've already called my local Apple store and they do not have it in stock so I'm going to order it online.

Thanks again,

Allen
 
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I definitely got lucky on my card, there are 3 Apple Stores in town, only one had a card in, and they sounded suprised to discover they had one in stock. You won't be disappointed with the 5770, it's at least a 3x more powerful card that draws barely half the electricity of the X1900XT. I don’t know if you play any games, but picking up this card got me playing again. Crysis in XP is very smooth at 1680 with a lot of stuff turned on, and even 1920 works well if you don’t turn stuff up too high. Starcraft 2 flys in both XP and OSX. Now I just hope apple gets around to making better use of OpenCL in FCP iMovie, it would be great to tap the power of this card doing AVCHD crunching. Regardless, thank you ATI for supporting our old EFI32 machines a little longer!

I don't know if dual 30s will behave the same way, but my 22 and 27 like to be plugged into specific ports. A few people I've talked to have had this issue, one on a new 2010 Mac Pro, where one monitor won't wake from sleep. Switching which monitor was plugged in to each port solved it every time, just took a little fiddling. Since I got mine sorted it wakes and boots perfectly every time. Oh, if you do dual boot, you'll need the newest bootcamp update, the card will work without it, but not very well.
 

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