"BEST" Graphics Card for 2010/12 MacPro

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MacPro 5,1 - 2 x 3.46GHz, 128GB; MacPro 1,1 - 2 x 3GHz DC, 32GB; PowerMac 7,3 - 2 x 2GHz PPC, 8GB
I don't even know what that means, and I'm not a graphics expert - but looking for the best graphics card I can find for a MacPro - not for gaming - crunching numbers and complex rendering.

Is the NVIDIA Quadro K5000 - the best card I can get? AMD's website seems fairly useless when searching for a card, but maybe there is a nice offering.

The NVIDIA card does support 4K, tinkering with the idea of a 4K display even though they are currently in their infancy and somewhat buggy from what I'm reading, but to have a capable card for when capable monitors are available is a nice feature.

Money is not an object, as it is not my money that is being spent.

Anybody out there doing 4K on their MacPros? What are you all using? Thanks in advance.
 

pigoo3

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And from what I can find...the Quadro K5000 only costs about $1700-$1800!;)

- Nick
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MacPro 5,1 - 2 x 3.46GHz, 128GB; MacPro 1,1 - 2 x 3GHz DC, 32GB; PowerMac 7,3 - 2 x 2GHz PPC, 8GB
And from what I can find...the Quadro K5000 only costs about $1700-$1800!;)

- Nick

A bargain basement price......:) It's more expensive, therefore it must be better........:D.... Yeah.....

Have a read of this, in particular the after market cards at the conclusion. The K5000 would appear top be the best:-

https://www.everymac.com/systems/ap...ics-cards-dvi-dual-link-mini-displayport.html

Good article! And showing that the GTX680 seems to consistently outperform the K5000 for less money.

Again, no claim to understand graphics cards. The GTX680 has only 1/2 the VRAM of the Quadro, so I'd imagine that will definitely factor into what the card needs to do. The 680 seems geared to gaming which will never be a factor for this machine.

Looks too like the 680 offers display port 1.1, Quadro is DP1.2 - which if I understand correctly (big IF....) is needed to support the 60Hz refresh rate on a 4K display.
 

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