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Hi all,

 

I'm looking at replacing my 5970 with a fully compatible card that has full triple head support in OSX. 5970s overheat in Lion and if I do anything that accesses the GPU for longer than a few seconds then OSX crashes. I have a separate computer for Windows gaming with a GTX590 so I don't need the 5970 anymore. I'd originally planned on waiting for the new Mac Pros to come out so that new GFX drivers for 7xxx series surface but I think I should maybe get something now while 5970s still have a good resale value.

 

 

From what I can tell, the best cards with full support are 6870s, is that right? Can these run triple-head in OSX? I can use MDP adapters if necessary. I'd be running a 30" dual link DVI display, a VGA and a DVI and I have all the necessary adapters to run all on MDP if need be. Any suggestions as to which models to go for?

 

Thanks!

Sup Spanky, you are correct on the assumption that the 6870 cards would be the best cards with full support for a tri monitor setup. I'm sure you know that you'll need active adapters to go beyond 2 monitors but you seem to have what you need already but I'd suggest to you the 6870 for the tri monitor as I'm sure it runs cooler than your already pretty hot 5970s sans the fact that you'll lose some performance since I believe the 59xx still outperforms the 68xx cards.

 

I'm personally trying to hold out for the 79xx cards to be fully supported so I can upgrade from this aged but perfectly working 4850. I can only get dual monitors from this card and because of the 512 vram, it's hard for it to push two 1080p monitors simultaneously when I start doing some intensive things which is why I want to go after a 7950/70 for that lovely 3gb vram which would do me justice in my multi monitor setup.

Thanks guys for the confirmation. I decided to go for a 6870 and it got delivered yesterday. No hassles whatsoever, put the card in and it just worked. I had to work out which port combo to use (as I couldn't use both DVIs at once) but it's now working perfectly with my two 20" Dell 2007FP monitors connected via DVI and MDP->VGA adapter and my 30" Apple ACD connected via MDP->Dual Link DVI adapter.

 

It's wonderful having a setup that didn't crash every time I accidentally clicked on a flash heavy site!! It's also really nice having my third display accelerated. Up until now I've had to use it via a USB->VGA adapter that was obviously laggy. I'm happy with a bit of loss of performance going from the 5970 to the 6870. Performance in OSX shouldn't be too much worse as 6870s are only a little slower than 5870s. Windows performance would obviously be lower but I've got a second computer hooked up to all three of these monitors that I now use as a Windows/Linux machine and it's got a GTX 590 in so any gaming I do would be on that anyway - I haven't booted this computer up into Windows in about six months so the 5970 was wasted!

You sir have quite a few high end gpus at your disposal it makes me consider upgrading mine but I'm just waiting around to see what Kepler brings out win the new nVid cards. The performance difference in the 5970 and 6870 is indeed negligible in most cases albeit benchmarks of course. How does your 6870 hold up pushing those 3 high res monitors? I know my 4850 isn't so fluid when I have a lot going on across my 1080p monitor and the 1280x1024 it's connected to as well probably due to the small vram of 512mb =\ . I'm actually leaning towards getting a 7970 possibly due to it's lovely 3gb of vram once Apple throws in full support for the card. If not then it might be two Kepler cards for me since nVid is notorious for only yielding two outputs from their cards.

 

Glad you're happy with your new card btw Sir Spanks.

Ha yeah I am a little spoilt. I used to use my main computer as both a work/OSX computer as well as a Windows gaming machine and I wanted good enough graphics to drive a 30" display in games. Then about six months ago I received a personal grant to spend on a CUDA machine that funded my second machine. The project the grant was going to be for ended up falling through but it meant I got to keep the machine (the grant only covered the graphics card, I bought the rest myself). So I now have a dedicated Windows gaming / Linux CUDA development machine to go alongside my main OSX machine. The 30" ACD goes through a dual-link DVI switcher and the side two monitors have multiple inputs so are plugged into both computers meaning I can have a triple display in both Windows and OSX.

 

I know I could have waited for the 7970 to get full OSX support but it will likely still take a few weeks at best and would have cost 3-4 times as much. Since having a separate 'gaming' computer that I can access with the press of a button, I no longer need amazing graphics in my OSX box. Plus the overheating of the 5970 in Lion was driving me mad. The 5870 is working perfectly driving these three monitors, everything is smooth as silk. I couldn't be happier! Now i just need to sell the 5970!

Sorry to hear your grant didn't work out how you intended it to but at least you got something rewarding still in the end which you're happy about. The DL DVI switcher sounds like a life saver it saves you from having to replug and plug back in cables just to get to the other machine, real good move on that part. I feel I might treat myself to the 30" ACD probably at the end of this year once I get myself another 1080p monitor so I could drop the 1280 one out of the loop.

 

Coming from a 5xxx series card I see why you wouldn't want to drop an arm and a leg on a new gpu as with the wait time for the card to be fully supported. In my case though, still pushing a 4850 I'm starting to feel it reaching its limits on the basis of running dual monitors the animations aren't so fluid when the system is under load at times. I think you mean the 6870 btw =p is running smooth as silk and it sorta shocks me a bit that its smooth as butter pushing such resolutions but then again OS X isn't that demanding on the gpu to begin with. You could always go to the marketplace here to sell off the 5970 or eBay if you so please you'll always find someone willing to buy. As for me, I have a BillMeLater credit line that's just been idling away that I intend on using to get me a 7970 once it's fully supported in OS X. =D

 

Btw you're def not spoiled you just like living life on the bleeding edge just like some of us do.

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