[Powerbookjunkie]

I have purchased a Mac Pro with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card and I was wondering if I wanted to use a third display or fourth could I just add a second video card later like a ATI Radeon X1900 or NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT? Or does it have to match the 1st one? Would you need any drivers? Would it improve computer performance? Is it as simple as installing any other PCIe card?

[minischneides]

Powerbookjunkie said:

I have purchased a Mac Pro with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card and I was wondering if I wanted to use a third display or fourth could I just add a second video card later like a ATI Radeon X1900 or NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT? Or does it have to match the 1st one? Would you need any drivers? Would it improve computer performance? Is it as simple as installing any other PCIe card?

I am not ABSOLUTELY certain, but I believe they have to match.

Ciao,

Thomas

[smax013]

Powerbookjunkie said:

I have purchased a Mac Pro with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card and I was wondering if I wanted to use a third display or fourth could I just add a second video card later like a ATI Radeon X1900 or NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT? Or does it have to match the 1st one? Would you need any drivers? Would it improve computer performance? Is it as simple as installing any other PCIe card?

I cannot speak to a Mac Pro (never had enough cabbage to get one yet...not to mention I don't really have the need, even if they do tempt me so), but from past experience with Windoze PeeCees, you likely will NOT want to mix brands (i.e. ATI with NVidia). In the Windoze world, it creates driver conflicts. I would assume it would do similar things in the Mac world. I found that in the Windoze world, you wanted to match the GPU chipsets as close as possible so that the same driver could be used.



My practical experience was running a AGP ATI Radeon card in combination with a PCI ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon card on a Dell PIII desktop. This was before typical graphics cards where dual head cards and I wanted to run two monitors. I deliberately choose the PCI card to have the same or similar chipset in the hope that I would only need one driver for both. Somehow, I a managed to pick correctly.



Thus, I would assume you would want to use the same video card or at least similar enough that they would both use the same driver. But, again, I don't specifically know for the Mac Pro.

[macnuke]

no you do not.

unless you are tying the two screens together with video.

yes, performance and maximum usage of capabilities will require them to match.

but for many applications, they do not have to match.