Please recommend a good Mac Video Card for Phocus

[lumen]

I have 2009 Mac Pro that came with NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 video card. I hear Phocus is very dependent on faster video card?
If true what card would you recommend?

Thanks!

[SteveK]

Not sure how it works on a Mac but for Windows it works fine. I use Phocus on different PCs and on different cards - even on a "cheap" notebook it works fine for tethered captures.

[Dustbak]

The GT120 is not ideal. Yes, it works (I have had it in my MP2009 as well) I can however recommend getting the 5770 which will make your experience with Phocus much nicer. The 5870 even more but I found the 5770 the sweet spot in price vs. performance.

[lumen]

Thanks for all the responses.
I decided to get the Radeon 5770 and also added an OWC 240GB SSD HD.

[bdp]

Reviving an old topic here. I need a new video card for my Mac Pro 4,1. I had the ATI Radeon 4870 512MB. As far as I can see at the Apple store I can get a 5770 for $279 or a 5880 for nearly double ($499).

My question is, will I see the difference between the 5770 and 5880? Most comparison websites I've looked at are gamers comparing frames per second on PCs so I'm not sure how relevant it would be for Phocus. Of course I'd love the fastest performance possible but I don't want to waste money if there is no difference. Some websites suggest that the 5770 is slower than my 4870, so I don't want to go backwards either.

Anyone with knowledge or experience of these cards?

Thanks,
Ben

[jonathan.lipkin]

Are you getting a card because yours died, or are you replacing an existing card? I'm asking because Apple may come out with a new MacPro in the next few months, and you might want to wait til then before making any upgrades. I am weighing replacing my 2008 mac pro, which is holding up pretty well, considering the fact that I'm working with 4-8G photoshop files. Phocus and LR are a bit slow, but did speed up when I installed an SSD as working data drive.



http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_Pro

[bdp]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the reply. It's a forced replacement because it died. So I just don't want to get something slower when I replace it. But I have found a used 4870 on eBay that I might get because it will be cheap and just replaces what I have now, which I think is pretty fast.

Ben