Best graphics card for the MAC Pro 4,1

The 4870 is more than capable for what you are doing.

Of course there is. Try Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 or wait until Nvidia brings the FX 5800 to Mac pro.

Let's add that the Quadro is $1,800.00 in case the OP has a budget constraint.

any chance the radeon 6xxx series will make it to the mac pro sometime after release? or are we still looking at at LEAST one generation behind? i found the radeon 4870 512mb isnt really capable of handling all the games i throw at it (bootcamped to win7 ultimate x64, and crysis, mw2, bc2, and others with major graphic demands i get some flicker and even a bit of screen lag), as if i bought pc i would have gotten the 1gb radeon HD 4870 X2 for the same price as the lesser mac card.

Ati Radeon 5890 or 5870!

Whoa Nelly !!!

We are still waiting for 5xxx ATI cards to come out for Mac. The 6 series cards will most likely be a LONG time away.

FWIW, CS5 is VERY happy to use VRAM on a video card. Look in the "performance" and "3D" panes. Sadly Apple chose to only offer the 512 Meg version of 4870, which literally cuts in HALF how many images you can use OpenGl drawing with compared to the readily available 1 Gig version.

The drivers have surfaced for both GTX480 and 5870 for Macs, indicating that they are likely going to arrive in next 60-90 days. They have 1536 Megs and 1 Gig of VRAM, respectively. Coincidentally, there is an ABSURD bug in OSX that currently d0es not allow you to see or effectively use more than 1536 Megs of VRAM. One of the few Apps able to "see" and use 2 Gigs on a GPU....CS5. Somewhat embarassing.....

While recently discontinued, you can probably get your hands on an nVidia GTX 285 fairly easily. It's not only faster than your Radeon HD4870, it has double the video memory, and more importantly it's on the shortlist of cards that are support hardware acceleration of the Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe CS5. That's a HUGE feature, if you use Premiere or After Effects, it's probably worth the price of admission right there. I've got one in my machine, works wonders. Aside from a zippy system, lots of basic stuff that used to have to be rendered in order to preview no longer require it.

The nVidia Quadro FX 4800 is also a bigger/faster card, and provides even more powerful support for the Mercury Playback Engine in CS5, but it's also vastly more expensive. As I type this the price is $1799 at Apple, and $1399 most everywhere else (Apple store managers, if you're seeing this you might want to check for a price drop).

That's the current max, but it's possible that new graphics cards are right around the corner. In the spring nVidia introduced their next generation of GPU, there are a range of new GTX 4xx series cards on the mainstream line, and just last week new Quadro cards were launched for the high end. Adobe does not support either of them for CS5's Mercury Playback Engine hardware acceleration at this moment, but Adobe employees have said that it's coming in an update soon.

It's also likely that the ATI Radeon HD 5770 & Radeon HD 5870 will be released for the Mac. My understanding is that the 5770 performance is on par with your HD 4870, and the 5870 will blow it away. Both the new ATI cards also boast two mini displayport plugs as well as a DVI out. Neither card is likely going to get support for hardware acceleration in CS5 anytime soon (not really Adobe's fault, ATI are still in their infancy on the high performance/OpenCL front compared to nVidia).

My advice, if you need something now, chase down a GTX 285 and you won't be disappointed (especially in CS5). Otherwise, you may want to wait it out and jump on the next generation if/when it becomes available.

Hope that helps!

There is the booklet your mac came with, or the pdf guide, and if you have done PCs it is rather obvious looking inside.

http://www.apple.com/support/macpro

Connect the power cables to the card.

HOWEVER, now that there are ATI 5770 and 5870s due from Apple.... wait.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/features/graphics.html