video card for early 2008 mac pro

NONE. Not until you upgrade beyond 10.5.1.

There is really only one good replacement, and that is ATI 5770 which will require 10.6.5+.

There are others but not new Apple stock, you are left to ebay and 3rd party.

For 10.5.8 there use to be other cards but 10.5.1 came out 4 yrs ago.

I'll reinforce The hatter's recommendation as I just did install the ATI 5770 in my Mac Pro3,1 (same as yours) but running Mac OS 10.6.8. I purchased it online new for $229.00.

If you need to use Mini DisplayPort adapters/cables, they must be inserted until essentially ALL of the metal part disappers inside the jack. Some users stop pushing at the first resistance, and they will not work that way..

Do you get any HDCP errors in iTunes with purchased HD content with the 5770? Happened to me when I replaced 8800GT with GT-120. Had to return the GT-120. Display was Apple 30.

Before I bought the ATI 5770 I read this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3891?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

When I pointed this out to someone, they said, "This shouldn't matter unless you buy HD movies in iTunes, they are HDCP protected, and you want to watch them on your computer (instead of big TV). They might not work even with your old video card, so you probably aren't losing anything. He also sent this and said not to worry about it:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/report-apple-firmware-stopped-dvi -out-in-hdcp-itunes-video/

And he was right. We use our Apple TV to stream to our HD TV.

Where did you buy one for 229

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?is=REG&sku=726537&Q=&O=&A=detail s

I confirm that I did buy my video card at B&H Photo; and, no problems to date. Good luck.

Don and Grant

Thx for info. A lot of times it seems you have to buy Mac only cards. I love the official non-official work arounds

I meant to say, cards from apple through the apple store. I saw that card before at almost 500

Does anyone have any experience with the 5870? I just wanted to verify that it works as well in early 2008. For gaming it seems worth it. Just saw it in bias well.

Yes I have

My original card died in 2011 and it aws a big trouble for me cos I worked in dual screen for ages and that was th point am French living in NL as a music producer.... I spent some times on Internet and finally thru a friend of mine I finally bought a 5870 HD to an Apple certified company in Amsterdam

I wanna to b sure it was working on my Early 2008 .... indeed it works find ( if you running 10,6,8 ) ok .....

Last year I started to experience daily KP which drove me crasy because I was not able to work any more....

I removed some RAM

I removed a Raid PCIe Card

I cleaned >from A to Z my MP ( I thought may b it was one of the CPU ) and was ready to try an exchange

but finally after cleaning disks+ formating + installing OS + all my set up like the first day it's working good again no KP very silencious but ..... Am not able to get my dual screen anymore ????? Bought all adapter I could the minidispla to VGA &/or DVI .... nothing .... I see on internet that it's normal it can not work but it worked for me foe more than a year !!!! I need an answer or some light to clear my view .... Any ideas ??? THX and GRTZ all

http://www.barefeats.com has done a lot of testing benchmarks ever since the 5870 came out and compared to other cards out there. The newer cards 3rd party do require 10.8.3+

I think for $449 you can do better than a 5870 but at least it works with SL.

Grant has some great tips on getting displays to work but I do think VGA is dead.