Ready to get a new graphics card What should I do?

After my Mac Pro early 2008 2.8 2x quad would not boot up the other day i think i narrowed it down to an nvidia gt8800 card gone bad. Iv heard the next one to get would be an
ATI Radeon HD 5770. Im not sure but it seems that theres a few companies that make cards with the ATI chips in them and some have different options, like the dual dvi ver 1 dvi and 2 mini something something.... is one better than the other as far as manufacturer? pricing is all over the place from what I'm seeing. the one from the apple store is $248 but would have to get 30 adapter from mini to dvi since I'm running 2 24in samsung lcd.
Anything i should know?
thanks,
Randall

I've the same year model MP running the ATI Radeon HD 4870 and my research shows upgrading to the 5770 wouldn't do me any good. I'd have to upgrade to the 5870, which should run on our old MPs.

You should get the "Mac" version sold by Apple, as the firmware and such is tweaked for optimum performance on a Mac system. But I've read where others have purchased cheaper PC versions, flashed it, and they run ok. No idea about system performance, though. No where I can find confirms the OpenGL functioning is 100% still there.

But yeah, pricey at $450, but cheaper than a new Mac.

Remember that two monitors cut the GPU and VRAM resources in half for each monitor, and FCP/Motion only have access to the resources allocated for the primary computer monitor. Maybe dual cards is a possibility?

I second Ben's advice. Got the Radeon HD5870 fron Apple for our 2009 Mac Pro. It's really great.

i thought someone here said that the difference in speed between the 5770 and the 5870 was not a huge difference. Im coming from an Nvidea gt8800 so the little i would gain might not be worth the extra $200ish ?????? if you think otherwise please let me know.
thanks

also, do you think its ok to keep both video card installed ?
I have the original ati card from 2008 that came with it. I thought id do my second monitor from that and leave the main monitor on the new ATI 5770. I heard that the speed could be cut in half if i had another monitor attached. is that righ?

Should be fine.

Yes, resources get decided between monitors off a single GPU.