Graphics card

JerryMungo

JerryMungo

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Quadro or other high end Graphics card

According to these guys:
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/videocardtesting.html

I should be using NVIDIA quadro FX card in my system. What's with the pricing of these cards? What exactly do they do that's different from the cards in the 2-3 grand price bracket? Specs seem low - 512Mb etc.

Alternatively I can use an ATI Fire GL card... can't find suppliers for these cards - what do you guys recommend?
 
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hmmm, what application do you want the graphics card for?

Those Quadro FX and Fire GL cards are REALLY expensive!

I dunno, just checked the sight now, and you doing rendering and such i think, but you must remember that those cards are just mad in their pricing.
 
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mbp said:
Cad - solidworks. Talking about expensive...
http://www.crowntech.co.za/-p-7126.html

Hows over 100 grand sound??? Vrek!
Click to expand...

Well, how does R42885.50 swallow? this is FAR more powerful then that R100k model as it uses the new GTX 280 architecture, so you get 240 shaders and what not. click me

or you could go for the GTX 260 equivalent here for a mere R17647.27.

or you could go from the 8600gt equivalent for a tiny R2100.15
 
scotty777 said:
Well, how does R42885.50 swallow? this is FAR more powerful then that R100k model as it uses the new GTX 280 architecture, so you get 240 shaders and what not. click me

or you could go for the GTX 260 equivalent here for a mere R17647.27.

or you could go from the 8600gt equivalent for a tiny R2100.15
Click to expand...


Ok lol, that last one is in the ball park ha ha ha.... how does the layman spec these things? The software definitely needs a quadro fx series card. Whats special about the quadro again?

Thanks for that btw! :)
 
mbp said:
Ok lol, that last one is in the ball park ha ha ha.... how does the layman spec these things? The software definitely needs a quadro fx series card. Whats special about the quadro again?

Thanks for that btw! :)
Click to expand...


well, basically these Quadro's support the software that the CAD Applications really need, normal graphics cards can't really support it... BUT What I suggest you do, which maybe illegal, but you could maybe flash the BIOS. Basically, you can trick a normal Nvidia Graphics card into thinking it's actually a Quadro. This would be the most risky route though...

How much can you spend on one?
 
I wouldn't like to reach beyond 4k to be honest...
Surely the quadro's strength is in the hardware somewhere? It's in those Gbps memory transfer rates / it has more than one CPU, etc...
flashing it would surely just fool the OS? Maybe I'm mistaken.
 
mbp said:
I wouldn't like to reach beyond 4k to be honest...
Surely the quadro's strength is in the hardware somewhere? It's in those Gbps memory transfer rates / it has more than one CPU, etc...
flashing it would surely just fool the OS? Maybe I'm mistaken.
Click to expand...

Um, no, there is basically very little to no difference in the hardware, it's mainly software ;), but Nvidia needs licenses for the software, hence the higher prices.

Ok, so how intensive is your work in CAD gonna be?

edit:

Seems like this would be your best bet

but if you have R4000 to play with, you might actually be able to get away with using a normal gaming graphics card... you could try the program on a regular graphics card, it should work, but might not be 100% stable.
 
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It's going to be pretty intense but not 100k intense lol.
I am going for decent CPU, 4Gb RAM, etc... and am replacing a 5 year old machine... I imagine almost anything will be better...
 
well, essentially the workstation cards are gaming cards with minor adjustments. but what it does come down to is drivers hey, and the Workstation cards get a k@k load more support from Nvidia etc... but yeah, I don't use CAD, so I can't get any more specific then this...

At what resolutions/number of vertexes/pixels etc will you be working with??? the only reason why you would be moving to the more expensive Workstation cards is if you making extremely complex structures and if you making very detailed environments at high resolutions... otherwise you might have to deal with some lag.
 
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scotty777 said:
well, basically these Quadro's support the software that the CAD Applications really need, normal graphics cards can't really support it... BUT What I suggest you do, which maybe illegal, but you could maybe flash the BIOS. Basically, you can trick a normal Nvidia Graphics card into thinking it's actually a Quadro. This would be the most risky route though...
Click to expand...

I would go with this option, there are guides out there, just make sure the card you buy is in the list of supported cards.
 
We use Autocad Electrical 2010 and Solid works. Some machines has Quadro cards, and some normal cards and to be honest there is no diff. in performance.
And no driver issues either with CAD or Solid works. We really can't figure out why the diff. in pricing.
 
Robocop - that was great to hear - what cards are you using? Is there anything you would recommend?
 
Some guys are even using Intel onboard graphics with Autocad and it's still usable. I think ram plays a much bigger role (we all use 4GB). So basically anything in the 8800/3800 range should work fine.
 
Robocop said:
We're using Quadro FX 1700's and GForce 8800's.
Click to expand...

hmmm.... well I wonder if a GTX260 would be a nice performer :p.

But yeah, I called up my brother, he works in printing and his friend says they use ordinary gaming cards. but sometimes errors do occur with them, other wise they work perfectly well. Looks like the Scam of the century to me
 
I'm actually using CAD on my laptop with 1GB ram and onboard ATI M200 and it works perfectly as well.
 
Robocop said:
Some guys are even using Intel onboard graphics with Autocad and it's still usable. I think ram plays a much bigger role (we all use 4GB). So basically anything in the 8800/3800 range should work fine.
Click to expand...

Awesome, that's great news... thanks. Yeah, I suspect RAM / CPU play a greater part...
 
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