These days, unless you're using some really specific openGL programs, money goes the furthest with consumer level cards replaced more often.
Sketchup and photoshop do make use of openGL, but they appear to shy away from using the pro-level feature set of the quadros since most people don't have them.
Buy the fastest geforce you can afford / tolerate the noise from.
We run NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800s here at my office and they're great for Rhino modeling, Photoshopping, CADing, etc. I think it's a pretty good bang for your buck.
The consumer-level GeForce and Radeon cards are primarily designed for playing games, not running applications. Whether or not a particular video card will improve your computer's performance for applications like AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc. is an unpredictable matter. I would probably recommend going to a computer hardware enthusiast website and comparing video card performance charts for the specific applications that you want to run.
This is maybe my 10th post on this subject in the last five+ years on archinect....
In summary: the pro vs. consumer/gamer card rift is 99% marketing bs by nvidia/ati. They take the same chips (GPUs), put them in a slightly different form-factor, with slightly different drivers and charge you 5-10x the price for the "pro" cards.
I strongly recommend you try a top-of-the-line gamer card (around ~$300-400) in your system and with your applications before you flush a grand+ down the shitter on a "pro" card. Even the mid-range gamer cards ($100-$200) are fantastic these days.
I've been running "gamer" cards (both ati and nvidia) in my workstations for years with zero problems. Rhino, Autocad, 3dsmax, sketchup, etc.
Well... no more problems than I had with the pro cards (ATI firegl). All that talk about how their pro card drivers are more stable... is bs.
eh... my apologies for the salty language. i'm pissed at the video card companies, not you. having spent, on one occasion, nearly a grand on a firegl card, then replacing it a year later with a gamer card that ran just as fast or *faster* for about $150... i'm still pissed off!! :D my only therapy is to try to help others avoid my mistake.
Best Video Card
Looking at new hardware for the office.
What's the best video card for autocad, sketchup and photoshop?
I've read alot of good things about the Nvidia quadro but is there a specific model that is best? NVS or FX?
Thanks,
NVS is for traders. FX is for VFX
These days, unless you're using some really specific openGL programs, money goes the furthest with consumer level cards replaced more often.
Sketchup and photoshop do make use of openGL, but they appear to shy away from using the pro-level feature set of the quadros since most people don't have them.
Buy the fastest geforce you can afford / tolerate the noise from.
We run NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800s here at my office and they're great for Rhino modeling, Photoshopping, CADing, etc. I think it's a pretty good bang for your buck.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133272
The consumer-level GeForce and Radeon cards are primarily designed for playing games, not running applications. Whether or not a particular video card will improve your computer's performance for applications like AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc. is an unpredictable matter. I would probably recommend going to a computer hardware enthusiast website and comparing video card performance charts for the specific applications that you want to run.
Some sites you could look at for charts:
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/
http://www.anandtech.com/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/
http://www.gpureview.com/
This is maybe my 10th post on this subject in the last five+ years on archinect....
In summary: the pro vs. consumer/gamer card rift is 99% marketing bs by nvidia/ati. They take the same chips (GPUs), put them in a slightly different form-factor, with slightly different drivers and charge you 5-10x the price for the "pro" cards.
I strongly recommend you try a top-of-the-line gamer card (around ~$300-400) in your system and with your applications before you flush a grand+ down the shitter on a "pro" card. Even the mid-range gamer cards ($100-$200) are fantastic these days.
I've been running "gamer" cards (both ati and nvidia) in my workstations for years with zero problems. Rhino, Autocad, 3dsmax, sketchup, etc.
Well... no more problems than I had with the pro cards (ATI firegl). All that talk about how their pro card drivers are more stable... is bs.
eh... my apologies for the salty language. i'm pissed at the video card companies, not you. having spent, on one occasion, nearly a grand on a firegl card, then replacing it a year later with a gamer card that ran just as fast or *faster* for about $150... i'm still pissed off!! :D my only therapy is to try to help others avoid my mistake.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800!!
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