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londonsam
08-10-2005, 11:46 AM
With all the threads on graphics cards and performance I am getting a bit confused so I'm hoping someone can help me out by simplifying things a bit.
I'm building a new machine and am wondering which would be the best way to go in the graphics card department; A low end workstation card like the ATi Fire GL v3100 or something like the Xfx 256Mb GeForce 6800 both seem to run in the £130 range which is the around what i am willing to spend on the card.
And is there any point in actually buying the Fire GL when I can softmod a Radeon to a GL (there is a thread here for that somewhere)??


I do quite a bit of work on Autocad and 3Ds Max, however occasionally I also like to play games, and would like a good result in that deparment.

I will be using an Asus P5WD2 Premium mobo which I should be recieving today. So hopefully I will have a working machine by next week once I get a few bits sorted (chip, ram, hdd, and of course the graphics card..:)).

Thanks guys.
happychopper
08-10-2005, 01:35 PM
We've got one machine with a 6800 gt and one with a quadro 980 xgl and the geforce beats the quadro hands down on everything speed related. One problem though, you can't run the Quadro Maxtreme drivers on the geforce (unless you've got a techie persuasion to mod them) so you don't get useful highend features like support of really hi res textures in the viewports - useful if you do architectural stuff - and good transparency... it's all just a little bit not quite as well supported.

The games are great on the geforce but when they say the game cards are game cards and workstation cards are workie cards, they mean it (and it's mostly due to the drivers).

There's been times when I've really really needed some hi res texture support and kicked myself for ever suggesting that we try a game card! That old work/play tradeoff....

Phil

ps. I can only speak for those two cards - dunno about ati cards
londonsam
08-10-2005, 02:27 PM
Thanks for the reply chopper,

I gather from your answer that IF you could mod the geforce so that you can use the OGL drivers in Max then that would be the better option so you get the best of both worlds??
happychopper
08-11-2005, 02:52 PM
Don't know - never done it - lots of discussion about it in these forums - I'm pretty sure the improvement is a lot - it's just a case of if ya prepared to void ya warranty and get messy with a shiny new card!
happychopper
08-11-2005, 03:04 PM
added bonus bit of message: My mate Ollie brought a Quadro 3000 off ebay a few months ago for 260 odd quid - that way he got a monstor workstation card and it's pretty fat on the games side - so he tells me. Think most recent Geforces are faster in games/direct3D still, but it ain't bad.
londonsam
08-11-2005, 11:53 PM
Thanks for the bonus, I haven't looked to see what things are going for in ebay lately.
Still 250 was a bit more than I was hoping to go for.
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