Quadro vs fire GL

[wes]

I've read that nVidia is friendlier for Maya use, though I don't necessarily hear evidence to back that up. I'm investigating display adaptors myself now.

w

[Signal2Noise]

Although I don't use Maya I've had problems using ATI driven cards with many other CAD & CG apps. nVidia seems to be pretty stable for everything I run. In fact I just got a Quadro FX 3000 ($225 on eBay) that surpasses my expectations as a gaming card in addition to being a workstation workhorse. :)

[Szos]

D) None of the above.

[ladders]

D) None of the above.

Which graphics cards would you recomend in the £200-£400 price range?

[gorosh]

You'll be spending much more money than you need, and you'll gain max 5% performance gain over cheaper C2D configuration. Don't make that mistake, your budget can be spent much more efficiently.

First of all, why do you want E6700? Take E6600 instead, it also has 4MB cache, and that tiny difference in GHz can be equalled with minimal overclock (without temepring with volatages, after market cooler etc. - just use stock volatage, with stock cooler). It's just matter of changing one or two options in BIOS and you have E6600 clocked at same speed as E6700, for much lower price. There's absolutly NO risk for your CPU, and temperature won't go up at all (if you're going for 2.66Ghz). If you buy some after market cooler (for example Freezer 7 Pro), you can OC E6600 to 3.5 GHz on air cooling, if you want to.

Also, you really don't need that (expensive) ram. If you're not planning some high overclocks, then there's absolutely no need for that kind of ram, even Kingmax 667Mhz will be just fine. If you're on the other hand planning relatively high OC, much better choice would be 2x1GB Super Talent CL4, PC-6400 800Mhz (even Super Talent CL5 will be fine, but since price difference is not big go for CL4). Only reason I see for buying Corsair TwinX XMS2 PC8500 is if you're into bragging OC, and want to have few miliseconds better result in SuperPi, which is IMHO plain stupid. You won't see any gains in real world tasks and everyday work (in Maya, Photoshop, or other apps you'll be using). You could gain few FPS in games and that's about it.

And third, you don't really need Quadro FX or FireGL graphic cards. Take a look at this subforum, there are numerous threads where this is already discussed, just search for them. Those card won't help you with your render times, you'll only see better viewport manipulation performance, and not THAT much better (there are some rendering benefits if you're using Gelato, but that's another story). You'll do just fine with some regular "gaming" card, GeForce 7600GT or GeForce 7900GS. Quadro cards make sense in professional workflows and high end studios, where every second counts, and there's practically no budget limit (although I know pro studios which don't have single Quadro or FireGL card, and they're doing top projects for big $$$).

With money saved on those components (with practically NO hit on your performance), you can buy better and larger LCD display, or several HDDs for RAID setup, or Wacom tablet or...you catch my drift. Believe me, you'll just throw away your (hard earned I suppose) money, which can be much more useful if invested into other components.

I also suggest you look for some other vendor, component choice is rather limited at 3xs. Most of the vendors will assemble the computer for you without a fee (if you buy most of the components from them), if that worries you.

If you need motherboard, PSU etc. advice, I'll be glad to help. Once again, trust me on this - you'll be throwing your money away, and you can get great system with practically same performance for much less money. My frinedly advice is - don't make that mistake.

[Szos]

What GOROSH posted is pretty much dead-on. Save a ton of $ and maybe lose 5% speed (if that).

The only thing I wouldn't recommend from his post is dropping $ on RAID - when factoring in the potential complexity, and added cost versus the speed advantage over SATA I don't think it is worth it anymore. Also 3D modeling/rendering don't hit the harddrives that hard.

I also MIGHT consider using the money saved on the other stuff and get a Nvidia 8800 video card instead. While pricey right now, it seems to be QUITE fast and the only DX10 videocard available. It might be considered overkill right now, but then again, with Vista coming out and it's ability to offload GUI functions onto the GPU, I would priobably be willing to pay the premium over a regular 7900 card.

[gorosh]

Of course, I just said RAID to emphasize that ANYTHING's better than wasting money on E6700 and tha ram. I also didn't mean RAID for speed gain, I was more thinking in terms of RAID1 or RAID5, for bakcup purposes.

I'm not sure if I'd recommend 8800GTX at the moment. The price will be practically halved very soon, plus ATI's just about to release new series of cards. I think it's not best time for DX10 graphic card investment. The premium is just to high at the moment (and he really doesn't need that card if he's not into gaming). I think it's best to invest saved money into better / larger display, since it's pretty much long term investment, and that monitor will probablly be used even on next configuration Ladders will have, plus it's only component with which you have direct contact all of the time (not to mention how important good display is in creative / graphics / animation department). Buy some quality S-IPS panel based display, NEC for example (this month new NEC displays are coming to market, namely 2690UX - 26" S-IPS based display, with 92% color gamut).

[lots]

RAID doesnt always mean RAID 0 ;). RAID 1 would be a worth while investment. And honestly its not really any more expencive than adding another drive to your system :P

However, since this system appears to be locked to these choices, I would look at another vendor. Everyone is right. You don't need that super high end RAM that's only good for OC. You dont need a workstation class card, and you can drop the CPU down one notch to the 6600. Honestly see if you can find a place that will assemble a "gamer" rig. This will come really close to your needs, I expect.

You really only need value end RAM from known RAM makers (about 2GB), a C2D E6600, a Geforce 7 series card, an Intel Badaxe 2, a good quality PSU and a hard drive in the 300GB area (best GB/$ atm). Naturally case and all the extras are really up to you.

[Szos]

My opinion on RAID has soured in the past couple of months. I can't recall where I read this, but someone's PC had crapped out... like the MB fried or something like that. He had RAID, but was having a heck of a time finding the same RAID controller (not sure if it was built into the MB or a seperate card), but basically since he couldn't find the same controller there was no way for him to read his data since it was stiped across multiple drives. Not sure what ended up happening, but maybe running a drive as redundant is safe, but seems like you can have lots of issues if you have a controller failure. I am sure that this is a rare occurance - and I would be willing to bet that a HD is more prone to failure than a chip, but still... not worth it in my book.

\(sorry for ttaking this OT)

[lots]

My opinion on RAID has soured in the past couple of months. I can't recall where I read this, but someone's PC had crapped out... like the MB fried or something like that. He had RAID, but was having a heck of a time finding the same RAID controller (not sure if it was built into the MB or a seperate card), but basically since he couldn't find the same controller there was no way for him to read his data since it was stiped across multiple drives. Not sure what ended up happening, but maybe running a drive as redundant is safe, but seems like you can have lots of issues if you have a controller failure. I am sure that this is a rare occurance - and I would be willing to bet that a HD is more prone to failure than a chip, but still... not worth it in my book.

\(sorry for ttaking this OT)
But this wont happen to a RAID 1 array. If a similar situation happens to a RAID 1 array, you can just hook up one drive and all your data should be there. It really only is related to RAID 0, which is by far the worst of the modes in terms of stability and recoverability. Granted if you go to higher RAID modes, you generally go after stand alone cards from known good brands :P so this problem isn't really a problem in those modes either..

Anyway enough about RAID :)

[ladders]

cheers for the advice i think you may have saved me from a big mistake.
ive been spending to much time with people who convinced me to get the highest number products i could afford (e.g E6700 instead of E6600 etc) its a pretty naive way of viewing things i suppose, and an easy way to waist hard earned cash.

Ive got my university interview for a computer animation course in a couple of weeks.

i'll take into account what you guys have told me as well as what the guys at the uni think, and i should be able to get myself the right setup, i think they can also work out a discount if i get a place.
im definately not going to get the previous 3xs system as some of the choice is quite limited.

[gorosh]

cheers for the advice i think you may have saved me from a big mistake.
ive been spending to much time with people who convinced me to get the highest number products i could afford (e.g E6700 instead of E6600 etc) its a pretty naive way of viewing things i suppose, and an easy way to waist hard earned cash.

It's exactly the opposite - never buy "first in the line" product. you'll be always paying very high premium for it, and most of the time performance gain is only marginal. Newer buy newest graphic card, never buy highest numbered processor, never buy largest HDDs etc. Often such products are 50%, 100% or even more, expensive than second product in the line, while they give about 5% to 10% performance gains.

Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking you can stick to that philosophy.

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