Kick ass Graphics Card

[natty]

Well im looking at investing in (as the title says) a Kick ass G-card, but i would like some feedback from you guys to what really is the best for moving polys around quickly ! so if price was no object what would you recomend ?

Natty

[plastic_]

well the fastest quadro card of course.
but i'm quite happy with my geforce 7800.
it's very fast in shaded mode.
not so fast with wireframes...but ok.
it's very slow with opengl, so you have to use directx, which has some minor display quirks.
i miss the maxtreme driver a bit. but the fast quadro cards are unreasonable expensive IMO.

[natty]

Thanks plastic but isnt the geforce range geared towards Games? im looking for a Pro card. so i guess a FireGL or Quadro... what about the Matrox range?

Any thoughts Guys?

[mike.edel]

funny thing is, both quadro and geforce cards usually have the same chips
the geforce cards are just limited by the drivers
some of them even can be unlocked to be "full" quadro cards

in terms of stability both are the same
geforce cards can even be faster for directx display, especially when viewport shaders are used

stay away from matrox if you need 3d speed, they are great 2d cards, but nothing more

[plastic_]

Thanks plastic but isnt the geforce range geared towards Games? im looking for a Pro card. so i guess a FireGL or Quadro... what about the Matrox range?
Any thoughts Guys?

matrox??
we're not in 1994
yeah, geforce and quadro is pretty much the same (like athlon and opteron) but the geforces are crippled.
i had a quadro 1100 and the same chip as geforce (i think geforce fx) and i couldn't notice a difference in games or 3d apps, except when the special quadro application drivers were used.
unfortunately the new generation geforce cards can't be "hacked" to quadro anymore.
the problem with the maxtreme driver for quadro is that nvidia like to wait about 6 months before they update it for a new max version. that's quite annoying.

[Buck]

quadro 4400, or whatever the latest is?

[natty]

yeah i was doing some research today and it would seem that is the best chioce @ £1300 ... not too bad if t does the job! ... i wonder if they demo lol ..

[muzzy]

yeah i was doing some research today and it would seem that is the best chioce @ £1300 ... not too bad if t does the job! ... i wonder if they demo lol ..

What are you expecting from a graphics card ? What is your daily 3ds max usage, modeling, realtime animations, animation setup, particles...

My two cents

If you are using it just for modeling , any 6800 and up nvidia will do the job. I am using 6800 with 1.5-2 mil polygons + proxy onyx tress, setting cameras for animations, for architectural scenes. I have no problem. I don't say, perfect or smooth it does the job. I believe a 7800 is much faster.

If you are looking for shaded views and realtime camera movement with loaded scenes. You may consider upper level Quadros 1300 and up.

I have Quadro FX1000 litlle old at home, and Ge Force 6800 at work, same scene I don't see any difference.

For the price difference, I don't believe it is worth it.

[jujubee]

I see a big difference between my 6800 GT OC (soft modded to a Quadro 4000) and my 7800. The 7800 just rocks but keep in mind you will want a new motherboard with PCI Express (as AGP is getting outdated) on it.

[DaForce]

you will be paying a shit load of money for a card that doesnt perform any where near the cost increase/performance increase.

So yeah if money is no option get the best/fastest quadro around. But you could also get a 7800 and have about 1/2 - 3/4 of the peformance maybe even more (dont have results on me at the moment) and save a lot of money.
But if all your after is performance and price dont matter.. then by all means. Get the top level quadro

[chris-x//]

I had my hands on a quadro 4400, and it was simply disapointing for the price it costs... well they bought that for some genlock thing i dunno about, something about video, well, disappointing in max. No crucial difference with a quadro 1400 in terms of viewport display. I just received a 7800 go GTX in my dell laptop, and wow it kicks ass (Go Gtx) no need to say a 7800 gtx for desktop must rock. Even if it's games aimed, it suits 3D perfectly. I don't really think the price of an high end quadro card is really worth it.

[DaForce]

Amen to that.

[mike.edel]

as a side note: if you intend to genloc (sync the output of multiple machines to render scenes that are too heavy for single machines) you need quadro cards (but only the top models support it)
other than that you really should be fine with a high-end geforce

[joconnell]

Get yourself a top line geforce and use direct x - works great here and like others I've been dissappointed with pro level cards - max has bad driver support so you won't see the benefit. Spend the money on yourself instead

[jujubee]

I wish there was a chart which plotted benchmarks of top of the line gaming cards over professional ones, and determine when the gaming cards surpase the main professional card benefits.

For instance, are we talking about a year lag before a $1800 pro card is surpassed by a $500 gaming one?