Video Card?

[jaggos]

Hi
Here is what I am doing at the moment
Dual BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB PCI Express
hope it Helps

if you are in the UK here's good link
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/7800_Series.html
http://www.scan.co.uk/

[DaForce]

you mean you shelled out for 2 7800's to run them in SLI mode.

thats an awefull lot of money!!!

[jaggos]

That's correct, what do you think about the performance? is it worth? II have been doing a lot of research nothing special found so far, lots of bla bla, I know the many is an issue for many but it could be build in two stages, if worth it.

Cheers

[DaForce]

I reckon just get one at the moment.

And later on when they are cheaper ...buy another.

in my opinion 2 is overkill at the moment.

[jaggos]

Overkill you mean in terms of money,yeah? I know, I am runnig out of cash one will do for now, need to get CPU's for this one Thunder K8WE (S2895) any recomendation?
here is the link
http://tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html
Cheers

[DaForce]

Wellw if you want to splurg get 2 opteron 275's

But the best bang for you buck your be a single x2 4400. They are just behind the dual opteron 275's and the dual pentium 3.6ghz xeons, plus they are much cheaper....see the thread below for a better comparison
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...er=asc&start=0

There is a graph on the 2nd or 3rd page which shows you how things match up.
So a single dual-core athlon64 X2 is only beaten by a dual dual-core Opteron 275 and a dual 3.6ghz xeon.
And the x2's are far far cheaper

But if you want to spend spend spend then definitly get the opteron 275's. Fastest rendering cpus you can get at the moment.

[jaggos]

Hi again and thanks for your reply, I have been looking the opteron 275 hmm very high cost here in the uk will cost £1400 for the two of them that's new pc on its own.
Cheers

[meanadam]

Right - spend your money where it really counts.
CPU, RAM speed...

These video cards are for serious gamers that want to push a lot of polys as fast as possible with high res and refresh rates. I doubt you will see much if any improvement in your 3ds max workspace.

I can't really tell the difference between our 128 ATI and 256s. But once again - I can really tell the difference between those 2 and my 3 yr old $900 Fire GL. And that card use to be faster than all the previous ones I mentioned above (Oxygen GVX - 128 and 512, Elsa, E&S Tornado 3000).

[Buck]

These video cards are for serious gamers that want to push a lot of polys as fast as possible with high res and refresh rates. I doubt you will see much if any improvement in your 3ds max workspace.

Only one out of the 4 cards I mentioned is marketed as a "gaming" card. Thats what I'm trying to find out, if the "Cad" cards are really that much better than the latest "gaming" cards. And aparently, nobody knows, I have asked quite a few people and I keep getting mixed answers. I suppose I could just get the V7100 and see if I am happy with it's performance. But then, I wouldn't *really* know the answer to my question, if I would have been better off with a gaming card. Well, I'll keep searching

[davexl23]

Only one out of the 4 cards I mentioned is marketed as a "gaming" card. Thats what I'm trying to find out, if the "Cad" cards are really that much better than the latest "gaming" cards. And aparently, nobody knows,

Same here - love to see comparative MAX benchmarks. SOO much marketing BS, and hardcore gamers don't help, they get excited at a solution that doubles the price for 10% improvement... great for bragging rights, but that money would be better spent elsewhere IMHO

All I want to know is what I can expect between a 6600GT and 6800GT...

[Buck]

Well, if I can't make up my mind in a week or so, I'm going to get the Quadro FX 1400, if it does not satisfy my need for viewport speed, then I will sell it and get the 4400.

I'll also be upgrading my processor to an AMD X2 4400, and my mobo + another gig of ram.

When I get it all ordered and put together, I'll let yall know how the video card performs.


I'm very distressed at the lack of information on these CAD cards, I see so many comparisons and write-ups on the game cards, I see hardly anything on the CAD cards, much less a CAD V/S Game card write-up in relations to 3d/CAD work. Oh well, I guess it's a different market, and a different audience. You don't see to many commercials for a corvette, you just assume/know it's fast. Maybe it's similer for the CAD cards.

[neoVisual]

professional graphics

For your information, difference between "game" cards and "professional" cards lies mainly in drivers. We are using here "game" cards patched as quadro either hardware or software way. Geforce FX5700 Ultra @ Quadro FX1100 or FX5900 @ Quadro 3000. This patch allows you to use "professional" drivers, but this in not always win. Stability and display issues sometimes take place when using Maxtreme drivers, so you have to be careful when using it. It depends on geometry you work with.

Today we are using Geforce 6600GT with dual DVI and with Rivatuner software enabled as Quadro. I guess it is best bang for buck on the market today.

Otherwise, you FPS in MAX is also dependent on pure CPU power. And there for example AMD really outperforms Intel.

Deck

[CarlosBZ]

I'm trying to buy a new G/card too.

someone has an idea what's better between the ATI FireGL X3-256 and the Nvidia Quadro 3000? what brand is a better match to 3dmax or Vray... specs are very even, guess so.

[Syclone1]

In the past the gameing cards worked better in max than the cad cards like the ones by 3dlabs and such, but for say maya the cad cards seemed to work better than the game cards so I guess alot rides not only on the video card drivers but the core code of the application. Ive allways run high end (nvidia) game cards for max and to this date have had nothing to complain about.

Currently Im running a 7800gtx with a 4400x2 and will download the bench utility and run it on this system as soon as I get a chance and post the results here. BTW from working with this card for the past month I like it way better than the 5900 ultra I was using previously.

-dave

[jujubee]

Aren't there posts about gaming frame rates suffering with the soft quad tricks? Initially I heard the decreased memory on gaming cards was the only real difference. That's why I never made the jump - I love my games...