Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Hello,

Some people suggested me to get a gaming card such as the GTX590 instead of the Quadro 4000 or 5000. The reason is that "It's my understanding that since Inventor moved away from OpenGL to DirectX, workstation cards aren't really a necessity like they used to be."

Is this true? Given a choice, which of the above cards would you chooce?

[#2]

Correct, we run professional cards but there is no need these days. Go for value for money and get a top end gaming card such as the GTX590.

[#3]

Which is the highest performance card? Silency is an important factor.

[#4]

We used to run Quadro cards, but have now switched to fast "gaming" cards. Either the Nvidia or AMD cards work fine. We have gone with the EVGA cards, if you register their product within the set period, their warranties are quite long. If someone is willing to stand behind their product for a long period of time, you would guess their build quality is good along with used components.

Google search for graphic card ratings, there are a number of sites that test the card.

[#5]

Make sure that your workstations support the gaming cards.  We have found that our Lenovo workstations won't utilize the gaming cards.

[#6]

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mpatchus wrote:

Make sure that your workstations support the gaming cards.  We have found that our Lenovo workstations won't utilize the gaming cards.

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huh? why.. never heard/seen that before.

[#7]

We tried putting a GeForce GTX580 into one of our Lenovo D20 Workstations and the bios had a fit.

Contacted Lenovo and were told that the D20s were not compatible with the gaming cards, only with the Nvidia Quadro  cards. 

We tried the same test on another D20 with an AMD Radeon 6870 card and had the same results.

First I've heard of such a thing either.  ???

[#8]

Not sure what mpatchus is referring to, but I've got a GTX 560Ti in an HP Z600, and there's not sufficient power taps available-- the Z600 power supply has only one 6-pin PCI power connector, and only one available Molex 12 V peripheral power connector.  The 560Ti needs two 6-pin power connectors (one of which can be supplied by two Molex connectors).

The 560Ti works, but it doesn't have all the power available that it needs, on a workstation with a 600W power supply!

[#9]

what psu has it got tho?  Only reason I can think for any pc to be "incompatible" with a gpu (assuming it's the correct slot on the motherboard).

googling "Lenovo D20 geforce" gives the link below - shows that gaming cards do work on the system, so can only imagine the problem was the psu-demands of the higher-end gaming cards.

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkStation/ThinkStation-D20-and-graphics-card-with-power-cables/td-p/6...

[#10]

I was beginning to wonder about gaming cards.  Good to know.

First question would be, do they still work OK with AutoCAD?

Second question, is the new hot CAD system going to be a good gaming computer instead of a "workstation?"

(NOTE:  If trains stop at train stations, what happens at a workstation?)