Quadro or Geforce?

[Anonymous]

Well here I am again pondering weather I should buy a quadro or Geforce. Looking purly at the specs, the gaming cards kick the snot out of the Quadro cards an not to mention are way cheaper. However I also understand that the real benifite is with the application specific driver optimizations.

I did a quick comparison on a system that I purchased on the weekend that is now being returned and my old system (4 years old). The new system was an off the shelf HP Media Center Quad core 9300, 8gig ram, with a 512mb Nividia 9800GT card running Vista x64. I installed MAX 7 and found that the only driver that worked was the software buffer. direct X7 and OGL both caused the view ports to freeze or go completely white. I compared the software buffer performance with my old system (P4 3.0 mhz 2 gig Ram, winxp pro and ATI Fire GL V5200 128 mb gfx using the Open GL driver in Max. Viewport quality was much sharper without artifacts and the general responsiveness was way quicker using the OGL driver.

Here is my question, Is there any benifit spending $400 on a Quadro FX1700 or even $1000 on a Quadro FX3700 or tick with a hogh end game card? Im just not conviced that a game card will push large textured poly modles with ease.

Other applications I am running are;

AutoCAD
Softimage XSI

[Anonymous]

Well... i read a lot of posts here - it seems people generally agree that Quadro is a waste of $$$. If that IS the case what would be the best gaming card to get? Will there be any driver issues with XPx64?

[Anonymous]

As from what I've researched, the Quadro cards are stress tested so they work without any problems. I've always thought of it like this: GeForce Cards start out with the fastest rendering, then add the quality from there (in terms of hardware rendering), and Quadro Cards start out with the best rendering, then add the speed from there. The biggest issue, is that Quadro FX cards should rarely, if at all, produce errors in maya or 3ds max. They are very robust pieces of hardware and are plenty fast enough for rendering. They should both work, but if you want reliability, buy a Quadro. Which one? I don't know. The 1700 and 3700 are fine choices, so it's just personal preference.

I'm about to build a computer for myself, and the quadro is my choice.

[eodeo]

GeForce Cards start out with the fastest rendering, then add the quality from there (in terms of hardware rendering), and Quadro Cards start out with the best rendering, then add the speed from there.

Nope. That is general misconception. They both have exactly same defaults. Both lines can be set up in exactly same way.

Only tangible difference is that there is a profile for 3ds max already present in the quadro drivers. For the geforece drivers, a new profile needs to be set up(less than 10sec of work, less if you click ok faster). It is set up exactly the same way it would for any other program.

You can always disregard individual profiles and set a global rule that would force aa/af in all applications. aa/af are the only real real reason one would use these presets at all.

Max 2009 does not allow aa on any of the cards.

For the best cost/effective hardware for max, please read my post here:
area.autodesk.com/forum/Autodesk-3ds-Max/installation---hardware---os/rendering-super-computer---help-and-advice-needed/#70544

Will there be any driver issues with XPx64?

XP x64 is for what most drivers are primarily optimized when it comes to windowed directx. Its continualy the fastest subset of all drivers from both ATI and nVidia. Both recognize xp x64 as the pinnacle of the 3d world OS.

Subsequently, Vista 32 has the fastest dx10 drivers from both manufacturers, and Vista 64 traditionally has the worst of the bunch. Not buggy or anything like that, but up to 20% slower than XP x64 version.

but if you want reliability, buy a Quadro.

Another common misconception.

I explained this too many times in these forums alone. Not 1% of actual difference in stability cannot be noted between the identical chips used on quadro/geforce cards.

I’m about to build a computer for myself, and the quadro is my choice.

That’s sad to hear.

If you value your money, you should read this:

area.autodesk.com/forum/Autodesk-3ds-Max/3ds-max-through-2008/viewport-issues-with-maxtreme-10/Page-10/#48487
area.autodesk.com/forum/Autodesk-3ds-Max/autodesk-3ds-max--3ds-max-design-2009/viewport-visualization-problem/Page-10/#74854

good luck 🙂