Ati VS Nvidia

ATI is better for the price. A $100 4850 will outperform the $100 9800GT by about 25%-30%. They do use more power from what i remember though, due to using a larger die size, which also produces more heat. I may be wrong though

ATI is better for the price. A $100 4850 will outperform the $100 9800GT by about 25%-30%. They do use more power from what i remember though, due to using a larger die size, which also produces more heat. I may be wrong though

Better at what? CAD apps, or games?

Gaming. not sure how well that translates to apps.

nVidia always performs better than ATI in AutoCAD based products, due to the lack of OpenGL support of ATI. Its weird, because ATI does support the miniGL drivers just like nVidia, but Autodesk stays very tight knit with nvidia it seems with performance because you can select Direct3D or OpenGL for most products, but only Direct3D for most ATI products.

Not that it matters really, because the performance is all the same. Hell, sometimes the default software renderer works better.

Go with nVidia if possible for ACAD products.

I don't "game" so I can't speak for those who do but, shouldn't AutoCAD be your game?

ATI will still work good though. D3D is an available option in AutoCAD under the 3DCONFIG manual tune. I run an ATI at home and it outperforms my workstation at work which has a QuadroFX 1700, mostly due to the x64bit w/ 8GB of RAM.

Hi

I'm planig to make a new PC for workstation

CPU intel i7860 LGA1156 2.80GHz

4GB RAM

as I noticed most of you suggest an NVIDIA card for Autocad.

Should I prefer a (small-base model) Quadro FX 380 than 9600-9800GT series and 250gts?

I don't game.

Thanks

Quadro series. I'm sure you're aware that it will cost you more but I think you'll be pleased with your choice.

What OS will you be running?

Hi

I'm planig to make a new PC for workstation

CPU intel i7860 LGA1156 2.80GHz

4GB RAM

as I noticed most of you suggest an NVIDIA card for Autocad.

Should I prefer a (small-base model) Quadro FX 380 than 9600-9800GT series and 250gts?

I don't game.

Thanks

Depends on your budget. However, I would NOT recommend that Quadro. I have a FX1700 and to be honest it's a good card ($450) but is not worth the money IMHO. The 250GTS would be overkill and draw way to much power. 9800GT would be the perfect in-between probably but double check certified drivers for those selections.

thanks both of you

To be honest I'm not very convinced about the quadro FX 380 or 370. They seem poor comparatively at higher quadro models. With less money I could buy an 9600-9800 wich has a lof of more ram,cpu power than the FX 380.

StykFace I di not understand if you suggested me a 250gts or not.

Now I'm running WinXP, but with my new PC I would like to try Windows7. I don't really like Vista

the FX380 only has 256MB of memory. With gaming cards out there now that are around $200 with 1GB of memory, the margin of performance vs price does not compare. Hardware wise, these Quadro cards are basically gaming cards. Same hardware. The only difference is they have the full OpenGL 2.1/3.0 software extensions added for rendering/displaying purposes, which drives the cost up. Gaming cards have OpenGL but it's considered the "MiniGL driver" because it lacks some very important extensions that only 3D modeling and video editing apps take advantage of.

My $150 gaming card at home works almost just as good as my $500 workstation card at work, and I am running the exact same computer specs. Just telling you from experience, just because a quadro says "Workstation" and "Tested by nVidia with CAD" doesn't mean you have to believe the hype. They are good cards, but not over-the-top awesome at all, unless you start getting into the $2,000+ range, and even then I've heard of them buckling in performance in certain CAD apps.

thanks again StykFacE