Legit Reviews

Hello all,

I just purchased the 3rd best system money could buy. I bought a nvidia quadro fx 3450 of ebay to run my 3d apps and graphic design programs. While it does this quite well, it totally sucks ass for games. I know, I know you don't buy workstation cards for games. I was lulled into a false sense of security. My old system used a ATI FireGL X2 256t AGP X8 that totally kicked ass with most games. This card doesn't come close the FireGL with games.

For the price that I can sell this quadro fx for I can get a top of the line gamer card (GeForce 7950 GX2). My question is can I use this card adequately for programs like maya or zbrush? it seems that most cards eventually can be softmoded to workstations drivers anyway. Just need a little advice.

I'm not sure, but I'm sure Brian or someone else can help out when they wake up ;)

The last softmoddable nVidia card was the 6800 series. However, "gaming" cards can do CAD, I tinker with 3ds max 8 and Rhino3D and my 7900GTX SLI can handle it. It just renders slower. There may be artifacts from the reduced precision of a gaming card, but I never notice them. And there are a bunch of features like "triple Z buffering" or whatever on CAD cards as well, but IMO you can get away with a "gamer" card unless you are more of a professional than a gamer...you make that call.

My point is, gaming cards run CAD acceptably, but the render times are longer. CAD cards chew through 3D apps but SUCK at games.

I think I'm going to put my Quadro fx 3450 and ati firegl X2 up for auction on ebay then. I'll just get that GeForce 7950 GX2 with 1gig onboard. that should help some on render time huh? at this point nobody has hired me for 3d modeling anyway so it not completely important that eveything is pixel perfect anyway. Do you think that card would work well (GeForce 7950 GX2)? If I can get enough from selling the 2 cards I could get another 1GB of Corsair XMS2 PC6400. I'm sure that should get my render time down too.

Remember, the "1GB" on the 7950GX2 is really 512MB/GPU, they both can't access 1GB of memory even though there is a total of 1024MB onboard. Yes 2GB of RAM will also help with render times.

So only 512 MB would be available with that card huh? The only real downside would be increased render time and some possible artifacts? I guess i'll see what i can get.

modemmack wrote:So only 512 MB would be available with that card huh? The only real downside would be increased render time and some possible artifacts? I guess i'll see what i can get.

From what I have read, 1GB isn't needed for any gfx design.....only in some very rare cases when using ultra hi AA/AF settings.........

Is it true that workstation cards suck for gaming, and gaming cards suck on workstations?

BTW why 7950GX2 instead of X1950XTX? The X1950XTX is faster, has superior graphics quality, and they cost the same.

cyberneticimplant wrote:Is it true that workstation cards suck for gaming, and gaming cards suck on workstations?

BTW why 7950GX2 instead of X1950XTX? The X1950XTX is faster, has superior graphics quality, and they cost the same.

They used to........now there is only ATI and nVidia left making cards.....(except matrox which are really crap for games)

The only difference now is that the workstation cards are one generation behind....they run with lower clock speeds and less voltage for stability.
It's their drivers wich are different. Quadro / FireGL drivers are ALOT larger and contain support for some extra OpenGL commands not used in games. they also allow better precision.
nVidia are better than ATI for 90% of workstation use........
Technically a 7950GX2 is a better/faster card than any workstation card in both gaming and workstation use.......but it can't run the correct drivers.

G80 is out next week some time.........if I was you i'd wait......even if your not going to get the G80, other cards will drop in price