Graphics card for OpenGL CAD workstation

[Devious]

Its time again to spec up some machines for work.

I use a CAD package that has never been very graphic intensive as it was just a wire frame and any graphics card would cut it. I used to get a reasonable graphics card though so the lads could play games on their lunch. For example, last year I got machines with Ati x1300 cards in.

We have just had a new version of our CAD software which now has changed to use OpenGL 3D rendering and my machine from last year is struggling in the graphics department.

Our CAD manufacture also sells CAD workstations (at ridiculous prices mind..) and in there spec they have an ATI FireGL 3400 256MB graphics card. Now, im thinking whether to get one of these cards (or maybe the Nvidia Quadro) for under £200 instead of a mainstream card of a similar price.

Do the dedicated OpenGL cards run OpenGL apps much faster then the mainsteam equivalent or is there not much in it? Will they run recent directX games at all ?

Anybody any experience ?

 

[XtAsY]

Hey there, I've had some experience with workstation graphics cards. They are indeed MUCH faster when it comes to any kind of 3D CAD package. When it comes to DirectX and games, they are actually slightly slower than gamers graphics cards. I've used an Nvidia Quadro FX 3450 with 256MB of RAM and using Maya, it was considerably smoother in the viewports with high poly counts than my 8800GTX. Also, features such as viewport bump mapping were available which my 8800GTX wouldnt do.