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Need a graphics card for a Dual Xeon 3.4GHz workstation

ston

ston

ston

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Joined
8 Dec 2005
Posts
20
Hello everyone

I recently got a nice shiny HP XW6200 Dual 3.4Ghz Xeon workstation and I need a good video card for creating 3D animations as the card in the machine is only really for 2D work.

The question is that if I am using Lightwave, Maya and so on am I better off getting a proper workstation class card or buying a decent gaming style card which will ultimately be cheaper?

Does anyone have any recommendations at all? Unfortunately I don't have £2000 to spend either! :D
 
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The workstation cards are so much more expensive that I don't think it's worth it, I'd get a gaming card.

Lightwave I know doesn't really benefit from workstation cards. Maya will do but not enough to justify paying so much more. Sometimes you can get visual glitches in some apps with a gaming card but there will normally be a driver which fixes it - a lot of people with 3D apps use quite old drivers which happen to be better for those apps.

I strongly recommend an NVidia card because in 3D apps, they perform a lot better than ATI due to the drivers. For example, my X1800XT actually performs worse in Cinebench (based on Cinema 4D) than my 6600GT used to.

Some recommendations :
Cheap - 7600GS
Better - 7600GT
Better - 7900GS
Better - 7900GTO

Make sure you find out if you need an AGP or PCI-Express Card - AGP will offer you less choices & a higher cost but there are still some decent cards about.
 
It's PCI Express as the machine is brand new and screaming out for a good 3D card to help with rendering and so on.
 
If you are just rendering then even the most bum graphics card will do. If you need to display realtime shaders etc in OpenGL applications then get a FireGL or quadro FX card. They are more expensive with the top quadro card going for £2000 :eek: but yeah just get a high end gaming card like ston mentioned. If you gota a lot of polygons on screen then you need to have lots of RAM.
 
Well the card in there at the moment is an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285 which are really only good for 2D work if I am correct.

I do play games occasionally but the machine is more likely to be used for digital content creation and 3D modelling
 
Yeah, just to clarify, Graphics card makes NO difference to rendering speed at all, thats purely down to the CPU.
Only viewport performance is influenced by the Graphics card. But even there, it depends what you're doing. If you have objects with loads of polygons & complex textures, the graphics card will help. But if you have a complex character, then the CPU will be doing all the deformation calculations & IK algorithms etc. If you have a massive scene with loads of objects & lights, then RAM is important too.
 
Interesting comments guys

I keep thinking about a cheap 3D Quadro or Fire GL card and taking it from there. I thought that they might speed up the rendering but if that is the case then perhaps a more modest gaming card may be a better option....?
 
Quixote said:
Yeah, just to clarify, Graphics card makes NO difference to rendering speed at all, thats purely down to the CPU.
Only viewport performance is influenced by the Graphics card. But even there, it depends what you're doing. If you have objects with loads of polygons & complex textures, the graphics card will help. But if you have a complex character, then the CPU will be doing all the deformation calculations & IK algorithms etc. If you have a massive scene with loads of objects & lights, then RAM is important too.
Click to expand...

So basically, everything is important then :p;)
 
You could always get a 7900 series card and then use rivatuner to turn it into the equivalent quadro card using the nVstrap, unlocking the professional capabilities.

As(if) you wouldn't be gaming something like a 7900GS would probably be fine.
 
lay-z-boy said:
So basically, everything is important then :p;)
Click to expand...

Damn right.... :)

I have read that if HP workstations are renowned for being grumpy with Consumer cards though... is that true?
 
ston said:
I have read that if HP workstations are renowned for being grumpy with Consumer cards though... is that true?
Click to expand...
I've never had any problems. If they're designing their boards (or more likely some other mobo manufacturer like Asus is designing their boards) to handle PCI-e 16x cards then any PCI-e 16x card will work.
 
Rroff said:
You could always get a 7900 series card and then use rivatuner to turn it into the equivalent quadro card using the nVstrap, unlocking the professional capabilities.

As(if) you wouldn't be gaming something like a 7900GS would probably be fine.
Click to expand...
He is right, they have the same GPU the G71, so you could unlock the pro settings, just I wonder how?
, because I have a 7900GT.
But i recommend the GTX.
 
Who reckons I should push the boat out on one of these? Worth the extra ££££s?

OcUK MSI GeForce 7900 GTO SILENT 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
 
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