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nVidia Quadro FX Card for CAD setup

Caporegime
Joined
8 Mar 2007
Posts
37,146
Location
Surrey
Hi

A mate of mine who is very non techy minded has possed the possibility that if he gets a placement in plymouth (where i currently am at uni) next (uni) year he will be giving me around £2000 to build him a CAD and design orientated PC. He plans a 2 or 3 monitor setup, with the possibility of HDTV or sometihng else, but monitors can come later. Im wondering about what graphics card should be. The Quadro FX series are aimed at this market, and i would like some feedback from people who have used them as to how they perform and what they cost compaired to the GeForece series, or the CAD orientated ATI cards. Dont ask me what applications he uses, i have no idea, i just know hes doing a CAD course at uni and wants a CAD PC.

Many thanks
 
You need to find out what he is going to be using on the course first, you never know, you might end up with a cad program that loves fast cpu speed and cares little about gpu power. (ive come across a few)

Quadro fx4500's (7900gtx) should a good place to start, you can pick them up much cheaper than first hand, 2nd hand.

Or the new 8 series based quadro cards, 5x00 range. :)

http://www.nvidia.com/page/qfx_uhe.html - have a look there for the current range and have a look around for the prices and see what fits in the budget.
 
will see if i can find out the apps that he uses.

of course this does all depend on him getting the placement in plymouth!
 
All the CAD PC's we have at work use Nvidia Quadro VGA cards. Gone through Quadro 750's, 900's, FX1000's, FX3000's and now using FX4500's and never had a single problem yet.

Don't just concentrate on VGA cards or CPU. A good amount of memory and a nice fast Hard drive setup can make all the difference so get a nice balanced system.

Best thing to do is find out what CAD software is being used and then look on that manufacturers site and see what system requirements they state. Should give you a good idea what to aim for. Always good to check as they can tell you what hardware/drivers is certified for use with their software.

For £2000 you should be able to get a pretty descent system !!!
 
To re-iterate, for all that extra money for the workstation (ie quadro & Fire GL) cards, it really is critical to check the the particular applications being run will benefit.
For example, in 3D Graphics, 3DS max will, Maya a little, Lightwave & Cinema 4D are just as happy on a gaming card.
Where the application does fully support workstation cards, you get much improved performance, special profiles in the drivers etc.
 
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