which one do you advice me to buy?

Greetings Gentelmen;
this is my first message to this board as a new member.i greet you all

i need advice and would be happy if you help me.
i study engineering and sometimes i have to use autocad,solidworks and some other 3d map softwares.also i m a good gamer
the matter is that i cant decide what to buy and have 2 options.gtx 260 and hd 4870.

which of these cards can be more useful for me?also can physx and cuda improve my modelling performance?i know firegl or quadro fx is better for me.but i dont live in usa and these kind of workstation cards are quite expensive in the country i live.
So i need your help and advice

which one should i buy?
thanks for your helps and comments
Kansu


ps:this is my system;

x2 [email protected] ghz(i cant rise voltage of the cpu coz of mobo),msı k9n neo v3;4gb ram ddr2 800;samsung 932b+ dvi monitor,fsp bluestorm II 500W psu;aopen impression case

in your case I would suggest the GTX260 simply because of the CAD and engineering software. ATI consumer based cards do not always handle those very well.

screwballl said:

in your case I would suggest the GTX260 simply because of the CAD and engineering software. ATI consumer based cards do not always handle those very well.

Click to expand...

It's actually quite the opposite in regards to Solidworks

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1331514&highlight=solidworks


Look on cgisociety, too busy at work to find the post .Even the 4870 stock (no softmods) is a viable alternative.

i thank both of you for your answers.
i used to think the same thing with ''screwball'' about ati cards' cad performance.but the link ''Sixthsense'' gave made me change my idea.
as far as i remember there was a unit in gf8 series assigned for these kinf of jobs;this was the main thing made me think that nvidia was better.
i think i shouldnt think of this too much and accept the gaming performance of the cards as reference to buy.somehow both of them are neck to neck in gaming performance.(4870 may be a little better with aa af)
i decided to buy a 4870 now.i have opportunity to give it back and take back my money in 15 days afer buying the card.i will buy and compare its performance with my friend's gtx 260.if i dont approve i can take the gtx
Also;4870 has 800 sp and this makes me think it will work better with my x2 cpu than a gtx.please correct me if i m wrong but i think that an X2 5600 cpu may bottleneck a 4870 less than it does a gtx 260...

Check out ebay for quadro's or firegl's. I found a very reasonable price for an FX1700, wayyy less than on newegg or any retail place.