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Best card for CAD

R

Rizing

n00b
Joined
Jun 23, 2009
Messages
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I am currrently going to build a computer for my gf's friend. Now shes into computer drafting so shes gonna need a card that goes very well for Revit, AutoCAD, and Inventor, sheh also said she would want to watch movies on it and what not. Now im considering about 150 bucks is what shes gonna have for a pretty good gfx card. I went to Autodesk.com to which shows some comparison of what gfx cards are compatible and it seems like a GTX 260 works well for AutoCAD. The only Certified cads are the workstation (Quadro) ones, so im not 100% sure. The Quadro are a pretty penny too around 400 bucks as I have seen on some sites. She said that AutoCAD Revit, etc should look very clear and im sure its gonna need 1gb or more of ram on the card??
Your help is greatly appreciated!!

P.S. If you recommend a great Quadro card for the right price that would be great, idk about workstation cards ><.
 
The only difference really between the quadro cards and the normal cards are the drivers. Personally when I was using cad programs in school they didnt like normal cards (stuff would render weird or the program acted strangely). I don't know how much that has changed now that being 4 years ago.

And there really aren't any quadro cards for the right price, they are all expensive, you could try the used market.
 
I've used autocad 3d 2010 on a 4870 and now on a 6950. I think the drivers are better now for regular cards.
 
What type of drafting work? Need a bit more information.

I`ve used Quadro with the specially tuned & certified Autocad Drivers, I didn't really see any difference with the regular drivers.

A whole drafting department I worked in also used strictly ATI FirePro cards for AutoCAD & Solidworks, rock stable. (+/- 20 stations)

I now use my trusty 5870, and a 9600GT & 7600GT years before that. Unless it`s for extremely, extremely complicated 3D work & meshes, I would say use what you can afford, no more, no less. I could still use my old 9600GT if I were just drafting 2D plans.

I bit more information on the type of work would help narrow down what you need. :)

Y.
 
Yakk said:
What type of drafting work? ......
Click to expand...

OP said REVIT and Inventor, so it's 3d and could get complex really fast.

I use REVIT, 3dsMAX and AutoCAD Architecture. My laptop is a Dell M4500 with a quadro FX1800M , my workstation at the office is a 6 core dell with a Quadro FX5800 , my home system is in my sig (pair of GTX 480's on a D0 Xeon)

In terms of stability & view port fidelity my work platform is the best.

For performance my home system is the best. As a side note, I had FirePro v8700 and a FX4800 in the system for a while, the GTX 480's generally outperform them.


The great news about CAD programs these days is that they are no longer optimized for OpenGL, they use 3d3 / DX9 or 10 so you can, pretty much, get away with a decent gamer card, albeit 'uncertified' by AutoDesk. The $150 range is a bit on the low side for a med-high end graphics these days. I'm actually shopping for a card for my new "lower power" home workstation build and have settled on either the 6870 for bang/buck or, perhaps, a 6950 if it makes sense.
 
I don't think REVIT is very GPU intensive, any 512MB card would do unless you are doing something really serious with the 3D. It's currently running fine on my ATI 4350 ;). And those workstation cards are pretty expensive too, so just save your $ and go for a normal gaming card. IMO
 
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