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Difference Between Cards

J

Jaffrin

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 30, 2004
Messages
68
I have a question who's answer has eluded me for some time.

What is the difference between a Gaming video card and a CAD video card?

I know the basics, each is geared for a different purpose; but what is
the real-word difference when it come to a CAD card playing Games
and a Game card running CAD?

Can someone give me a thurough explanation or point me in the right direction?

Which of the top Gaming cards will also run CAD programs good?

I am almost done with a basic CAD box for school, I will be running the
fallowing Programs: AutoCAD, Rhino 3D, Cinema 4D, SketchUp 3D,
3DStudio Max, Photoshop, etc.

Which card is best for me?
 
buy a Geforce3 Ti500 64MB *OR 128MB
then change it to NVIDIA Quadro3
is fit for you
 
all I know is that there are different things that they accelerate. The CAD cards are designed to render a 2d desktop and the 3d object that you're working with.

I can't explain it well... :(
 
CAD cards also usually lack the graphical anomalies that you find on consumer video cards, such as the sculpt tool and isoparms leaving trails in Maya 5 on some ATI cards like the 9800 Pro. I had some issues in Solidworks 2003 and 2004 on my laptop with a mobility 7500 too with sketch lines leaving trails, and dimensions not displaying properly.
 
I have run programs such as 3DStudio
and AutoCAD for years on non CAD cards with no problems.

Will the new Gaming cards have problems with any of the software?
If the focus is all that is different, why the huge price jump?
 
The price jump is an "enterprise tax".

They know the people buying the card are making so much money & paying so much for the software (several thousands dollars per seat per year) that paying $800 instead of $400 for a video card isn't worth arguing over.
 
Thank you for your replies, I hope someone will reply who
will answer the primary questions I first posted.
 
Jaffrin said:
Thank you for your replies, I hope someone will reply who
will answer the primary questions I first posted.
Click to expand...

The difference is simply the bios on the video card and the driver it comes with.

You take a gaming card, throw in some badass drivers for running serious 3d acceleration, change the sticker, and up the price by a whole bunch and call it a professional card.

I'm understating here obviously, the drivers have to go through all kinds of excessive testing and certification to run with all the major CAD programs. And you usually see more advanced display options, like Dual-DVI all over the place.

So it's the same core, with a beefed up CAD driver, and sometimes better display options.

Personally I wouldn't drop the extra $$$ on a pro card unless you're looking to build a serious workstation.
 
Originally posted by ^eMpTy^
So it's the same core, with a beefed up CAD driver, and sometimes better display options.
Click to expand...

Thanks ^eMpTy^ you told me exactly what I was wondering... :D ;)
 
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