GPU for Architecture Student

[sgrinavi]

So nVidia is probably the better bet here because of CUDA since he'll have CS5? Or should I just go with whatever's cheaper? Or with whatever has more graphics memory? If this were a gaming rig I'd be suggesting a 6870 or 6950, but my pro software experience is limited to geophysics and groundwater modelling (GPU isn't even a factor there), so please pardon my ignorance.

Adobe has limited the cards that they support with Mercury (their GPU accelerated gizmo), I know you can hack Permier to work with most consumer cards, but it might work on PS too)

 

[tonytnnt]

Thanks. Finally got a response. Looks like this will be built "over the summer" so I'll push to wait for AMD's Bulldozer to come out in the hope that it lowers prices (or is actually an awesome processor... that would be a pleasant surprise.) Budget is at $1000 so I think an i7, 8 to 16 GB of RAM and a 1-2GB 550Ti or 560 Ti will work. If this thread isn't "dead" by then I'll try to remember to post a link to the build thread that I'll post in General Hardware.

 

[velocityx]

interesting bit about not being able to flash to quadro anymore

i remember that I flashed my Gefore 4600 Ti or whatever the number was into a quadro. went flawlessly.

 

[limitedaccess]

I believe starting with the 8000 series, Nvidia modified its chips on the hardware level (laser cut).

 

[pgaster]

you can waste money and flash a expensive Geforce into a quadro which will not work anyway and be prepared to have crashes or you can just get one of these for cheaper meant for professional work
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/...utperforms_GeForce_GTX_580_by_Five_Times.html

Not possible anymore, and hasn't been for years.
It's very frustrating to see so many people saying this when it's false.

The last cards that could be sort of modded to have some quadro features and extra performance were the G80 cards, but they were not full quadros after the mods.
Also consider that if you want to go this path you need rivatuner, which hasn't been updated in years and won't work directly with new drivers, so you would also be stuck modding old drivers. Good luck with that.

See here for a modded G80 vs a real quadro: (scroll down) http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539&pgno=9

A 8800GTX modded to a quadro was only half as fast at most benchmarks as a true Quadro which was based on a much inferior 8600GT gpu.

Real quadro cards can be up to 10 times faster in professional apps as geforce cards.
Proof here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/quadro-fx-4800,2258-10.html
Look at the Solidworks numbers, which is test SW-01
A GTX 280 got almost 13 fps, but the Quadro, (with slightly weaker gpu), was at 128 fps.

Quote from article: "A Quadro FX 4800 moves up to 10 times faster when running workstation applications than the GeForce GTX 280. This leads swiftly to a clear and inescapable conclusion: there's no good reason to use a GeForce graphics card for workstation applications. It just doesn't pay."


One more thing, DO NOT GET A FERMI GEFORCE CARD FOR PRO APPS.
Nvidia has crippled the opengl drivers and the Fermi Geforce cards are only 1/3 or 1/4 the speed of the old GTX 260 or GTX 280 cards, which were not fast to start with.
Don't believe me? Don't take my word for it, go read the wiki and follow the links in the footnotes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400_Series#OpenGL_Problems

 

[pgaster]

I believe starting with the 8000 series, Nvidia modified its chips on the hardware level (laser cut).

No, you are mixing things. Some of the old Geforce 6 series cards had pipelines disabled by Nvidia that could be enabled with Rivatuner. Later they were laser cut.
Other changes have been made to make the Geforce and Quadro cards different.
Small resistors in various places that identify the card are different betweeen the quadro and geforce cards for example, plus the bios will be different, and maybe other changes but there are no laser cuts made to stop a geforce from being a quadro.