Looking for a budget Quadro card

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BurntToast

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Looking to put together an AutoCAD LT box. I know how the consumer "gamer" cards stack up. But for workstations there are less resources. So I have no idea if some card priced $50 cheaper is a better bet or not.

I am aware that Geforce cards can get modded to work as Quadro cards, but not really looking in that direction. Looking more for stability.

I know that AutoCAD LT isnt as demanding as products such as Maya. I'm thinking that I could actually get away with a Geforce or Radeon card.

Ideally I would like to spend no more than $140 on the card. But I'm open to $200 and under if that helps secure me a better product.

Looking for suggestions!

$169 PNY VCQ600-PB Quadro 600 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Low Profile Workstation Video Card

$189 PNY VCQFX580-PCIE-PB Quadro FX 580 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Workstation Video Card

$138.91 PNY VCQ400-PB Nvidia Quadro 400
 
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I don't think you need a professional card for AutoCAD anymore. They moved from OpenGL to DirectX several years ago now. The Nvidia Quadro line and ATI/AMD FireGL/FirePro cards had much better and more complete OpenGL drivers, but DirectX is a different story. I don't think the professional cards have any advantage with DirectX.

Look under Additional Requirements here: http://usa.autodesk.com/autocad/system-requirements/

1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Microsoft® Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card


I would first try a gaming card, if you have something extra around, and just see how it works.
 
Thanks for the clarification.

If any I may consider purchasing the PNY VCQ600-PB.

I would love to recycle my 5850 into this build to give me an excuse to upgrade my gamer box. But that doesn't set well with me :/

Thanks again
 
of the three, the Quattro 600 is the ONLY Fermi based card, and strangely enough, the most powerful. Remember the workstation card pricing is almost never updated. Ever.
 
pgaster, the Quadro and FireGL/Pro cards have very special drivers that allow the cards to work well with programs like AutoCAD. Whether it be OpenGL or DirectX doesn't really matter at this point.

A gaming cards might have more powerful hardware, but the drivers don't support development programs at all and are not optimized.

This day and age, it is possible for that Quadro 600 to outperform a GTX570 just due to drivers and optimizations rather than on raw hardware.

If this were still 2004/5, and the Series 6 and 7 cards were still in use, you would be right.
But in 2011 and with the current architecture, I would say go with a Quadro hands down.

BurntToast, that Quadro 600 has 96SP and 1GB of memory, much faster than the FX 580 which only has 32SP and 512MB of memory. I would definitely go for the Quadro 600 if you don't need more than two monitors.
 
I understand that the drivers are different and help with OpenGL. I have a FirePro myself and have owned an older Quadro. It was a FX 570.

I have seen plenty of Specviewperf benchmarks like this one showing a GTX 280 vs a Quadro FX 4800.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/quadro-fx-4800,2258-10.html
The Quadro has slightly inferior hardware but is 10 times faster in the SolidWorks portion of the benchmark. The drivers are the difference. Of course the problem is that Specview is a benchmark, it's not running a real program.

What I have not seen are any benchmarks for AutoCAD. The system requirements also seem very open and vague. SolidWorks very clearly states that you should have a supported graphics adapter.

Nvidia does have an AutoCAD performance driver here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/autocad_pd_perf_drivers.html
Not sure how much this helps though.
 
Finally found an AutoCAD benchmark. The cards are several generations old, and this is AutoCAD 2009, but it's new enough to be using DirectX and not OpenGL.
They threw in a 9800GTX card for fun, and it since this is DirectX and it had the best hardware it beats all the Pro cards.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/firegl-quadrofx_15.html#sect0

Of course it performs terrible in OpenGL benchmarks like Specview, but that is to be expected.

If you need to do real work a Quadro or FirePro is your best option of course, but I just wanted to show that for casual use in AutoCAD only, a gaming card can do pretty well.
 
some did a review the the HD5870 2GB workstation variant, and the HD5970.
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-ATI-FirePro-V8800-Workstation-Graphics-Card/


pgaster said:
Finally found an AutoCAD benchmark. The cards are several generations old, and this is AutoCAD 2009, but it's new enough to be using DirectX and not OpenGL.
They threw in a 9800GTX card for fun, and it since this is DirectX and it had the best hardware it beats all the Pro cards.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/firegl-quadrofx_15.html#sect0

Of course it performs terrible in OpenGL benchmarks like Specview, but that is to be expected.

If you need to do real work a Quadro or FirePro is your best option of course, but I just wanted to show that for casual use in AutoCAD only, a gaming card can do pretty well.
Click to expand...

interesting to me, is the V8600 is none other than the HD2900XT :p
 
I may reconsider hacking a consumer card into a workstation card but only if its a firmware hack. Not too interested in driver hacks as they are more susceptible to breaking.

Does anyone know of any such hacks?
 
I may reconsider hacking a consumer card into a workstation card but only if its a firmware hack. Not too interested in driver hacks as they are more susceptible to breaking.

Does anyone know of any such hacks?
 
Afaik, the newer cards do not allow this to happen, not since the Series 9 and HD3000 series cards at least.
 
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