what would be a recommended Nvidia Video card for AutoCAD 2012

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

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they do 3D modelling on steel structure drawing. Would a 440 GT do, or should they go with say the 600 series GTX? If so, what's an appropriate 1? They are newly moving from Auto CAD 2012 2D drawing to 3D drawing. So I don't know how heavy are they using it for.
 
Pretty sure you want to look into workstation cards, but I'd wait for a more knowledgeable opinion.
 
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/nvidia-quadro-k5000_6.html#sect0

Apparently they haven't updated the Autocad drivers in a while, so the performance difference of the professional version of the card vs the non professional is non existant if you use an Autocad newer than 2011.

But if they ever do update it you can expect a sizeable performance difference... so let's start by asking which version of Autocad do you guys use?

EDIT:
NVM it was on the title :p 2012... ok you wouldn't see a difference at the current time...
 
I would pickup a Quadro 600, ive had bad luck in my industry with AMD firepro cards
 
Quadro and fire pro cards are very expensive, can anyone explain what it is that makes these cards so outrageously expensive?
 
ChristianF07 said:
Quadro and fire pro cards are very expensive, can anyone explain what it is that makes these cards so outrageously expensive?
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The card and driver are optimized for engineering and design software unlike Radeon and GeForce cards which are optimized for games.
 
Domini said:
The card and driver are optimized for engineering and design software unlike Radeon and GeForce cards which are optimized for games.
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Which doesn't necessarily take a whole lot of resources for either company to do when going beyond/building on the consumer driver version, imo. I'd venture to guess that the gaming drivers are way more intensive to keep updated and tweaked since games release at an exponentially faster pace than design software does. They price them that way because, as you said, they are optimized for business use concerning engineering/design software which oftentimes makes them the only choices for said types of businesses, plus they know that most businesses tend to have much deeper pockets than Joe Schmoe consumer (the real reason for the pricing).
 
I've been using AutoCAD for about 16 years now, and from what I've dealt with...unless they are drawing models with tons of unnecessary curves and miniscule detail, they could get away with a "lesser" quadro or even a gaming card.

Software drivers for AutoCAD and SolidWorks (we use both at work) are actually pretty decent for small file sizes. They might be better off waiting until they have large assemblies that drag the computer down on regens and redraws before they invest in a card. The cards we use on four out of five machines in our department are FirePro 3800's and they work fine for small stuff. Once I finally convert everything over to SolidWorks I will need something a bit more powerful since the files will be close to 1GB in size and have around 400-500 parts with complex detail (can't "dumb down" complete diesel engine files provided by the manufacturers without killing the rendering), but until then the V3800's are working just fine. Even the one machine with a Radeon 7450 is working fine doing detail work.

If they want to jump right into a Quadro, the 600 is the minimum I would think of getting, but the last time I looked the FireGL's still were faster at the price point.
 
MasterOfNone said:
I've been using AutoCAD for about 16 years now, and from what I've dealt with....
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can you give me your entire system configuration? From the OS, to the amt. of sys. memory, computer brand name, CPU, etc. and do you use optical mouse or laser mouse or those digitizing tablet? And what size screen do you use?
 
running Autodesk BDS Prem and Ult here for 30 pc's or so and we have Quadro 2000's, in the Dell precisions but I have a handful running on gtx 670's on custom built rigs just to compare and the 670's are of course faster in revit and rendering / 3d ...never bought into the quadro brand, maybe years ago when apps were picky on the drivers and required quadro certified but hasn't been the case for a while

hell two of the guys here have fusion processors in their home laptops and it works fine with the integrated gpu when they want to work from home on their own time
 
Happy Hopping said:
can you give me your entire system configuration? From the OS, to the amt. of sys. memory, computer brand name, CPU, etc. and do you use optical mouse or laser mouse or those digitizing tablet? And what size screen do you use?
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Currently I'm using an HP machine (don't know the model...doesn't really matter) with a 2600K, 16GB RAM, 1.5TB HD, FirePro V3800 (will NOT be capable of handling larger files when everything is finally modeled in SolidWorks..and will need probably 24GB system RAM by then too), Win7 Pro, MX518 mouse and a Samsung 24" monitor with 1920 x 1200 res.

Cad software is SolidWorks 2013 and AutoCAD 2013.

The biggest loss in SolidWorks with using a regular gaming card is you can't use any graphics "tweaks" like Real View, which makes models look nicer.
 
MasterOfNone said:
Currently I'm using an HP machine (don't know the model...doesn't really matter) with a 2600K, 16GB RAM, 1.5TB HD, FirePro V3800 (will NOT be capable of handling larger files when everything is finally modeled in SolidWorks..and will need probably 24GB system RAM by then too), Win7 Pro, MX518 mouse and a Samsung 24" monitor with 1920 x 1200 res.

Cad software is SolidWorks 2013 and AutoCAD 2013.

The biggest loss in SolidWorks with using a regular gaming card is you can't use any graphics "tweaks" like Real View, which makes models look nicer.
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yes, you can..I'm doing it right now with my 7970... which i what I would recommend. it's only a driver problem , which I coded my own..the professional cards actually perform worse than the cheaper/gaming ati cards.. get the 7970 if you plan on doing all of this at home.. if you want real view w/o a problem for work... then get a professional card... if you know how to code... make it work..
 
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thorian88 said:
yes, you can..I'm doing it right now with my 7970... which i what I would recommend. it's only a driver problem , which I coded my own..the professional cards actually perform worse than the cheaper/gaming ati cards.. get the 7970 if you plan on doing all of this at home.. if you want real view w/o a problem for work... then get a professional card... if you know how to code... make it work..
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Since he's not using SolidWorks and probably going to choose the "not code possibly unstable driver hacks for a business" route, going the original route I suggested and wait to see how the plain old software rendering works is easily the best option. If they experience slowdowns, buying a $140 Quadro 600 1GB would be a decent option, and way less than half the price.

For home, I used to use a Ti4200 GS 128MB with the Quadro hack on 2000i and it was a huge difference compared to an older Rage Fury 128MB or even the Oxygen 128 I have laying around somewhere...I think...unless I threw it out. Now I use either my laptop's 8800 GTS 512MB or my desktop's GTX560Ti 448 and they both work fine using software rendering for small assemblies. Even a GTX 560 Ti refurb from MicroCenter (89$) would probably be fine for a while.
 
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