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Nvidia Quadro FX or 7800 GTX???

Associate
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27 Jan 2006
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6
Hi

Looking at a system for running Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006 and Autodesk VIZ 2006. I am not sure if its best to use one of the Nvidia Quadro FX cards or I can get away with just using a Nvidia 7800 GTX. I did ask Autodesk for advice but they said they are not allowed to reccomend any card.

Can anyone help with advice????

Thanks you
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2005
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4,297
May be of help..

http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=447230
For quick rendering, you'll need fast processors and as many as possible of
them! You need enough RAM to avoid using virtual memory - whether that's 1GB
or 2 depends on the complexity of your models. (Check the Windows Task
Manager to see how much Viz is using). The video card will have no effect at all on rendering time but will be an important factor in how responsive the program is while you're building your models.

Finally, one thing I don't think anyone else has mentioned is processor
cache memory - you need lots of this! (Normal memory runs a lot slower than
the processor; cache memory is faster memory that is used to store the data
that the processor is currently working on. Viz is likely to be working with
a large set of data so plenty of cache memory will remove a "bottleneck"
from the system.) There often seem to be different versions of the same
processor with different cache sizes, so make sure you get the biggest one!


Seems to suggest that these are most helpfull..
Dual core processor (with more L2 cache the better)
2gig of ram
May be able to do it on the 7800GTX (or the cheaper & quicker X1800XT)

but this isnt my most knowledgable area
 
Last edited:
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A 7800GTX will do the job fine. It wont be as fast as a Quadro though. But then a Quadro wont be as fast in games. If you do end up getting a CAD/DCC card then I highly recomend looking at the Wilcat Realizms. They outperform the Quadro's by a long shot. The 500 version can live render a 1.2million polygon character :eek:. Thats pretty amaz1ng.

The graphics card only displays what you see in the viewport. It wont have any effect on the rendering performance (final product) at all. That is down to the CPU and RAM.

Good luck.

PS: Buy 3DS Max, does everything Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006 and Autodesk VIZ 2006 does in one package.

King.
 
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If you can afford a Wildcat Realizm.....then get one. I know I would. A single Wildcat 800 will give you a similar performance even in games to almost any SLi or Crossfire set up and it will obliterate any combination in pretty much any other way you can compare the two.

However they are well overpriced to anyone except very serious game designers, special effect programmers and the odd uber-high quality resolution photographer (we're talking reading newspapers from space).
 
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man_from_uncle said:
If you can afford a Wildcat Realizm.....then get one. I know I would. A single Wildcat 800 will give you a similar performance even in games to almost any SLi or Crossfire set up and it will obliterate any combination in pretty much any other way you can compare the two.


No it wont, these types of cards are specifically orientated at the CAD/DCC enviroment. The driver team wont be wasting time and money on getting it to run what not game. Trust me.
 
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To be honest I am not familiar personally with the cards, but I have seen (somewhere; searching for links now) how well they do at the 3dmarks and even without optimizations and they can certainly give 2 7800gtx in SLi a run for their money. How well that translates into performance in games I am not totally sure.
 
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Pencoed
man_from_uncle said:
To be honest I am not familiar personally with the cards, but I have seen (somewhere; searching for links now) how well they do at the 3dmarks and even without optimizations and they can certainly give 2 7800gtx in SLi a run for their money. How well that translates into performance in games I am not totally sure.


Why wouldnt the top benchers be using them for single card WR's then???
 
Associate
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Steady on guys, I ain't yanking your crank. The Wildcat Realizm 800 can, by hook or by crook, run 3dmark05 (and I've no reason to think it'll not run the others as well) and score very well indeed. I've not had time to search (a mans got to work too) but I am sure that you'll be able to find the same sources that I did some 4-5 months or so ago. As to why more people don't go for them I think the price tag is the first point, considering they are something like a couple of grand each, and secondly they are not optimised for games or game related benchmarks. Overclocking the nuts off them presumabley will not give performance increases like overclocking cards that are designed for virtually nothing else. I guess that there are certain limitations, in terms of gaming at least, to the card achetecture that can't be overcome by more volts and a higher clock speeds alone.
 
Caporegime
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The people who go for WR's are mostly sponsored, and as such price isn't really a factor (especially considering they are running 2 or three stage phase cascades).

The Wildcat series of cards CANNOT run DX9 level shaders and mapping in the way 3dmark utilises them. As such, even if you COULD get the card to even load 3dmark, it wouldn't score well at all.

I await these sources of information eagerly. Its not that I doubt you, but possibly the resources from which you have obtained your info.
 
Associate
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Point conceeded. I can't remember which board I read that had a couple of people using Wildcat 800s and scoring 12,000+ (I had in the back of my mind that it was actually either on this board or at DFI street) and I can't find it using the obvious google search phrases. What's worse is that during my investigation i've seen some suspicious results of people claiming to have used a Wildcat but not backing it up. That said, according to the futuremark website both 3dmark05 and 06 can be run on these cards.

If i am lucky enough to find what I am sure I have read before I will keep you posted.
 
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