Jump to content

bang for buck 3d graphics cards


Recommended Posts

Planning to upgrade my graphics card, looking at quadro or firegl products. Looking at about $1200 to $1500 price tag (US). Hoping for some recommendations on models etc.

 

Just want a great card for the price, don't care about having the latest and greatest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Planning to upgrade my graphics card, looking at quadro or firegl products. Looking at about $1200 to $1500 price tag (US). Hoping for some recommendations on models etc.

Just want a great card for the price, don't care about having the latest and greatest.

 

from E-bay

 

$1000 can fetch you a QuadroFX4500 ...

$1500, perhaps within a few weeks, may get you the FX5500 (not that you need 1gb of texture memory)...

$500-$750 can get you an FX3400 or 3450

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thanks for the advice

 

I'm a max user so Quadro is probably the go.

 

Been doing a bit of reading on Quadro's and it seems that there is only a small performance increase from fx1400 to fx350 etc. Is the more expensive card worth the price? Know of any websites with comparisons?

 

is it worth going with dual cards? what (if any) requirements do motherboards or other hardware have to have to set this up?

 

currently I am running dual xeons on a tyan thunder board.

 

thanks again

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Duals would require 2 PCI-E 16X slots, and would only be useful if you want to use 3D views on two monitors. SLI mode doesn't get you much in Max, it's really just good for games, at least for now.

 

The higher end cards become worthwhile if you really need the performance. If your models are really complex, for example, but even then you can just put what you're not working on in bounding box display mode. The QuadroFX 1400 is very good, better in Max than what I'm using, if you don't need more power you can always spend the money elsewhere - shop around some, and with the budget you mentioned you could get a 1400 and an excellent monitor to go with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...