Is there any point in buying workstation spec graphics cards for 3ds max machines? Qu

[Dave Buckley]

as the subject title asks . . . is a good gaming card suitable for 3ds max

[CJI]

They will work ok but they are designed for different purposes. Pro level cards can handle WAY more polygons onscreen than the consumer level gaming cards. In to the millions as far as i'm aware whereas gaming cards will tend to struggle to refresh your viewport at these levels of detail.

 

So for instance a character design where your sculpting super high res characters with really detailed high resolution digital backgrounds etc then a pro level card allows you to take on more at once. You have to be more conscious as to not waste polygons (good practice anyway i suppose) and what you have on screen at one time with a consumer level card.

 

Im sure someone will give you a more detailed and technical response but as far as i know thats the main way it effects artists. I'd love a pro level card but the price is so high that its hard to part with that hard earned money if you can get by without. Get what you pay for i suppose.

[ihabkal]

I have had better luck with gaming cards. After 12 years in the business, I found pro cards are a waste of money. they cost twice to three times as much for the same generation of their consumer card relative, they overheat, they crash games, and also 3dsmax works great in directX which gaming cards excell at

[mattclinch]

I had this very dilemma recently when building my workstation. I came to the conclusion that the models i was likely to be handling were probably not going to be dense enough to justify a high end card, and that with good scene management (layers, proxies, etc) i would be able to get by on a high end gaming card. so i went for a Radeon HD 5770, rather than a Quadro or FireGL.

 

Also, with GPU rendering becoming more prominent I am prepared to wait to see it develop fully and see who emerges with the best solution when the dust settles.

[AJLynn]

GPU rendering isn't becoming more prominent - it will need to exist before it can logically be considered prominent. There is no production grade GPU rendering solution that you can get for your computer. Why do I always say this? Because I consider it part of my duty to get you guys to not overspend on computer equipment, and it's bad enough without buying hardware that chases vaporware.

 

To answer the original question, in some apps, like Alias Studio, Maya and even Revit, there's a big advantage to having a workstation video card. In Max, for architecture, unless you're doing unusually high polygon work, the advantage is not large - most of us have found it doesn't justify the cost.

 

If you are concerned about future-proofing yourself for the GPU rendering thing, consider this: you can buy a 9800GT card, which is faster than you need it to be, from Newegg for $85. By the time you get to use the GPU renderer the workstation cad wil most likely be obsolete but you'll have saved your money and will be able to buy whatever's current.

[Dave Buchhofer]

I'm with Andy on this one, seems we've been arguing this for years, huge scenes are still slow on the highest end cards, so being marginally faster at the expense of several grand doesn't seem a good use of money, when you get similar performance from high end gaming cards for cheap..

 

I'd say, only reason to go workstation level is if you are heavy into OpenGL-only applications (Revit/Sketchup being the two most prominent for us.)

[odouble]

A good gaming card is extremely suitable fo max.I must say I use a quadro fx 4800 at work (which I didn't pay for) and the card throws tons of polys around like nothing. Its the best graphics card I've ever used. At home I use a geforce card on one of my home pcs and it compares favorably to the quadro fx 4500 card on my other pc.

When money is a factor the advantages of the pro cards are mitigated. My next workstation will be using a game card. Spend your money on RAM instead you won't regret it.

[mattclinch]

GPU rendering isn't becoming more prominent - it will need to exist before it can logically be considered prominent. There is no production grade GPU rendering solution that you can get for your computer.

 

Point taken, but this is the logical path that every manufacturer seems to be treading at the moment. NVidia has CUDA, ATI has ATI Stream. I suspect it will become prominent when the technology and software are fully developed. But as you point out it doesn't exist in production yet other than examples such as Furry Ball et al.

[Nic H]

+1 'workstation' cards are a massive ripoff / scam (for max anyway, really annoys me that boxx machines come specced with these )

 

you get better performance from 'gaming cards' until you get into the real high end quadros (that cost LOADS)

[luckyluc]

I asked myself the same question last summer.

 

I bought a I7- with 12 GB ram and an SSD OC-vertex.And just a HD4860 from ATI.

 

If I compare this to the other pc wich has an quadro FX 1500 and a Q6600 processor, Raptor disk, and 4GB ram it is much and much faster.

 

Sometimes when in load a scene in shaded preview and with many trees and poly's you see maybe a second that my screen is black and white.

But after it is loaded I don't see any problem anymore.

 

So if you want to spent more money, get a SSD or lot of ram instead.

 

In a year or two you can buy another fast consumerlike pc and gamingcard.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I have always had gaming cards (or worse) and stability issues. With the emphasis people keep putting on drivers I was wondering if the trouble I've been seeing hasn't been "cheap game card drivers" and had hoped that one of the low end workstation cards might the thing due to drivers. Don't know yet, haven't gotten the job ;-).

[AJLynn]

If you think the Direct3D drivers for Quadro cards are really any better than the ones for Geforce cards, you can go ahead and pay extra

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I don't "think" anything. I _wonder_.

[DanGrover]

I haven't found the workstation graphics card to be worth it at all. From my experience of working with one at work, I'd never even fleetingly consider buying one for my own PC.