Quadro FX 4600 any good?

[akryll]

So I'm looking at having someone build me a computer, and I was hoping to utilize as much of my old computer as possible. My biggest thing is the graphics card. I bought my current computer a few years ago and it has a NVIDIA Quadro FX4600 in it. Now when I bought the computer it was a very powerful card, not sure that is the case any more. The main reason I would like to build a new computer is to get into a 64 bit system with more ram.

 

Any thoughts on this graphics card? Or how much a good one costs?

 

Thanks

[Slinger]

QuadroFX4600 is old tech. I would not use it in the new build.

 

What do use your system for?

[akryll]

Thanks Slinger-

 

I'm starting to get into 3DS Max with Mental ray. I just purchased the software and have had a few crashes. I design homes and am trying to get into doing some still renderings to start off with. I use Autocad Architecture 2011. I have also had some blue screen errors while using ACA, so I think it is about time to get up to date with a more powerful machine. I just don't neccesarily want to pay a ton of money to buy one, which is why I'm looking at having someone build it for me.

[AJLynn]

The RAM and 64-bit issue is going to be a lot more important to you than the video card issue. If you're in 32-bit and doing ADT models to Max (which can run up the polygon count quite high) you could easily run into a whole mess of problems due to overrunning your app's memory allocation.

 

 

As a stopgap, until you can get the computer situation figured out, try modifying your memory map in boot.ini (Google the procedure). Instead of the commonly used /3GB switch, which can cause nVidia driver problems by not leaving enough memory for the system, try /USERVA=2700 (and decrease the number if any drivers fail to load).

[Slinger]

Andrew Kryll, I would go with the midrange Build Andrew Lynn put together in his January write up: http://forums.cgarchitect.com/63958-new-intel-sandy-bridge-cpu-workstations.html

 

Solid build for $1600.