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Thread: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

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    Default Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    Hello there! Maybe some of you out there can help me. Currently my committee has been swaying back and forth trying to get benchmarking, testing on cards for a huge hardware purchase and upgrade plan. We are planning on upgrading the office to AutoCad Architecture 2008 and have tested Quadro 4600 cards and 8800 GTS cards... according to the testing that was done,, the 8800 GTS card is pretty close in performance and is much much cheaper. Some of us are skeptical about using gaming cards versus processor cards, but the tests are showing this is a good card for the price. now, we are asking IT to run the same test, but now with dual monitors. we are worried that there would be fragmented views, or when closing out of tool pallettes that there will be issues with them not disappearing or collapsing as they should. Anyone have some insight on whether these cards actually work well with Autocad architecture 2008? or have some recommendations for a card that does well in performance and price?

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    I could stop if I wanted to Ogre's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    I truly think this depends on the OS...While I have never worked with Vista, XP seems to like the OpenGL cards because of the architecture within...Gaming cards have a tendency to leave artifacts forcing you to refresh to get rid of them...However, I have seen OpenGL cards do the same thing, just not as much...I think that benchmarks take out one huge factor...The human factor...If you want a true human benchmark, I would take your 2 top drafters...One with the OpenGL card and the other with the GeForce and use them for a week...Have them write down any issues that they see...This will give you a more correct determination on what will happen within your own company...This will also enable you to get true feedback as to what they liked or disliked about the card they were using...The computer generated benchmark test the hardwares performance, but I would also take into consideration the quality of the card before I made a decision like that...

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    we did some benchmarking using these cards and it showed that with the direct 3d 8800 ultra card was the highest scoring, next was the direct 3d 8800 gts and third,, the most expensive was the direct 3d quadro 4600. we also used the catalyst c2006 benchmark and showed that most of the cards were pretty comparable in 2d functions but in 3d gouraud the top performers were again the 8800 ultra and the 8800 gts. I myself am skeptical of using these gaming cards but so far these benchmarks show performance and price is pretty good. I think the system we were thinking was:

    Test beds, PCMark: Dual core 3ghz processor, (2) 80-gig 10k RPM Raptor hard-drives, 4 gigs of 667mhz RAM, fresh install of WinXP. tested faster RAM but found it didn't perform well enough to justify its cost. Faster 15k RPM drives are available, but at much higher cost, and with diminishing returns.

    Test bed, Cadalyst 2006: Quad core 2.4ghz processor, (2) 80-gig hard-drives, 4 gigs of 667mhz RAM, fresh install of WinXP.

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    The quadro was not designed to use DirectX...Make sure that when you test that card, you use OpenGL settings and Hardware acceleration...This can make a big difference...

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    When I was looking for a new computer to use at home for my afternoon work I remember reading this from XI computers web site:

    GeForce™ 8800, AutoCAD, DX10 & O-GL

    The new GeForce™ 8800 GTX/GTS Video Cards, with up 768MB of DDR3 VRAM, have been recently introduced and are available for sale with our MTower™ workstations. Most of you will wonder: why a “gamers” video card for CAD and workstation use? For years the use of a gamers card for CAD has been the poor man’s choice, cheap, but with sure low performance. But… the new 8800 series have a very special feature that justifies its adoption for CAD, even against the more popular (and way more expensive) Nvidia® Quadro™ counterparts: it supports Direct X10 3D standards via accelerated on-board hardware. Now the really interesting part: a subset of DX10 HW accelerated functions is overlapping some of the Open-GL 2.0 (historically only HW accelerated on the Quadro™ video cards) used by the Autodesk® family of products like AutoCAD, 3ds Max etc.. What is the result of this? Our @Xi® MTower™ workstations are breaking new CAD performance benchmark records using the 8800 GeForce instead of the more expensive Quadros. We are constantly researching to offer more speed and productivity for less money, and this is our latest achievement! Capitalizing our 20 years Workstation experience, we recently teamed up with XFX® (Leading Manufacturer of Nvidia GeForce video cards), to customize a XXX Special Edition 8800 series with extended HW assisted 3D CAD functions, for even performance on a broader spectrum of CAD Packages.

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    wow thanks. Yeah I had been hearing that these new cards were now capable of being an affective card for cad,, but aren't gaming cards for filler use? meaning they read drawings differently that the processor cards.. they fill in the lines don't they? well the tests that were done on the quadro 4600 and the 8800 cards were done on both the direct 3d and the open gl.. not sure about hardware acceleration,, but the quadro using the open gl driver tested pretty poorly.

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    @XI has has an option for dual GeForce 8800 GTS 320s running SLI. Is anyone out there running dual video cards in SLI mode with AutoCAD?

    Thanks
    Jas

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    Quote Originally Posted by StephenJ View Post
    When I was looking for a new computer to use at home for my afternoon work I remember reading this from XI computers web site:

    GeForce™ 8800, AutoCAD, DX10 & O-GL
    Kewl....thanks for the info.....since I use ArchiCAD at home....and play LOTS of memory intensive games that may be good info for my next purchase. Currently I have an ATI X500 at home and its funny I use an X600 at work.
    Michael "MP" Patrick
    "I only drink :coffee: until it's acceptable to drink :beer: or :whiskey: or :wine:"

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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    I've been having a lot of problems with slowness. I've recently completed a 3D drawing with a lot of 3d solids. the file is about 11-12 MB. IT just upgraded my RAM to 4gigs.
    I have penti.3 xeon workstation core duo processor(only have one right now)
    and ATI Fire GL 3300 for the graphics. after we upgraded the ram i saw no difference.
    Could I need something better for the graphics? We don't want to spend a lot of money on a new video/graphics card and not have it work

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    All AUGI, all the time Mlabell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hardware selection-game card vs. processor card.. dual monitors

    You may want to also take a look at this since you are going to be upgrading to 2008. Straight from Autodesk's website. Tells you which cards are recommended, and such.

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