Anyone have experience with AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB DDR5 graphics card?

[gbelous]

I am in the process of getting a new computer and for the specific model, the only option I have for a graphics card is the AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB DDR5. I was wondering if anyone has used this with Autocad and what their thoughts were on if I should pursue this or try to get another card. I know most recommend the FirePro or Quadro cards, but I will research those only if the radeon is a definite NO.
Thanks!

[gbelous]

Okay...my head is swimming with all this information on trying to pick all this stuff out and I'm sure I am driving you all crazy with my questions...especially the ones that repeat themselves.

Not sure how much flexibility I have with cards, but can anyone help put these in order from the best to worst? I have narrowed down the list of cards that are most frequently talked about in a bunch of forums (with the exception of the Radeon, I didn't see that anywhere) and here is the breakdown...

Nvidia Quadro 2000 http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...o-2000-us.html
Benchmark 1,123 Price $399 DirectX 11 OpenGL 4.3 193 Cuda Cores

AMD FirePRO V5900 http://www.amd.com/us/products/works...s/v5900.aspx#4
Benchmark 1,765 Price $430 DirectX 11 OpenGL 4.1 Nothing about Cuda Cores

AMD Radeon HD 7870 http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...on-7870.aspx#3
Benchmark 3,385 Price $250 DirectX 11.1 OpenGL 4.2 Nothing about Cuda Cores

GeForce GTX 570 http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desk...specifications
Benchmark 3,620 Price $250 DirectX 11 OpenGL 4.2 480 Cuda Cores

[cadtag]

for what you're doing,I'd go with the AMD 7870, or the V5900 - I doubt if you'll see any difference in CAD. For a variety of reasons, I'm not all that fond of NVidia -- and the Quadro is just not needed at all. (Cuda is an NVidia thing, so you won't see anything about that on AMD cards)

[gbelous]

even though the 7870 wasn't on the "certified" list, should there be anythign to worry about or is it just about tweaking the settings to get it to run with cad?

i assume you are referring to that we do mostly 2d cad, some 3d, photoshop and those kinds of programs? i'm under the impression that the quadros are more for intense renderings, right? even though cuda cores are a nvidia thing, what do they do? are they more for rendering and 3d?

[cadtag]

unless an application is spoecifically built to take advantage of Cuda, I don't think that it will help at all. it's possible that future versions of CAD may actually use a GPU directly for calculations, but AFAIK, nothing in sight (drawing related) does that. For now, if you do some high end gaming, or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), or bitcoin mining, the number of GPU cores might matter, but will do diddley for cad or imagery programs.

I don't think the lack of certification will be an issue -- Adesk does not exactly keep on top of testing the latest generations of cards as they come out.

[gbelous]

okay, i will go with the latest specs then (with the 7870). i'm sure he is tired of finding different configurations for me lol.
thanks for all the help!!

[gbelous]

I checked with dell about the GTX 570 and they don't have that, but instead they have the GTX 660. Haven't seen any mention of that card around, so not sure of it's cad capabilities.
So now it's either the 660 or the original 7870. Any thoughts?

[heath.simone]

We run the ATI 7850 in our new machines and they are perfectly fine. We where running the 6870, 5870, and 4650's

We chose the 7850 because of the lower power requirements allowing us to safely use them in the HP DC8300 desktops we run as our standard cad machines.

[surf.board1991350888]

gbelus that is really a unique and interesting question.
Nice point buddy. I like it...

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