Which card?

Discussion in 'Video Cards, Displays and TV Tuners' started by dannnyjos, May 24, 2005.

  1. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    Hey guys, I just wanted to know what vid card would you recommend to run AUTOCAD. I have a 9800pro, but I don't know if that's enough. I've heard about matrox, parhelia and stuff. Can you tell me if my 9800 needs to be replaced by one of those? Thanks ;) .
     
  2. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    matrox just has better pictures. What are you looking at spending? 3dlabs got some nice stuff for CAD
     
  3. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    Well Ninja, I wouldn't want to spend more than $300. So, you think the 9800 pro just won't cut it for Autocad? :smiledd:
     
  4. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    It's not so much the power of the card as the precision. Matrox and 3DLabs target the professional workstation cards exclusively. That's also where ATi's FireGL and nVidia's Quadro cards come in and why they're priced so high. Quite honestly, if you're not building a machine strictly for professional use, I can't see a real good reason to switch to something else.
     
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  5. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    Allright BigB, thanks for the input. I knew my 98pro wouldn't let me down! :blink:
     
  6. Exfoliate

    Exfoliate Geek Trainee

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    I'd go with BB on this one too, the 9800 is a nice card, it wasn't designed for CAD but it will still do a fine job I imagine, all the workstation cards are very expensive, it's very hard to come by a card that's actually worth the money, you can spend hundreds of dollars for a card that only has 64MB's of vram! Not to mention a lot of the FireGL's are PCI-Express, too. The Wildcat 3D labs cards are excellent for this but cost more than my computer almost.
     
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  7. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    Yep, you're right man. Checked out prices online and they start approx at $500 for the cheapy ones. Good ones? They go up to $3000 :ah: That's just insane for my budget.

    Allright Exfoliate, thanks for your opinion.
     
  8. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    You can get a fairly good matrox card off newegg for around 100
     
  9. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    Ok Ninja, thats looks like a good deal. But my question is: will that Matrox perform better on AutoCAD than my 98pro :smiledd: ?
     
  10. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    performance-can't say.
    Picture accuracy and clearity-It will own your 9800PRO.
     
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  11. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    OOOOOOOh, ok I get it. Guess the only way would be to try it. I still don't think it's worth it but thanks for your input, man. :cool:
     
  12. ninja fetus

    ninja fetus I'm a thugged out gangsta

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    I would wait for some advice from people that know more about autocad, I don't know much about how a video card will affect it.
     
  13. Exfoliate

    Exfoliate Geek Trainee

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    I don't either but that $100 Matrox card probably wont exactly speed though some of the work loads and rendering options I imagine. Not to say it's a bad card but that's probably a little too cheap to outdo a 9800Pro concidering the clock speeds for core and memory. In this case vram will have an effect too, if it only has 64MB's (does it?, I didin't check) than it will probably be a little sluggish for some more complex rendering.
     
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  14. dannnyjos

    dannnyjos Big Geek

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    Yep, just what I thought :good: .
     

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