64-bit video cards OK for CAD?

[glassvial]

Just wanted to ask if a 64-bit video card would be ok for (light) CAD? I'm not talking about huge, complex rendering just basic stuff. The onboard video isnt' cutting it (it actually outright crashes the program in question). One machine has a FX5200 video card in it and it does fairly well, obviously this is NV's bottom of the barrel card now, so I'm just wondering if it's worth the added expense to go up to a 128-bit card (I'm thinking no, personally). Thanks.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

depends on how light, i guess. if the 5200 can handle it, then i guess just about anything can. I do very very lightl cad on both my IGP320 and my gf4mx

 

[mwmorph]

64bit is fine for very simple things. My company has some radeon 9000s for this very purpose.

 

[glassvial]

Yeah, that's what I figured. Thanks for the input, now I need a few more 5200 cards

 

[Wreckage]

If you don't mind buyin off of eBay. You can get some older Quadro cards cheap that work great in CAD applications


LINK

 

[glassvial]

Naa this is for a customer, I need new.

 

[glassvial]

Just ordered 3 MSI 5200's from ZZF, should work out great. Thanks again for the info/suggestions.

 

[beggerking]

these 5200s were free just a few days ago in hotdeal thread..

 

[glassvial]

Uh, yeah, you mean a month and a half ago, for a store that I don't have around here, for a rebate that's probably one per household and I need 3?

 

[gsellis]

I would verify with the CAD package what it recommends. CAD packages can be picky and may even specify specifc cards and possibly driver levels. Software first, then hardware.

 

[glassvial]

Naa, there's already one of the machines at the office in production with a 5200 card and it's fine. The CAD app bombs when it tries to render with the onboard video. I was mainly curious if going up to 128-bit would really see that much of a difference, but again this is light CAD work, we're not rendering the Titanic or anything