Build for 3d Design

[styroe]

I am building a rig for a friend, I got the new cpu from intel, yatayatayata. Anyway, this thing is gonna be sweet, but I was wondering about the graphics cards, as this is going to run 3d Design software. I forget what the software is called, but it is Vectrix or something similar to that name. It seems like this software isn't very hardware demanding (apparently you design in 3d and it hooks up to some automated cut machine, whatever). However, I don't want to throw a bunch of crap in there incase these guys start to get real series and do some real 3D design.

The budget is kinda limited right now to around 300 for the card, maybe more if I take away some of the super sweet items, but for my question: How do the 9 series NVidia work in a 3d design environment? I am wary about buying quadro because the stats just don't do it for me (though I know it is the 'right' thing to do), I was thinking something along the lines of 9800GTX or a 260. I know enough about computers to say "Hey this could be horribly horribly wrong." Can these cards do some heavy 3d graphic design?

If you know something don't hesitate to respond.

Thank you

 

[manko]

Generally, yes. I just dabble in 3D, but from the CG hardware forums I read, it sounds like any of the 8800, 9800 or 260 series perform well for that kind of work.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: styroe
Can these cards do some heavy 3d graphic design?

Short answer is yes, but so could a $50 card. The question comes with stability and just how large the models are. I do 3dsMAX & 3d AutoCAD work daily. All of ATI and Nvida game class cards perform fine up to a point. As the model grows in size and/or complexity the slow-downs become more drastic and, my biggest problem, stability goes South.

SO, if you are talking about a critical environment where he could lose the cost of the workstation class card in a couple of crashes then, hell ya, spend the cash for the card.

FWIW, I have found the ATI 3xxx & 4xxx cards perform better than their Nvida counterparts in the apps that I use. The ATI 3xxx cards can be softmodded to use the FireGL drivers (you don't gain all the stability, but you do gain all the speed)

 

[Modelworks]

I currently use a 8800GTS 640MB card for 3d, and I'm doing it as a profession. The biggest issue you will have is that there is generally no support from the software vendor, ie autodesk if you are not using qualified hardware. They will tell you to use the hardware on the list or to go to the video card maker and complain

Other than that , you are fairly safe to use just about any card. The more memory on the card the better as 3d applications use huge amounts of video card ram + system ram . It is not unusual for me to see 580MB usage of video ram with programs like mudbox.

A good portion of the 3d application are supporting directx 10 now so that is another thing to consider.

 

[styroe]

Thanks for the advice guys, sorry I couldn't respond thanks early enough as I was at work and the man was trying to keep me down. I knew I should have gotten a job in the computer industry, but instead I am a sociology major working in accounts payable for a big cable company. What a series of bad life choices... but hey at least the super highspeed internet only costs 10 bucks a month... but I digress, thank you for your input.