card for CAD

[3deckWizard]

a friend of mine is in need of a graphics card, an AGP one to be precise.

he has no interest in gaming and wants a card that will be capable in 3D CAD work.

he only has £70 to play with here, so its gonna be ebay or something for him.

a while ago i saw on here, a thread about flashing a 5900 based card into its quadro counterpart.

since 5900's will be cheap (actually i can buy a brand new ASUS 5900 for £70 inc vat) i thought this would be perfect for him

can the same thing be done with say a 6800GT/GS/NU? or a 7600GS? it'll be tough to score a 6800GT for £70 but im sure it can be done, i scored a X800GTO for £60 a while back.

now im suggesting Nvidia here, brand preference for me, but can you flash ATi cards to fireGL ones?

would it even be worth flashing? just get a gaming card and use it?

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: 3deckWizard
now im suggesting Nvidia here, brand preference for me, but can you flash ATi cards to fireGL ones?

Yes there were some cards that could be flashed to FireGL cards. I remember that some 9800 cards could be flashed. I don't know of any more recent ones. There was a guide to doing it on the web. Google it.

 

[3deckWizard]

ok, since he has only £70 to spend, im guessing any money he can save will be welcome so its going to be down to the ultimate bang for his buck

im thinking either 5900 or 9800 flashed to their quadro/fireGL counterparts will be like the minimum i would suggest to him bearing in mind the rest of his system is getting on abit

AXP 2100+, gig of ram, VIA KT266 (or KT333 if he's bothered to use the mobo i gave him for free) and plenty of HDD space. PSU is not a problem though, since he bought my Seasonic S12 500w PSU off me when i broke down a previous machine.

if i can find him a 6800GT on ebay, thats definately a piece of silicon worth having for that price.

 

[3deckWizard]

bumpity

 

[3deckWizard]

bumpity