Future nVidia Workstation-class Video Cards

[kdubster]

I'm currently planning the configuration of my new 3d modeling workstation (professional), and was planning on putting in the nVidia Quadro FX 3000 workstation card. However, while I was talking with a few friend from ILM (Industrial Light & Magic), they advised to wait until nVidia releases it's 6th generation workstation cards (Quadro FX line is 5th generation). I was wondering if anyone here knows anything about the 6th generation, any specs, leaks, release dates? (even ballpark?) If it's not avaliable within the next six months I'll go ahead and buy the Quadro FX 3000 (in my opinion, especially because I'm an industry professional, don't softmod - get the real video card).

Thanks,

K-Dubster

 

[imported_TheCadMan]

The 6th generation card is the quadro FX 4000 and Quadro FX SDI. Buy a workstation card if you need the associated workstation tech support. The quadro FX 4000 features the Nv40 chip or more specifically, it's the workstation conversion Geforce 6800 Ultra. The plain Quadro FX 4000 will be priced at around $1599 even though the SRP is $2500. The SDI will carry a $3000 price tag. They will be manufactured by PNY. In reguards to the Quadros, when nvidia recieves its chips some have a higher yield than others, the higher yield will become quadros, the lower become Geforces. So they are the same chip, sof mod could save you some money. Also ATI has announced the fireGL V7100 which is the workstation X800XT. Apparently the quadro FX 4000 is 20% faster than the firegl V7100 but clock for clock the fireGL is theoritically faster. ATI reallly needs to get their act together and get better drivers for these things. The fireGl V7100 will be arounr $850-900.

 

[kaizersose]

Originally posted by: kdubster
I'm currently planning the configuration of my new 3d modeling workstation (professional), and was planning on putting in the nVidia Quadro FX 3000 workstation card. However, while I was talking with a few friend from ILM (Industrial Light & Magic), they advised to wait until nVidia releases it's 6th generation workstation cards (Quadro FX line is 5th generation). I was wondering if anyone here knows anything about the 6th generation, any specs, leaks, release dates? (even ballpark?) If it's not avaliable within the next six months I'll go ahead and buy the Quadro FX 3000 (in my opinion, especially because I'm an industry professional, don't softmod - get the real video card).

Thanks,

K-Dubster

what kind of software are you running that you need such a high-end card?

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

That will be quite a setup. We are currently running Pro/E on Elsa Gloria 2's (based of GF2 I think).

They are still damn fast though. Much faster than the P4 1.8 Ghz computer it is paired with. Can't imagine how much extra time I'd have to waste if I had a new system

-D'oh!

 

[kdubster]

I'll be running Maya 6 Unlimited & After Effects 6.5 mainly. The system will be a dual opteron 250 (2.4ghz) with 4gb of ram (2gb of ram per cpu), a four drive array of 15k rpm scsi320 drives. This should be one damn powerful workstation. (Don't we love it when our jobs buy us new computers?). I'll be dealing with extremely complex scenes that my ATI Radeon 9700 Pro dies a horriable death on. I'll also be running the 64bit version of windows. I'm also adding a lot of personal hardware, including my MOTU 896HD sound card (www.motu.com - check it out), which I'll have 7.1 rigged to that at 24bit 192khz. I'm also installing a PCI-X IDE controller (8 channel) and five 200GB 7200rpm drives for my file archives (yes, I actually will/can/do use that much), with the extra 3 channels open incase I need to add extra drives later. Of course, with all of this hardware I have a 600 watt redundant power supply keeping everything running. Other misc. things are Adaptec video input (USB2 version), dual viewsonic 19" (good ones) monitors, the SCSI320 controller is an Adaptec controller (PCI-X), and my three optical drives: Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM, Pioneer 4x DVD-RW, & Plextor 52x CD-RW.

I can't wait until all the parts are here and I get to assemble it

I also noticed paying attention to nVidia's website a bit more that the Quadro 4000 is classified as "Next Generation" vs the Quadro 300 is classified as "5th Generation".

 

[Cat]

How can you use Maya daily, with anything less than a 21" monitor?

 

[imported_TheCadMan]

If your company is buying it then go all out and get the quadro FX 4000. Even though on the quadros in maya they all run about the same. I have found the quadro FX 3000 is only 3% faster than the FX 500 in maya rendering the exact same scene, and the FX 3000 is $1000 more. The time you save vs money spent is negligible especially in maya. Quadros only kill ATI in the benchmarks, in practice there is no noticeable difference. Mainly because i myself do not have the resources to create anything that would really max out any of the cards resources. If i did i would be using specialized hardware rather than the current FireGL I own. But like I said, when someone treats you to dinner always buy the lobster.

 

[kdubster]

Hrm. I've been looking around quite a bit and I can't find a single location that sells the FX 4000. The only other information I've been able to find is that PNY makes a FX 4000 model. Anyone know where you can buy them?