GPU choice for office/3D workstation

[Swivelguy2]

I have to select a graphics card to go in a workstation for my office (the rest of the system already exists: it's a Q9550 with 4GB of DDR2, 1TB Caviar Black, etc). The programs used will be Maya, Blender, and AutoCAD, in addition to ImageJ, Matlab, MS office, etc.

The budget is $200-300 (if going above $200 is worth the cost).

I don't really know anything about workstation graphics cards. Should I be considering those over regular desktop/gaming ones? The desktop graphics cards seem to give you a lot more muscle for your money (just looking at the cooling solutions, anyway), but maybe the programs listed above would benefit more from a workstation card in the $200-300 range.

If a regular desktop graphics card is the way to go, is there any reason to go with NVidia or ATI specifically? ATI seems to have the edge lately in power/watt, and a cooler HD 5xxx would make me more comfortable than a very hot-running Fermi card.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Modelworks]

I'm using a 5770 card with 3dsmax, maya, mudbox, and it works great. Haven't had a single problem.

The only caveat I have to buying ATI is if you intend to make use of some of the newer GPU based renderers like octane, they only support cuda.

 

[sgrinavi]

I put a 5770 card in an AutoCAD system a few weeks ago, works great.

I just switched over to gtx480's in my CAD/MAX system to take advantage of Octane. It works just as well as my FX4800 did for modeling and 10x better for GPU renders

My Lenovo W500 laptop has a mobile version of the ATI Firepro 5700, I have to say that thing works better than any lappy I have ever used with CAD and MAX