nVidia Quadro NVS 280, FX 500 Equivalents

[dullard]

I'm buying a workstation for work where I do a lot of rendering. It has been 2 years since I've paid attention to the workstation video card market. Last time I bought one I got an ATI Fire GL2 for a great price and it performs very well (to me that means one typical render in under 5 seconds). However this time I need to go on the cheap end. So I'm probably going to look at the home cards since they have grown in leaps and bounds during the last 3 years. Roughly what is the home equivalent of the Quadro NVS 280 and the Quadro FX 500? That will really help my decision of low-end workstation card or high-end home card.

Yes this has been asked in the video forum and there was no answer - general hardware just gets so much more traffic.

 

[dullard]

One bump before I give up.

 

[Dallascisco]

what's your budget?

 

[dullard]

$300ish. But it is more the choice of which computer to buy (Dell Dimension or Dell Precision Workstation). The price is built in, so it is difficult to tell the exact amount you are paying. For example with the quadrouple memory free deal at Dell, the Precision 360 with Quadro NVS 280 is quite close to similarly equipped the Dimension 4600 with ATI RADEON 9800 (non pro). I'm just trying to get a rough estimate. I'm assuming the Radeon will win But what if I ante up $100 more for the FX 500?