Quadro vs. 7 Series

[Athfar]

I just built a computer for a friend of mine and we are stumped on the decision to change video cards. He is using it strictly for 3DMax and other rendering / drawing in photoshop, etc.

I have already ordered / built his system as follows:
AMD 4400+ X2
Gigabyte K8N-SLI-PRO
2x WD 250gb SATAII (Striped)
XFX 7800GTX
2GB PC3200 GeIL

The questions are...
A) Is there a way to convert this puppy to a Quadro so i don't have to ship it back to newegg...
B) If not how does the Quadro FX1400 compare to it, because that's the only Quadro card in the same price range.

Thanks!

 

[SickBeast]

From the looks of it, they will probably be about equal in 3D Max, plus there is the chance that down the line you can softmod the GTX. You can always just run the GTX with the default OpenGL drivers and it will still do a decent job with acceleration in 3D Max. In my experience, a custom driver will usually double your performance in 3D Max, so if you compare the fillrate, so long as the GTX has double that of the Quaddro, they should perform about the same. The other thing to keep in mind is that texture memory is *very* important.

 

[Athfar]

Yeah, I was reading and it looks like on some of the older Quadro's you could just download nvtweak to get the Quadro options on a Geforce card...

Is it safe to say that the only major difference between the two series is the drivers that they support, and maybe some extra fram corrections?

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Athfar
Is it safe to say that the only major difference between the two series is the drivers that they support, and maybe some extra fram corrections?

Yeah, pretty much, although I'm not too sure what a "fram connection" is.

 

[Dubb]

7800 serries probably won't ever be moddable. pro capabilities are locked through solder pads underneath the chip, so unless you have a way to remove the GPU, add solder (in correct places, to find out where you'd have to take apart a g70 quadro), and then put it back without fsking anything up. Good luck with that.

I'd go quadro 1400. maxtreme driver, hadware line AA and all that. performance may be in the same ballpark, but the perks of a quadro would tip the balance for me.

you could also get a 6800 ultra and mod that.

 

[Athfar]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Yeah, pretty much, although I'm not too sure what a "fram connection" is.

frame correction*

Originally posted by: Dubb
7800 serries probably won't ever be moddable. pro capabilities are locked through solder pads underneath the chip, so unless you have a way to remove the GPU, add solder (in correct places, to find out where you'd have to take apart a g70 quadro), and then put it back without fsking anything up. Good luck with that.

I'd go quadro 1400. maxtreme driver, hadware line AA and all that. performance may be in the same ballpark, but the perks of a quadro would tip the balance for me.

you could also get a 6800 ultra and mod that.

Hrmm, is it only in rendering vs. creating the wireframe stuff that makes a difference with the video card? I'm just a little confused on how all this works. My friend says he has some other setup with two fireGL cards to do what i'm guessing is "rendering." Does that sound right?

And can a 6800 ultra w/ 256mb ram beat the FX1400? or even a 6800GT? because I would much rather spend half of the money as well... And this is just a softmod? And is it worth the money to return this GTX and get on of the latter?

 

[Dubb]

rendering doesn't use the GPU (unless it's nvidia's gelato engine). rendering is all cpu.

in addition to performace tweaks, pro capabilities on quadro and firegl cards add some other perks that improve quality in workstation applications. one of these is hardware line AA, which make reading complicated cad drawings and wireframe models much easier to read. the maxtreme driver makes use of this if enabled in settings.

any NV40 Rev A3 and earlier can be soft-modded with the latest rivatuner. this pretty much includes 6800 ultras and older 6800GTs. some newer 6800Gts are actually NV43, and are not moddable (same protections as g70). NV40 A4 and later is also not moddable.

a modded 6800 ultra would be almost quadro 4000/4400 range. Would probably be a good chunk better than a 1400.

 

[Athfar]

Well, unfortunately I think I'm going to have to send the 7800GTX back because the connection on one of the DVI ports is screwed up. I will get the computer back to make sure that it is the video card and not the DVI converters or cables or anything, but my question is...

Should I recommend a 6800 Ultra now that I'm shipping the thing back... and if so, what about doing 2 of them via SLI? is there anything in 3Dmax that can take advantage of that?

Thanks soo much for your replies!!

 

[Athfar]

Well, i'm stumped. I just read this reivew here on anandtech and the 3DLabs seem to be the winner of everything, but I don't want to swap out my motherboard in order to use the outdated AGP cards.

So my question is... how can I tell which 6800s are the older revision? I know newegg has a bunch of different manufacturers, but they dont sell an "Ultra" just a GTOCV

and... based on that review is it safe to say that if I do choose to do SLI with two GTs that I will see close to twice the performance as the Ultra listed there?

 

[Lord Banshee]

1) SLI do not work in CAD application YET!! so don't waste the money

2) You can not softmod the Geforce 6 series for SLI use (only one card)

3) You either shoot or miss with the 6800GTs, there is no way to tell what revision it is unless you get the person you are buying it from to hook it up and run rivatuner and tell you, i do not think newegg will do this.

4) From my experenice, 3dsmax works 10x faster in DirectX mode and does not require a quadro for this speed increase . Now if they prefer to use OpenGL and/or use any other DCC/CAD OpenGL Application then Quadro/FireGL will be faster and will not have glitches( Nvidias newest drivers seems to have turn off something else as now openGL lines in some of my CAD program do not sync right GRRR...)

5) 6800 non-ultra non-GT PCI-E are not modable, 6800GT you have a 50/50 chance. 6800Ulta you have more like a 80/20 chance.

6) If this guy is only going to use CAD program and NEVER NEVER NEVER used DirectX then 3DLabs cards are pretty good, again NEVER NEVER use DirectX, ie games.

7) a QuadroFX 1400 will eat a Geforce7 series alive in CAD enviroments(OpenGL) and thats it. If this person does not mind never to play a DirectX9 game (this card is eq. to a GeforceFX 5700) this card is for them.

I hope this helps.

**Edit**
I am wrong about number (7). the QuadroFX 1400 is based on either 6600GT or the 6800LE. Sorry about that. So it should be decent at todays games not going too high in resolution.

 

[Athfar]

Hrmmm... So i'm going to vote no on the modding... It's for me, not worth the time/effort to do it for someone else...

As far as gaming, he doesn't.

What interested me with the Quadro/FireGL/3Dlabs cards is the Adaptive AA, and other "Pro" features with the workstation cards.

Do you know of any reviews that show the 7800GTX against some of the workstations cards? I can't seem to find any...

To be completely honest what he is most concerned about is rotating a wireframe with textures and it being smooth and not struggle...

Thanks for the replies... let me know what you think...