Recommendations of Graphics card for CAD Work?

[gtd2000]

A buddy of mine is asking about which AGP card to buy for some new machines that he is building for CAD work in his office.

I'm mainly targetting games and multimedia in my own requirements for a card. So, I'm not that qualified to give advice for CAD specific (mainly) applications.

What do you guys recommend?

 

[Mingon]

I have no problems with nvdia cards, my current ti4200 is very good and performs better than a 9700 in Autocad2002.

 

[joshg]

Apparently you can easily and pretty safely mod (I think just by using a different driver, even) a newer RADEON card into essentially a FireGL card. This would be great if money was a consideration.

 

[heliomphalodon]

I'd say go for the nVIDIA Quadro4 line. Check out this review at THG.

It's good that you know better than to advise your friend based on your gaming experience -- the CAD and gaming worlds have very different goals.

It's worth reading this article on SoftQuadro4.

 

[wicktron]

Matrox without a doubt.

 

[Socio]

You can just get a ATI 9700 Pro and do this mod, its easy to do and it works, It makes a 9700 pro run like a FireGL. The Fire GL driver has built in support for software like 3DMax or Maya or AutoCad, check it out here:

Check it out: http://neowin.net/comments.php?id=9348&category=main

 

[gtd2000]

My buddy (Steve) has a list of cards from one of the suppliers that he has suggested"

GeForce4 Ti4200 - HK900 (US$112)

Radeon ATi 9000 Pro - HK695 (US$87)

ATi 9100 128mb - HK790 (US$98)

Ati based cards are more expensive in Hong Kong than say over here - from that list I'd suggest the Ti4200 for my own needs. However I'll pass on your comments (or this thread) to him