Specialized Open GL vs. All Purpose D3D/OpenGL

[Xensor]

Hi all. First-timer

I'm looking to build a pc for a work colleague, whos's remit is most CAD work with AutoCAD 2002, plus he wants good DVD playback and possibly some gaming in the future. He is on quite a tight budget so i'm looking at around £1000 ($1500) all in, including the graphics card. This is where i start to scratch my head (so to speak )

If money was no object i'd recommend the Quadro4 900XGL, however it is and the only card i have found for less than £200 ($300, which is about the max i wanna spend on the card) is the 3d Labs Oxygen VX-1. My problem is finding technical info and more importantly comparisons with other mainstream cards.

My question is this: For the sums of money im talking about, is it worth getting the entry-level Oxygen based card for CAD performance, or will, for example, the TI4600 outperform it? Are there other OpenGL cards out there under £200 that kick arse?

Any insights will be appreciated.

FYI: the rest of the system is as follows:
Athlon XP 2100
ABit KD7 KT400
512mb PC2700
80GB Maxtor D740X
Creative Labs Audigy II
Creative Labs Inspire 6700 6.1 THX
DVD Rom
48x16x48 CDRW
IIyama 19" Vision Master 1451
KB, mouse, case, floppy, modem

 

[Rand]

The Oxygen VX-1 is old, out dated and terribly slow.
A regular GF2 can solidly outperform it in most instances, and a Ti4600 will blow it away.

At the very budget end I'd look at getting a GF4 Ti4200 and running the SoftQuadro hack to allow for most of the benefits of the full Quadro. Respectable DVD, and decent enough Pro3D driver support, along with more then respectable performance.

If you desire a true Pro3D board, then the FireGL 8700 is an incredible bargain and can be found for around $130.
It'll give you the best DVD playback capabilities of any graphics card on the market, with reasonably similar performance to the Quadro4 hacked Ti4200.
Naturally backed by FireGL's driver team your unlikely to ever need worry about quality driver support, second only to 3DLabs and in some respects better.
One slight disadvantage is it's heavily processor dependent, and loves SMP.

Still, I'd lean towards it over the hacked Ti4200.

Both should be more then capable of the occasional gaming tasks, though the Ti4200 will be a bit faster unless anisotropic filtering is desired. Similarly the Ti4200 is a 'safer' bet in terms of gaming compatibility.

For a bit more performance, albeit at higher cost the FireGL 8800 is still a remarkable bargain at $265.

The WildCat VP 560 can be had for around $260... it'll lack both the gaming and the Pro3D performance of the above options, but is clearly the most reliable and supported Pro3D graphics card at a reasonable price point. Additionally the WildCat VP should offer marginally better visual quality and a vastly more flexible feature set and is clearly a longer term solution then the FireGL87/8800 or Ti4200 with the SoftQuadro hack.

As an outlier the old but proven FireGL 2 is still a respectable offering, but primarily for those that desire 3D animation usage or heavily lean towards a significant number of diverse lighting points.
It's a little more expensive and lacks the features of the other cards as well as being extremely processor dependent so it's definitely not the best option for your case IMHO.

If money was no object i'd recommend the Quadro4 900XGL

Personally I'd take any WildCat 4 in the blink of an eye over the 900XGL, and for that matter most WildCat III's are superior.
WildCat VP870/970 is even preferable IMHO.

The Quadro 4 is respectable if a bit lacking in terms of raw polygon performance an complex shading tasks...on performance/$ it's handily beaten by the WildCatVP though and certainly can't stand up to 3DLabs OpenGL driver support nor the sheer flexibility of the P10.

 

[Xensor]

Cheers Rand A load of useful info is just what i needed. Got a few more questions tho

1. How does the Radeon 9000 and 9500 compare to the Ti4200 and can they be tweaked to firegl standards ala SoftQuadro?
2. Is it worth pushing for the Ti4600?
3. Have you got or can you point me towards a list of required driver files, software, walkthroughs etc, so i can get the tweak process clear in my head?
4. In your opinion, is the rest of the base unit good enough for AutoCAD 2002, and possibly 3DStudioMax in the future?
5. Is it possible to safely oc the videocard at no extra cost?
6. Are two 17" monitors better than one 19" (for cad)?
7. XP Pro or 2000?

I saw this article on Professional 3D Accelerators and the Radeon 9000 performs comparatively well when you factor in price (around 50% less than the Ti4600, approx 75%-80% cheaper than the Firegl 8800) even outperforming the FireGL 8700. Infact it seems that unless you have money to burn, buying a dedicated opengl/cad card seems a complete waste of money. Am i missing something?

Cheers for all your help.

Xensor