The perfect video card

[Daevux]

I am building a workstation (dual p4 xeons, and such). I just recently got interested in getting a new video card to put in it as well. I currently have an ATI Radeon 64 DDR VIVO (its an oldie ).

I want a video card that, even if I have to use some tweaking software or whatever to toggle, can perform very well at gaming as well as prof. 3D rendering (65/35 gaming/prof-3d). I do more gaming than professional rendering - but would defn. like to be able to do some rendering if I ever have the need (scalability).

I really do not want to spend anymore than $700 on the card.

Should I choose the G4 4600 Ti, Quadro, Fire GL 8800, Radeon 8500, Wildcat ($$$?), or the new Matrox -?Parhelia?- ?

Thanks.

 

[BFG10K]

Personally I wouldn't bother blowing that much money on a professional card, especially if you're primarily interested in gaming.

Your choices now are the Radeon 8500 and the Ti4600 and while the Radeon is slower, ATi's drivers have definitely gotten much better plus nVidia's current drivers have a few glitches.

If you prefer to wait a few months, you'll also have the Parhelia and maybe the P10 to choose from.

 

[Mavrick007]

I would agree with BFG10K, if you want a good card that will do good gaming and 3d rendering, you're not going to find it.

You would have to buy one of each card, but if you do more gaming than graphics, then I would go with either a good GF4 like the Ti4400 or 4600, or the Radeon 8500 or wait the time for when the new batch of cards come out.

A professional card will cost way too much and will not be good at gaming.

 

[Gog]

If your primary interest is gaming you should definately stay clear of any of the professional cards.

Since your interested somewhat in 3D applications, I would recommend you go for a Geforce 4. The Geforce 4 does considerably better than any ATI card when it comes to rendering (probably due to the fact that the Geforce and Quadro have a similiar architecture). If you are interested in finding out how gaming cards do at 3D rendering you can check out digit-life.com or xbitlabs.com where they have benchmarked these cards with 3D Studio Max.

 

[spanky]

get.the.matrox.

 

[Daevux]

Thanks, to everyone.