Trying to kill 2 birds with one Video Card

[Raikiel]

Hi all!

I'm looking to get into computer graphics, and I realize I need a fairly god-like system to do any of it in a truly timely manner. I know I'll also need a decent graphics workstation card as well, which will probably run me more than just about any of the current top-of-the-line gaming beasts out there. Thing is, I am a gamer, and it seems a shame to me to spend all this money on such a kick-arse system that will only serve one primary function, and it wouldn't be gaming. Unless of course, a workstation card (say a mid-grade FireGL for example) will perform as well as a gaming card, (perhaps a middline to higher end Radeon X-series). Does anyone have any experience with this? I really don't want to have to build two machines here, so if I can do it all gaming and creating with one card, I'd really like to know.

If anyone knows where I can find this stuff out, or can even tell me out right whether or not this will work, that would be awesome!

Thanks!
Raikiel

 

[Matthias99]

Unless you're doing *really* high-end stuff, you can probably use a (much cheaper) "gaming" card for all your 3D rendering needs. Last I checked the "professional" cards didn't do gaming so well (significantly worse than the "same" card with a gaming BIOS), and the "gaming" cards did OK at the "professional" apps. They're less efficient, obviously, but there's so much raw horsepower in something like an X800Pro or 6800GT that it really just doesn't matter.

If you're a gamer who wants to dabble in 3DSMax, get a high-end gaming card and you'll be fine. If you're a CAD architect who games occasionally, get a workstation card.

 

[Raikiel]

Thanks Matthias!

On the note of raw horsepower tho, I'm thinking of going Dual-Opteron at about 1.4 GHz for the processors and about 1gig of DDR3200 (registered/eec of course, opterons don't like anything else so I've heard). Do you think that would be enough sheer power to get a workstation card over the hump when it came to gaming? I really would like to go with the workstation card because I want to eventually create images of comparable quality to say a Warcraft III cinematic, and if you've ever seen one of those you know they're pretty bad-arse, definitely what I would dub "really high-end". I don't necessarily want to jump into animation right away, but I want the option to be there, and not have to wait a week for something to be rendered.

You see, I don't really fall into either of the categories you mentioned, those being hardcore gamer/dabbling artist or vice-versa. I'm a serious gamer and wish to become a serious graphic artist, while maintaining my gamer status and capabilities, and also still being able to afford to eat on a regular basis, lol. The machine I'm thinking of putting together right now would run me about 1400 bucks just for MoBo, RAM, Processors, and of course Video (I'm looking at a Fire GL v5100), and I haven't even looked at a graphics tablet yet, but I'm sure they're pricey. Right now it's all about getting my proposed machine to do as much as it can.

Thanks again!

Raikiel

 

[Gamingphreek]

Well in that case then why dont you just get a board with 2 PCI-E graphics slots (SLI board) and then but a Worstation card in one and a gaming card in the other. Just dont SLI them. Half joking in that statement, but hey it could work

Im not sure what designers use to build Warcraft III so i cant make an accurate guess. In Professional workstation Nvidia though they are more expensive do perform better (marginally in some cases) than ATI.

-Kevin

 

[Megamixman]

Or just get a 6800GT or Ultra and Softmod it to a Quadro 4000.
This has all the links you need.

 

[Raikiel]

Thanks for the input Kevin!

Couple questions tho, and please don't anyone beat me over the head with my own newbishness.
1) What does SLI mean? I'm not familiar with the acronym. I do know that the board I was looking at did have 2 PCI-E slots tho. In all honesty, the thought of putting 2 cards in the machine had occurred to me, but I want to avoid that again in favor of a price point. I mean in all seriousness, I'm already talking about spending almost as much money as I payed for my car with just the parts I listed before. I haven't even priced out all the other parts and peripherals I want for it yet, except for the Graphics Tablet, which I found will run about 450 bucks for the one I want. Eeek!

2) What the heck is a "troll"? My family was technologically deprived and we didn't become mainstream internet users until 1999 or so. Thusly I missed much of the "netspeak" as it was evolving, and it's only recently I even started using forums. Now I live with my fiance, an A+ Tech/Comp Sci student who is making sure I get up to speed quickly, but there are only so many hours in a day. But I ramble...

Anywho, if anyone has any other input, ideas, or even better yet, a site with some benchmarks for workstation cards' gaming performance, please feel free to post it here!

Thanks everyone!

Raikiel

 

[Gamingphreek]

Well SLI originated from a company called 3DFX which was bought by Nvidia. It used to be called Scan Line INterleave... now however at the rerelease Nvidia changed it to Scalable Link Interface. In short it combines the power of 2 graphics cards to render one scene.

As for 2 PCI-E slots, not all of them support graphics cards IIRC. I will look into it though.

As for a troll... there are many different definitions. Mainly a troll is someone who posts BS... flames (insults) people... basically not a good guy for the forums

-Kevin

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Raikiel
Thanks for the input Kevin!

Couple questions tho, and please don't anyone beat me over the head with my own newbishness.
1) What does SLI mean? I'm not familiar with the acronym. I do know that the board I was looking at did have 2 PCI-E slots tho. In all honesty, the thought of putting 2 cards in the machine had occurred to me, but I want to avoid that again in favor of a price point. I mean in all seriousness, I'm already talking about spending almost as much money as I payed for my car with just the parts I listed before. I haven't even priced out all the other parts and peripherals I want for it yet, except for the Graphics Tablet, which I found will run about 450 bucks for the one I want. Eeek!

2) What the heck is a "troll"? My family was technologically deprived and we didn't become mainstream internet users until 1999 or so. Thusly I missed much of the "netspeak" as it was evolving, and it's only recently I even started using forums. Now I live with my fiance, an A+ Tech/Comp Sci student who is making sure I get up to speed quickly, but there are only so many hours in a day. But I ramble...

Anywho, if anyone has any other input, ideas, or even better yet, a site with some benchmarks for workstation cards' gaming performance, please feel free to post it here!

Thanks everyone!

Raikiel

Our friend Anand has an article on workstation cards and gaming cards alike, comparing performance of both. Here are some numbers from Doom 3, Half-Life 2, and 3D Studio Max 6 Graphics.

Doom 3: GeForce 6800 Ultra vs. Quadro FX4000

Half-Life 2: GeForce 6800 Ultra vs. Quadro FX4000

3D Studio Max 6 Graphics: GeForce 6800 Ultra vs. Quadro FX4000

Summary: Get a GeForce 6800 GT/Ultra and softmod it into a Quadro FX4000 if you need the extra OpenGL workstation features.

 

[Raikiel]

Dude That's awesome! Thanks!

Hmmm, Given what I was seeing there, looks like with an appropriately powered machine (in terms of processor, memory, ect) I
can do what I wanted to. From what I'm seeing, the workstation cards in general do a decent enough job in games for my purposes. This is very good news! Thank you soooo much!

Raikiel

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: Megamixman
Or just get a 6800GT or Ultra and Softmod it to a Quadro 4000.
This has all the links you need.