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What video card should i get for a Graphic Design workstation?

M

MixmasterC

Junior Member
yeah, i know most designers use macs...

anyway, i'm split between using a GeForce 3 or an Nvidia Quadro 2 Pro (Elsa Gloria 3)- The main software i'll be running is photoshop, illustrator, and flash, but i'd also like to run 3d studio max or maya a bit on the side.

but, since the quadro 2 pro is about 2x the price of the geforce 3, i'm wondering if it is worth the price relative to performance. does anyone have any ideas?

i also know you can bet a geforce2 card and turn it into a quadro 2, but i'm kinda sketchy with the soldering iron...

my box will probably be a 1.4 Thunderbird C, 512 DDR, RAID striping with 2 IBM 60GXPs.

so, if you have any ideas or suggestions, i'd really appreciate it!

thanks!

 
Are you doing 3D modeling or just graphic design? If it's just graphic design, go for Matrox's latest card. Matrox has *always* had the best 2D quality, but their 3D is not so great (for gaming, at least, I've heard that they're decent for rendering and modeling, too). nVidia cards seem to be plagued by intermittant reports of people saying the colors in Windows looked washed out, but that seems to vary by card brand. That and new drivers every week and a half. Matrox would be the way to go for a pure graphic design workstation, in my opinion.
 
I read an article recently that said that many people were atarting to use the tbird systems in the graphics design area...in the opinion of the ppl that the article's author was talking to was, the amd systems almost never crashed compared to the macs, and cost less (in terms of components and productivity of time).


Do you need dual monitor support?

I think the gf3 will be just fine for both great 2d quality and excellent 3d quality needed for the 3d studio. I wonder how the radeon2 may do when it comes out since ATI always seems to spend a bit more time on 2d graphics support as well as 3d support...
 
Duvie:
It's interesting that you say people are starting to use Thunderbirds for graphic design, and I think that's because the 1+ GHz Thunderbirds are finally up there with G4 rendering power. My roommate has a dual 450 G4 system, and it absolutely flies for rendering, Distributed.net RC5 cracking, etc. In fact, just one of his G4's has the same equivilent speed of a 1.2 GHz Thunderbird for rendering, etc. It's pretty sick. Now that my roomie uses OS X, though, he rarely crashes. Not as often as if he were using 9x, certainly, and sometimes he lasts longer in uptime than my Win2K box if he weren't rebooting between OS 9 and OS X.

Mixmaster:
If you're using dual monitors for anything, the Matrox cards all have the DualHead support for two monitors on one card, which makes things significantly easier.
 
first of all, thanks for all the advice!

I'm mostly going to do 2D stuff, but i still want the option of fairly decent 3D. I'm not so hardcore 3D that i need a 3DLabs Wildcat or Oxygen thingy.

That's also why i don't like macs- A)CRASH PRONE (but i haven't tried OS X) B) No self-respecting 3D workstation is Mac based C) cost too much

So i just looked at the new matrox 550 and it doesn't look too hot... especially compared to the geforce 3. but dual monitor support would be nice.

Maybe i should go practice with a soldering iron...
 
Well, the 3DLabs chips and FireGL chips have good 3D only for modeling, and consumer cards like the Geforce usually only have good 3D for gaming, but fairly slow in modeling programs.

Actually, any self-respecting graphic workstation should be a Mac. Macs are best known as graphics workstations, and that's the niche they seem to have fallen into. ILM, Pixar, and all the special effects house use Macs for everything they do (except CGI rendering, that's typically done on Sun boxes...mmmmmm...Sun boxes....) and the programs on Macs for graphic design are more stable and better-programmed than even their identical PC counterparts. That's starting to change, but it's still somewhat true. Macs are definately faster for rendering and modeling than PCs.
 


<< Well, the 3DLabs chips and FireGL chips have good 3D only for modeling, and consumer cards like the Geforce usually only have good 3D for gaming, but fairly slow in modeling programs.
 >>



If you have the money, the FireGL2 (about $800) is quite good at rendering. Obviously the Wildcat II ($2000) is out of your range. So that leaves you with the lesser priced models. Check out the CAD users site:

http://www.cadalyst.com/reviews/hardware/0201gcards/report.htm

This compares the performances of cards focused on CAD work. They claim the next best are (best to worst): Elsa GLoria III, 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX420, ATI Radeon32. Of course once you get to the Radeon, you might as well get a GeForce 2 GTS card...
 


<< Hender, not all the Matrox cards right now have DualHead. It's optional. >>



Ah, my bad. I thought it was standard. Still a cool feature, though.
 
my New kyro II has excellent 2d and gaming 3d, but im not too sure how it renders. has anyone tried using a KyroII for rendering yet? i would say that the 2d quality is close to a Matrox. again, not from firsthand experience, but, it has been noted all to often that Nvidia cards suffer in the 2d dept. maybe you would consider a matrox a kyro, or mod a Nvidia for the better 2d?

goodluck
loosbrew
 
I've used and set up alot of 'em and the Geforce Ultra is the way to go on a budget for general use. Don't even think about a Kyro or ATI for OpenGL. Do the mod and use Elsa drivers and you are all set.
 
AFAIK, the software mod just messes with the drivers and the registry. So, back each up, and try er out! Not like you can hurt yourself *too* much ;-) And yes, I have seen posts that claim successful results. If you try it, let me know. I don't play many games anymore, and I'd appreciate the CAD powerboost.
 
Those Reedons were pathetic a month ago when I was building with them. Hey If they revolutionized the drivers or something great but in May they were the absolute worst. I wrote some Unigraphics benchmarks at work and they sucked. Similar with the Spec suite and my guys couldn't work on 'em. Back they went and were replaced with Glorias. Don't know what the software mod is it's new to me a couple of days ago and haven't looked at it. Xtennis is the guy with all the info you need Let me get the link.
 
HERE ya go Now there is risk involved. But there is money to be saved. Your best weapon is patience and reading. Don't be in a rush.

Hey Mix*c just reread you original post. I don't have any experience with the GF3 so don't forget to evaluate them as well for the price and future and all that
 
yeah, back to my orginal post:

Does anyone have any idea/information on how a quadro 2 (modded or real) would perform vs a geforce 3?

thanks!
 
u can't even buy high-end 3d professioanl graphics cards outside of OEM systems (i.e. wildcat 45/55k, oxygen GVX420, etc.)

u can get lower/mid-end oxygen based cards for fair prices, and fireGL cards as well (as offered in most large distributor pro graphics systems)

the quadro hack is a good way to go...hack a gf2 - also, u can SOFTWARE hack it..u don't need to fiddle around w/ soldering registers to configure ID manipulation...i believe the link is on HardOCP somewhere from last week...at the latest, a two weeks ago...

note: GF2 based cards have atrocious 2D at high resolutions...if u're only running maya, et al occassionally, i'd consider a different card than the quadro hack...i.e. Radeon 64mb (or spend some bucks and get a low/mid range oxygen board)

 
From my experience, the nVidia Quadro line of cards have significantly better 2D than the regular GeForce cards. I don't know if that's because of the card's manufacturer (These were made for SGI machines) or if it's just the design of the Quadro card.

I tried both the Geforce 2 GTS and the Geforce 2 GTS Ultra vs a Quadro 1 and a Quadro2 Pro.
 
For someone doing 2D work that wants to try out 3D apps, there's no need for anything more than a geforce2 on the 3D side of things. An ultra has higher fillrate, but that doesn't help when working with wireframe models, and it doesn't help with the rendering.

Get an Elsa gladiac, asus v7700, or visiontek card and you'll be good to go. Not the greatest 2D, but acceptable (as long as your're not running a high end 19&quot; at 1600x1200), with strong 3D drivers and capabilities.

There's no need for someone who isn't serious about their 3D work to get a quadro, fireGL, or oxygen card.

the trick is to have more ram than just 512mb when it's so cheap. 768 would be ideal at these prices.
 
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