Which card is best price/performance for 3D rendering?

[Red Storm]

So my friend asked me to help him put together a system. He's not a gamer, but works in architecture and landscaping so he said he needs a video card that'll do a good job with rendering and such. Problem for me is, I only know what to buy when it comes to gaming cards, so I'm a little clueless as to which card to recommend for him. I know the Quadro and FireGL series cards are the ones I'm looking for, but I don't know what's a good price for them. Can anyone help me out?

 

[QuixoticOne]

Find out what applications he uses for the 3D.. what works well with a given application depends on the application, and whether it is OpenGL or DirectX or even uses the GPU for render calculations or if it basically 100% renders with the CPU and just displays the rendered view on the graphics card.

In general the best price/performance cards are:
ATI: 4850 from VisionTek
Nvidia: 8800GT-512 from XFX or EVGA or the 9800GT.

If the GPU even MATTERS much with the software he uses (i.e. it isn't all basically done on the CPU whatever GPU you may have), those are good bets in the consumer card space. I would not suspect a professional series card would do better unless you have specific information from the S/W company that says otherwise and gives convincing hard benchmarks to prove it.

If the GPU doesn't even matter much for the 3D SW, just get something cheap like a HD3850 or 8600GT / 9600GT for like $50.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne


If the GPU even MATTERS much with the software he uses (i.e. it isn't all basically done on the CPU whatever GPU you may have), those are good bets in the consumer card space. I would not suspect a professional series card would do better unless you have specific information from the S/W company that says otherwise and gives convincing hard benchmarks to prove it.

If the GPU doesn't even matter much for the 3D SW, just get something cheap like a HD3850 or 8600GT / 9600GT for like $50.

Yes and no, if you are using 2d cad then, sure, just get something reasonable, but if you are doing any sort of 3d work then you will need more.

I use AutoCAD and 3dsMAX daily and, yes, the video card does matter a great deal. Last time I checked the 3d graphics that are on the screen while you are doing your modeling go through the GPU. A big-time CPU helps too, but mostly when you are doing your final renders.

I have not purchased a workstation GPU in a while, I can not justify $1000+ for a single GPU at the level I am working - just not enough poly's to make a difference. FWIW if you want to look at a good gamer card the HD 4870's work better than their Nvida counterparts for most 3d modeling tools.