nVidia Quadro 2000 vs AMD FirePro W5000?

Well, take a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWFVqbG3O1c

That's comparison using SolidWOrks 2013. I don't know about GeoImager or MapPublisher...

idcrayon,

The Firepro vs. Quadro debate as ever is loaded with difficulties. There's a certain element of performance enthusiast who seem to become set a conclusion first and then arrange tests or demonstrations that 'prove" Firepros or GTX to be vastly superior and much cheaper. I've seen a number of cases - especially in YouTube videos in which Quadros of one to three generations obsolete are compared to very new Firepros or GTX. For example, the comparison of Quadro 2000 and Firepro W5000 is a comparison of cards of more than two years apart in design. A fairer comparison would of course be a Quadro K2000. And even in the comparison with the 2000, the Firepro was obviously set on a reduced anti-aliasing factor so the 3D model spins faster. this is a technique used in Quadro vs. GeForce omparisons as though frame rates were the only important factor. If I were buying a workstation graphics card based solely on the linked YouTube video, I 'd still buy the Quadro, because quality of the image is more important than the speed it spins around. If you watch, the jagged Firepro image is impossible to discern- no one using 3D CAD would consider that image useable.

This cynical idea of workstation hardware and NVIDIA in particular being overpriced includes the Quadro vs. GeForce conversation and Pentium vs. Xeon as well. Up to a certain level of workstation use, a GTX or Radeon has a better- or even much better cost / performance ratio than a Quadro or Firepro, but if you're a serious, high level user of applications such as Solidworks, CS, Catia, Maya, rendering, you will have better results and in the long run save time if you've got a Xeon (double precision, 10-bit color), ECC RAM- (error correcting), and Quadro (specialized "partnered" drivers, 128X anti-alisiasing)- machine.

I tried a GTX 285 and even as a neophyte user of Solidworks, saw it wasn't going to work- it crashed viewports, my Sketchup renderings had shadow artifacts and would crash after 30 minutes, and so on. I replaced it with a Quadro FX 4800- now three generation old, and though it makes fewer frames per second, it is completely reliable and I can't stress enough the better display and rendering quality. I can still download specialized drivers for Solidworks 2010 and Adobe CS4.

I should mention that there is a long history of Quadros being optimized for Adobe CD. The Quadro FX4800 was in fact especially optimized for CS4 and they even had a special version called the "CX" for CS use.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe-cs6.html

Personally, I'd recommend a Quadro K2000 and look into 2560 x 1440 or higher resolution monitors.


Cheers,

BambiBoom

[Dell Precision T5400, 2X quad core Xeon X5460 @ 3.16GHz, 16GB DDR2-667 ECC RAM, Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB, WD RE4 , Windows 7 Ultimate] [ AutoCad, Revit, Solidworks, Sketchup, CS4 MC, Corel Technical Designer X5, WP Office X4, MS Office 2007]