Video card for CAD workstation

Most people are under the mistaken impression that workstation cards are required for AutoCAD .... nothing could be further from the truth. If we are talking CAD, not rendering or other design programs like Inventor or Maya, GeForce gaming cards are either equal or superior for straight CAD work. In my engineering office for example, we don't have a single workstation card, no place I ever worked for had an workstation card.

Based upon everything you have likely been told to date, you're prolly thinking Im nutz.... so best you look at the numbers (compared GTX 680 and Quadro K4000:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-4.html

AutoCAD 2D Graphics Index - $780 Workstation card edges out $360 Geforce by a score of 750 to 747
AutoCAD 2D Ortho Lines - $780 Workstation card edges out $360 Geforce by a score of 774 to 767
AutoCAD 2D Radial Lines - $780 Workstation card edges out $360 Geforce by a score of 670 to 657
AutoCAD 2DText and Blocks - $780 Workstation card edges out $360 Geforce by a score of 245 to 244
AutoCAD 2D Erase Zoom - $780 Workstation card ties out $360 Geforce with a score of 496

AutoCAD 3D Graphics Index - $780 Workstation card loses out to the $360 Geforce by a score of 1376 to 1158
AutoCAD 3D Rotate Wireframe - $780 Workstation card loses out to the $360 Geforce by a score of 678 to 448
AutoCAD 3D Rotate Realistic - $780 Workstation card loses out to the $360 Geforce by a score of 1795 to 1132
AutoCAD 3D Rotate Hidden - $780 Workstation card loses out to the $360 Geforce by a score of 1497 to 1475
AutoCAD 3D Rotate Conceptual - $780 Workstation card loses out to the $360 Geforce by a score of 1535 to 1517

3ds MAX and iRay - $780 Workstation card loses out to the $360 Geforce by a score of 343 to 604

Of course rendering with Maya and SolidWorks is the realm of workstation cards
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-8.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-9.html

Of the two cards you listed, the nVidia one is an $890 card and the other is outta production. I wouldn't expect satisfactory performance from either.

If you are doing AutoCAD, 3ds MAx and other CAD programs, Id get the best GeForce card you van afford..... if doing rendering w/ maya and Solidworks, Id find a way to increase ya budget....but a quality card like the Quadro™ K5000M with 4GB GDDR5 Video Memory is typically an $1850 option and thats on top of the base GFX card cost (770M) which is $350.

NVIDIA® Quadro® K1000M is typically a $50 upgrade over the 770M
Look at this one http://www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np8270.html