Can you use gaming graphics card for basic CAD?

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fooball

fooball

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Jun 14, 2014
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My friend wants a PC for gaming and to learn Architecture. He hasn't really started yet, so he doesn't know what programs he will be using, but I'm guessing he will be using something like AutoCAD architecture or Autodesk Revit.
I'm pretty sure he isn't going to be designing cities or 8 level apartments. There is even a possibility that he will give up architecture after a while, but he will definitely play games for at least few years.
He has a budget of ~$1900 Canadian dollars including monitor, not including os, keyboard, mouse, or tax. He does already have a laptop with a gtx 765m, BTW.
The current build I am looking at (link) is a i7-4790 (probably will change to cheaper cpu), and a 980 ti.
Looking at the Canadian prices, workstation cards look crazy expensive compared to the gaming graphics cards. (link to canadian pcpartpicker with only workstation gpus filtered)
It seems not worth it to get a W7100 over a 980ti, and the sub- $200 workstation cards look bad on paper.
I honestly have almost no knowledge/experience of workstation gpus and CAD programs, and was wondering:
How well will a gaming gpu (eg. the 980 ti) run architecture programs?
-and-
Is it worth it to buy a workstation card, alongside a gaming card, or without a gaming card?
Thanks in advance! :D
 
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fooball

fooball

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Jun 14, 2014
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I looked at the workstation vs gaming gpu benchmarks link, and the Maya 2013 and SPECviewperf 11 results really scare me. The fact that the gaming gpus didn't run on SolidWorks 2013 at all is even more concerning.

The quadro 4000 , which I heard is as powerful as the now available $200 K620, seems to get decent scores.
Right now, I'm looking at getting a gaming gpu as you suggested, plus leave money for a $200 workstation card if he needs one. Any other suggestion?

Edit: how about softmodding gaming gpus into their workstation counterparts? There doesn't seem to be much recent coverage on that, I hope it still works.
Edit again: It seems that Nvidia stopped the ability to softmod after gtx 285 ish
 
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incognito31

incognito31

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Oct 14, 2013
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Honestly, you may be able to do this within your budget if you went with a Titan X which performs similarly to a Quadro 5200 in terms of professional graphics performance, and then sacrifice on some of the other components like going with a 4690K, only one SSD (do you really need a 512GB RAID 0?). Seems like that would be a better overall fit for what you are looking for. I can get the parts for much less than you have quoted, so, maybe you have more limitations being in CA. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the benchmark that was posted 2 years ago. Nvidia has the best driver support and I'm sure they have corrected that issue since. I don't know how the 980ti stacks up to the 4000, but I have to believe it's at least competitive, and if he's definitely playing games for a few years then I think the 980ti is the best overall fit if the Titan X is out of the equation.
 
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fooball

fooball

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These are the canadian prices for the parts you mentioned+ a few for reference:
GTX 980ti - $804.98
Quadro K4000- $943.66
Titan X- $1247.98
Quadro k 620- $218.98
Quadro k5200- $2311.98
Quadro k6000- $5959.00 o_o
Since the 980 ti supposedly performs similarly to the titan x, I will keep with the 980 ti. I also changed the 2ssds into 1 large one, as a better deal popped up.

I also found a thread where they say you can softmod amd gaming cards that are exact equivalents of their workstation counterparts.
From this database, it looks like gaming gpus can run Solidworks, but perform quite a bit worse than workstation gpus.
Another Toms Hardware benchmark makes me believe that gaming gpu driver support may have been improved over the last few years. Still, the gaming gpus fail badly on a few tests.
 
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incognito31

incognito31

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Sounds like you are definitely leaning towards a quadro and the professional performance is more important than the gaming aspect, so I would say you should definitely go with the K4000. With the improved driver support on professional graphics cards t improve things like 3d rendering I'm sure it will give you the performance you are looking for. Good luck! :)
 
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