Quattro and FireGL Cards vs. Normal Gaming Cards

Alright, I just first want to clarify, I searched the forumz for an article so no complaining about multi posting.

Now, I am building a system for a friend who is into video editing supposedly. He is making a movie but I am not entirely sure what software he is using. I just wanted to know will there be a noticeable difference in using either fireGL or a Quattro card vs a normal graphics card like x1900 series or 8800 series. I want to know what features are lacking from the 8800 say that the Quattro has. I can't find a good review on the workstation cards and please I don't want to hear anyone say Quattro and FireGL are for cad type programs. DUH, I know I want to know some technical stuff that I can't find anywhere else but from highly skilled tom's nerds so please all you guys give me some juicy info here.

Thanks guys in advance

No real difference. Quaddros and FireGLs are for pro 3d apps mostly, for video editing a good old Geforce or Radeon will do.

If he's not playing games with the machine, an X1650 PRO or 7600 GS will do just fine.

They're basically the same.

It's mostly drivers that let the card shine in one thing or another.

Workstation cards usually struggle in gaming because of the drivers.

To make it short:

OpenGL

these cards are devoted to be better in OpenGL than their DirectX counterparts. Their drivers are specially crafted to make them work with 3D programs, such as 3DStudio, Maya, AutoCAD, etc, etc, etc.

For video editing, the best cards around are made by Matrox, because they can take the load off the CPU to do the non-linear video transforms.

So, for video, a Matrox Pharpelia, for instance, is way better than 2 x 8800GTX. Read this:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/ [...] n/home.php


If you friend is into video, he should know about Matrox cards. They are the best there is. Forget about FireGL, Quadro and DirectX cards.

Now, if he is a domestic user, doing small videos, then a DirectX cards will more than suffice, because in that case the CPU (not the GPU) will take the load of doing all the video transforms.

For video editing what is going to make a difference is a lot of ram and a powerful multi-core cpu. Video cards are for rendering graphics. If your friend is making a computer animated movie then the quattro or firegl would be what he needs. If your friend is filming live action and then editing the video, then he could use crappy onboard graphics and be fine. Get him 2 Gigs of 800 RAM and a quad-core chip and he will be in transcoding heaven.

FireGL or a Quattro have hardware accelerated lines for programs like 3ds max, maya, autocad and other...
I think they basicaly make the professional FireGL card and then cut out the hardware acceleration for those programs. How they cut it (hw or software) I dont know. Ppl used to mod the bios or the drivers of certain nvidia or ati cards to unlock the pro features but it's a thing of the past.
They are basicaly the same cards but the professional ones are much more expensive.