ATI OR NVIDIA

4870

Well it's very app dependant, but I'd say that in general the HD4870 would be the better choice for what you're asking.

However there are some apps that would be preferential to one or the other so be sure you check into the predific tools you'll be using.

There's hasn't been much testing of workstation apps on these cards yet (mainly since there is no Quadro and FireGL equivalent yet), but I would hazard a guess that without optimized drivers the HD4870 would outperform the GTS260 just scaling off of the previous generations' performance.

Thank you for the fast reply, I know about the Quadro and FireGL series and that they would have been the better choice out of the two but they are way out of my price range if you know what I mean. Looks like i'll be going for the HD4870 then, I did do some research before posting here and found the HD4870 to be the better choice but I just had to ask personally to confirm it.

ati

ati

you can soft mod atleast the Nvidia cards into Quadro cards btw

I would have said NVIDIA in the past, considering how slacking they got after their 8800 series, I would say ATI for now. At least ATI is doing pretty good lately.

Can you softMod the GTX series yet?

I didn't think they had support yet, since like the FireGL SoftMod you need an equivalent workstation card to Softmod to before it works.

The Quadro Fx is very expensive, I would like to buy one but are they specifically for 3d Design and work or for both gaming and 3d work
AND WHY IS IT THAT FireGL V5600 IS A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE THAN ATI RADEON HD4870 AND THE SPECS ON THE HD4870 ARE HIGHER

ATI RADEON HD4870
PCI Express x16 (2.0%u5BFE%u5FDC)
512MB
256bit
GDDR5
750MHz / 3600MHz
DVI-I x2
HDTV
FAN
DVI to HDMI
CrossFireX
HDCP

FireGL V5600
PCI Express x16
512MB
128bit
GDDR4
DVI-I x2
FAN
DVI to D-Sub

It's the cost of driver and hardware certification and the customer support that comes with the cards.

It's like buying an Audi versus an VW, or the old ford Aston/Jaguar, may have similar underlying features but the support levels, quality control, etc. are different and you pay for it.

UWE covers it briefly in this review;
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-workstation-...