Differences betwee nvidia's Quadro FX series vs. GTX 280 series

Quadro FX cards are equipped with heavy rendering capabilities than GTX280.... So they are much capable for high end Video editing applications...

Some of the features that Quadro FX card have are:
- 128-bit color precision
- Unlimited fragment instruction
- Unlimited vertex instruction
- 3D volumetric texture support
- 12 pixels per clock rendering engine
- Hardware accelerated antialiased points and lines
- Hardware OpenGL overlay planes
- Hardware accelerated two-sided lighting
- Hardware accelerated clipping planes
- 3rd generation occlusion culling
- 16 textures per pixel in fragment programs
- Window ID clipping functionality
- Hardware accelerated line stippling

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] force-9800

I have another question.

I am an occational gamer....How will the Quadro FX cards hold up to gaming?

I never said I wanted to get a Quadro FX for gaming purposes.

I need a GPU for architecture software that I am going to be using for graduate school.

I dont expect you to read every thread but I posted early tonight asking about ATI HD 4870's and GTX 280s, SLI, Crossfire, etc.

I want to build a machine for the architecture software I use, but like I said, I am an occational gamer. I didn't know that the Quadro was the prefered card until I made this post

Thanks for the reply.

So Im trying to figure out if the money on the Quadro FX1700 card is worth it (~$450). I am entry/mid level right now for most ofo the 3d autodesk software.

Otherwise, a GTX 280 is ~$100 less and a HD 4870 is ~$200 less.

Since the 280 is based off the FX chipset, maybe its a better all around choice

Really there is very little (mostly cosmetics) difference between "pro" and consumer cards. The only difference is in drivers and, really, consumer drivers are more complicated (and so, more expensive in development) than professional ones. But both nVIDIA and AMD are cheating professionals because the HAVE to have faster (fatless) drivers.

Really "pro" drivers run nicely on any consumer card (after some hacking - replacing pro models codes for consumer ones in the drivers check-up procedures).