Work Station Cards vs Gaming cards for 3D Modeling

[doglatin]

It's time once again to upgrade the video card on my system and I'm wrestling with that sinking feeling in my stomach at the prospect of forking out too much cash for a "workstation" class video card. I've been happy with my old Quadro, but I want much better speeds on 3D renderings. (Modo, Sketchup, Solidworks) The top end gaming card (say a GTX295) runs $550ish, where as that buys a sub-middle end "workstation" card like the Quadro fx1800, with the top end (FX5800) running $3000+.

My question is, does any one know of some published data that actually compares gaming cards and workstation cards on the basis of workstation benchmarks. Tom's has benchs for both sets of cards, but not doing the same tests. (like put the GTX295 in a system and run the 3DS & solidworks benchmarks). Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

wm

 

[le13enforce]

I haven't seen any, but here are some thoughts:

My experience is that workstation-class GPUs are much more expensive because their ability to render objects in 3D is much more comprehensive. Gaming GPUs are more specialized, concentrating on specific aspects that are common in games today.

My point is that if you're doing professional work, if you're creating 3D renderings that make you money, use workstation class cards. Gaming cards used to render 3D objects tend to produce artifact-laden compositions.

Question: What's your card now?

 

[astrotrain1000]

Don't take my word for it but I understood it to be that the home/workstation cards were the same with just different BIOS's on the card. The home versions have a special bios's that purposely slows down workstation type work.

 

[doglatin]

Thanks for the replies.

@le13enforce: FX560. Not the best there ever was and it's about 2 years old for me.

The interesting thing here is in just 2 responses, we see the prevailing debate about this which is, someone people say the pro cards actually DO something more, others say it's not that big a deal. While researching this, I've found this same 50/50 split up and down the Modo forums, Sketchup forums, etc. That's why what I really want to find is some data supports one of these claims. I know the pro cards have a unique architecture, but I also hear that only really useful for massive scientific visualizations running on hand written hardware...and then I hear something else

data...anyone?

 

[adamosmaki]

The think is that a normal gaming card is designed with in mind that you are gonna be gaming 5-6 hours the day where as workstation card are designed with in mind that they will be stressed 24/7 ( try using a gaming card 24/7 and it will most likely die after a few months work if not weeks work) and of course there is the higher performance in workstation type work