Quadro or GTX

[jonathan7007]

All,
I am going to build an i7 system in mid March for my Photoshop CS4 and Powerpoint work. These PS RAW files will be large. I will do Dreamweaver and perhaps learn more elaborate presentation skills with Flash, etc. Of course it will also support more general day-to-day tasks, although I have a laptop for most of the business side. I have no plans for [professional] video editing.

I see that nVidia suggests Quadro boards for this application. A forum comment elsewhere cites that board series as a power-saving option, too. Ok, sounds good.

If I put this much money into a system I might want to play a game now and then. My daughter likes SIMS and has a lot of SIMS2 materials. Will the Quadro just turn up its nose and not accelerate this game-oriented shading and shaping? The NVidia site doesn't seem to answer this question...

I have to admit I don't play games on my current machines, but I will semi-retire and give up a full day schedule of teaching soon so I will have more flexibility at my workstation.

If I can be sure the game-oriented card will serve both needs I *might* opt for the game-focused solution.

Thoughts, anyone?


BTW: I have the Gigabyte X58-5U motherboard in mind.

Thanks, in advance, for your thoughts.

jonathan7007

 

[paperfox]

The Quadro workstation cards will do very good with your CS4 programs, but with games they slow to a crawl if they even run at all. Sims 2 is a rather old game so I would not be to worried about FPS but sometimes some games just don’t want to work with a workstation card.

Since you are not doing any heavy duty 3D rendering I think you could get away with a more powerful gaming card and get the best of both worlds.

What is your budget for a graphics card? And what screen resolution do you use.

 

[jonathan7007]

The Quadro workstation cards will do very good with your CS4 programs, but with games they slow to a crawl if they even run at all. Sims 2 is a rather old game so I would not be to worried about FPS but sometimes some games just don’t want to work with a workstation card.

Since you are not doing any heavy duty 3D rendering I think you could get away with a more powerful gaming card and get the best of both worlds.

What is your budget for a graphics card? And what screen resolution do you use.

Paperfox, thanks for such a quick reply.

This game incompatibility is exactly what I suspected might happen. I am investing a lot in the machine, partly for the fun of building and making the specs hit all the sweet spots (and maybe a little more... like the i7 and socket 1366 choice)

so... I would put sufficient RAM on any card I bought. When I said "GTX" I was guessing at the product name code and I see that it perhaps should have been GTS, but I would not bother with two cards.

I use a 24-inch Gateway monitor at 1900x1200 but might switch to my graphics-oriented 1600x1200 Viewsonic, which might offer better color control.

BTW, I like rotating occaisionally to portrait with both of these monitors. That's why I have nVidia-chip boards so far.

Again, thanks for the information.

jonathan7007

 

[jonathan7007]

OK, I looked at NewEgg price for a Gigabyte 260GTX with 800+ RAM and slightly overclocked GPU.I assume this runs all the Open GL routines necessary for Photoshop acceleration (but will check before I buy...) and it's only $215 before shipping. Seems very reasonable for the benefit I get in my professional work as well as play.

jonathan7007

 

[paperfox]

for $200 you might be better off with a hd 4890, although Im not seeing any on Newegg right now.

ATI chips are capable of rotating to portrait mode aswell, unless you like Nvidias interface better/faster.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_260_us.html
click specs, and it says the 260 can support opengl 2.1

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-4000/hd-4890/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-4890-specifications.aspx
4890 supports opengl 3.1

 

[jonathan7007]

for $200 you might be better off with a hd 4890, although Im not seeing any on Newegg right now.

ATI chips are capable of rotating to portrait mode aswell, unless you like Nvidias interface better/faster.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_260_us.html
click specs, and it says the 260 can support opengl 2.1

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-4000/hd-4890/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-4890-specifications.aspx
4890 supports opengl 3.1

Now I'll check at adobe.com and get into a serious Photoshop forum like NAPP organization to find out if the Photoshop coding uses the OpenGL3.1 extras or it limited to 2.1. My memory says that I always saw "OpenGL2.x" in specs I saw ver the past few months.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have been an nVidia user for a long time but would switch if appropriate.

jonathan7007