I am interested in 3d modeling do i need a workstation graphics card?

What kind of modeling are you going to do? How much real-time rendering? What programs?

Sometimes it helps tremendously, sometimes it doesn't make any difference.
There is a V4800 that is VERy good for the price for workstation cards at the moment. 1 GB gddr5 mem, good clocks, 170 bucks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

If you plan on doing some gaming as well, then definitely get a gaming graphics card, and then use it for 3d modeling, it should be able to do almost anything.

There are some benches floating on the internet on this subject, and if you are ONLY going to do 3D modeling, and you rely on efficiency (job-oriented), and you real-time render (graphically)really LARGE models in space, then get a workstation graphics card. The differences between them can be found on the web, and with the same chip, etc. the workstation was about 30% better than its gaming counterpart (the most extreme difference, generally it was about 15-20%) in rendering SW models faster. Which, depending on your application, can make a huge difference. Waiting 5 hours as opposed to 7 hours, etc.

For the price, the v4800 can NOT be beat right now. Only problem is, if you need more power than that, look for a 600 dollar card, because there is no Crossfire compatibility (two cards running at once in case you didn't know) on the firepro series right now, as far as I understand.

Hope this helps.

mostly maya and 3ds studio max for game design. im on a serious budget though i have about $900 dollars for a system with up to 260 on the graphics card. i want to play games on it too but modeling is far more important.and i also want to base the system around an AMD processor probably the Phenom II x4.

You will be fine with gaming card, you will need a GREAT CPU instead of GREAT GPU for your work.
So if you can afford Phenom II X6 and get it to above 3.0GHz, you will be great.  

well the only problem with gaming cards is the amount of polys they can support. So if you are going to do some serious high polygon modelling , then i would suggest that you get the 4800 mentioned above.
If on the other had you are going to do only low poly models then a gaming card will suffice.

For your needs, +1 on the 6 core Phenom, that is for sure. Lot of horsepower there for what you want to do for the price.

Yeah, definitely get an x6 for 200 bucks and then get a gtx 460 or 5830 for your gpu. the cpu is the most important for what you are using. The good thing about a gaming gpu choice is that you CAN always get another one and SLi or CF, which is not the case for the Firepro workstation gpus, not sure about nvidia's line up though, but you will be saving money and not sacrificing performance going with a gaming card. Hope you got your answer.

I do not know how well the vice versa goes too, whether workstation cards can game well or not.