Is NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M 1GB good enough for 3D and rendering?

[Oritbt]

Hi,

I want to buy a new laptop today to catch the end of the black Friday deals.
I need a laptop for CAD, some 3D and rendering (sketchup, Maya, etc.), some graphics and heavy surfing.

I need to decide between 2 options - one with NVIDIA Quadro 1000M/2000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory and one with NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M 1GB. there's a big pricing difference between the two ($650 - $900).

Is GeForce GT 550M 1GB good enough for occasional rendering? does the Quadro 1000M worth the 650$ difference? does the Quadro 2000M worth the 900$ difference?


Thanks for your help guys!

 

[renz496]

if its for real work i think you better off with quadro solution.

 

[Trist_58]

Hey Oritbt,

I recently had a similar dilemma upgrading my gfx card for video editing/compositing and 3D work with Max. I decided to go with the GTX 580 3GB.

Keep in mind that when choosing a card for 3D, you will probably not use more that 1GB of your VRAM in the viewport - the larger amount will only be used for GPU rendering. I'm not certain about Maya but with Max the GPU accelerated render engines are not even used for production.

What it comes down to is this: NVIDIA GTX cards are cheaper and also very powerful. QUADRO cards are designed specifically for 3D and have better cooling, support and drivers that are tailored for design and IMO not worth the $$.

However if you go with a GTX I would choose a better one, like the 570 or 580.

I don't know if you have already bought the card you were after but good luck anyways!

 

[Trist_58]

Most of the time, rendering speed will depend on your CPU.