Picking the right laptop with the right graphics card!

[ibthevivin]

I'm wondering if anybody has extensive knowledge about graphics cards. I basically need to find a laptop that can support all these softwares:

AutoCAD
3D Max
Maya
Mud Box
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Photoshop

From my research I've been running into the NVIDIA Quadro 1000M but there are only a handful of laptops that come with that and they're really expensive. I'm wondering if any of the NVIDIA GTX cards would support those softwares above properly. On Autodesk.com all they recommend are Quadro cards which seemed odd. Are Quadro cards REALLY the only type of graphics cards that'll support their software? That just doesn't sit right.

Thanks!

 

[dudewitbow]

the reason why one would recommend quadro cards is that its nvidia's lineup for professional work, rather than gaming. the programs that recommend it would usually be programs that can utilize the cuda cores which the amd equivalent firepro does not have(amd workstation cards excel on general computing using opencl)

 

[ibthevivin]

Thanks for the information! But what does that mean for GTX cards? They wouldn't be sufficient at all huh? Also you mentioned FirePro cards. So would they do the job?

 

[dudewitbow]

I personally havent dove into professional use of gpus yet so my knowlege of them is quite limited. GTX cards are useable for professional work, it is just that it does not compute as fast as something that was designed for it. As for the programs in general, i know that photoshop does use CUDA, I believe autocad uses it to some extent, as for the others, my knowlege is limited in it. In order for a normal gtx gpu to perform similar to a quadro card is by having a high # of cuda cores for cuda related operations, which usually doesn't happen unless in the high end of the gtx spectrum.



as for the firepro, i have absolutely no idea how it performs.

 

[Sunius]

Quadro cards would work much faster than GTX cards in that software.