Is there something better than R9800Pro for me?

[tluxon]

I picked up the 9800 Pro Radeon today at CompUSA for $180 after rebate (<A HREF="http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=302460&pfp=cat3" target="_new">http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=302460&pfp=cat3</A>), but I don't know for sure if it's the best card for me.

I run the graphics on my PC at 1600x1200 resolution and primarily use it for photo and video editing. I assume most modern video cards are more than up to the task. However, even though I expect to rarely do any gaming, I'd like the PC to be fairly adequate for them.

The kicker is that I'm a design engineer and occasionally bring home 200+ part assemblies (it's very demanding to spin a 200 part asssemly around in real time) to work on in SolidWorks. Now SolidWorks can be kinda glitchy if not using one of the cards that are rated as "passing" on their website (<A HREF="http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/videocardtesting.html" target="_new">http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/videocardtesting.html</A>). Unfortunately, most of these cards are quite pricey (I'd like to stay under $300) and I have no idea how good they'd be for gaming.

I bought the 9800 Pro because it seems like a pretty good price for a card that I might be able to softmod to a FireGL-X2. I just don't know if it would be a good gaming performer.

Now, I'd rather buy a card that I don't have to softmod, because then I can't run the latest mfr drivers, but I want to get good bang-for-the-buck.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Tim

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

SoftModing the R9800 seems like your best option. I'd usually recommend the GF6600GT over it, but with the resolutions and work you're running the 256bit and 256MB memory may come into play more. If you were to go nV instead after some searching, go at least GF6800 with 256MB. But the R9800P seems like a good solid (no pun intended) choice.

As for the SoliWorks certified cards, talk to their user groups / forums and see what people are saying who've used the cards. After having looked at that list of 'passing' cards it doesn't look like they even tried to test gaming cards, so even though a GF6800U would likely do far better than a Quadro FX500 or FireGL 8800, they never bothered to test it it looks like. As for people who's only statement is 'go with the list' if they haven't actually tried it it sounds more like the people who say 'don't go out of stock speed on your hardware or use tweaked drivers or else you're doomed!'

SolidWorks has come up a few times before and while I don't use it I'd love to find out if this approval isn't like so many other certification programs, just a layer of 'security' to keep the proffesional GL people employed at ATI, nV, Matrox, 3DLabs etc. The GL drivers for these cards great, but the way they pay for them (and slightly better quality control) is by jacking up the prices of the cards, so it is in their best interest to discourage people from what you want to do.

I'd suggest you get it, you try it and you see what you think. If it's mission critical (like the company is footing the bill and it's a tech write-off/down, then get a real Quadro/FireGL/Realizm, but in your case, even if the $180 cards doesn't work as well as you wanted you can always sell it again for probably very close to that price, or if CompUSA has a satisfaction guarantee of some kind then just return it saying it just won't do what you expected it to in SolidWorks and you're going with another card.

For that price it's a good risk because the difference (between and equal powered Quadro or FireGL) equates to either another 1-2 GB of GOOD FAST RAM or another fast hard-drive (SCSI or SATA) or even in many cases a significant CPU upgrade (depending on where you're starting from), heck it'd almost amount to the price of some copies (depending on suite) of SolidWorks itself.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[Crashman]

No problems here with Solidworks 2004 on a 9600 Pro, the 9800 Pro is better still.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Here's a link in the Roajk Softmod guide;

<A HREF="http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=105&pgno=21" target="_new">http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=105&pgno=21</A>


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[tluxon]

Thanks for the link. That's a pretty amazing performance boost for things like Pro-E without too much a penalty for gaming.

I don't run SolidWorks more than once or twice a week and I can't help but wonder if softmodding makes the card any less compatible or stable for all the other things I use the PC for (watching TV, capturing, video editing). If it does, how much sense would it make to run a dual-boot setup - provided I don't have to flash the card, of course?

 

[tluxon]

One of those guys apparently did the softmod on a AIW9800Pro card and was able to still use the TV/capture functionality of the card. Well, one of the reasons I was looking to depart the AIW world was because I was worried I'd be sacrificing too much performance-wise to stick with it. Now I'm wondering if I should spring for a AIW9800Pro or try softmodding my AIW9600Pro.

Any thoughts on that?