OpenGL: Maya 2013 And LightWave
Maya 2013
Two scenes that don’t employ the new Viewport 2.0 with DirectX support illustrate the disadvantages of consumer cards compared to workstation hardware cards as soon as OpenGL comes into play. The FirePro and Quadro drivers are simply better-optimized. But especially in the second scene, you also see that a GeForce GTX 580 does well, so long as the workload is right for it.
Lightwave
LightWave wrecks consumer cards as well. You can certainly use the R9 and R7 cards to mess with mid-sized models that aren’t too complex, but a workstation card is clearly a better option.