We have a Dell workstation with a Core Duo E8400, 4G RAM, Win7 x64. It is fitted with a Quadro FX570, and the viewport rendering performance is terrible, so I am considering swapping out the graphics card. I don’t want overkill - the box is not a high-end station. From my reading I get the impression that a high-end consumer graphics card might be better than a low-end workstation card. I am wondering about cards in roughly the £250-£350 range such as:

Nvidia VX285
Nvidia GeForce GTX 285
Nvidia Quadro FX1700
ATI Radeon HD 5870
ATI FirePro V5700

I’d be grateful for any comments or other suggestions - my research so far has not eased my confusion much!

Before changing video cards, make sure you try different card drivers and see if that makes a difference.  Several people have found that the most recent doesn’t always seem to be the best. 

And my 2 cents, I have a Quadro FX 1700 and it works just fine for me.  No major complaints.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

KeithXP 15 January 2010 03:45 AM

From my reading I get the impression that a high-end consumer graphics card might be better than a low-end workstation card.

That’s my impression also… nothing ever clear between the GEFORCE and Quadros etc.  You either hear “old or low end Quadros BLOW away any new consumer level GEFORCE level card”, then another post would state “NEW Consumer level GEFORCE cards blow away any old or low end Quadro card, and even the new $$$$ ones becasue the drivers are crap for them and 3ds?????” what gives… in reality are the the newer geforce cards just as good if not better than even a MIDDLE level Quadro?  (high end model, OUT OF THE QUESTION; they are as much as nice used car). IT WOULD BE “REAL NICE” TO SEE A WEBSITE THAT HAD ACTUAL 3ds BENCHMARKS OF THE MOST POPULAR VIDEO CARDS SUCH AS THE QUADROS AND NEW GTX GEFORCES. Not gaming benchmarks, but 3ds benchmarks.  And no not a list from Autodesk endorsing cards. Actual numbers.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
(these obviously reflect video game benchmarks which is useless to 3ds users).  But then again????  If using DirectX9 mode (not 10 since it is NOT working in 3ds 2010), wouldn’t you think these benchmarks WOULD count then for the viewport performance, shaded or wireframe etc? You would think. (well...besides all the mess EoDEo brought up using Vista/7 vs. XP with DX10 card etc etc etc.... ugggh.  Are the Quadros merely using Directx9 anyways since I hear even the recently released PERFORMANCE DRIVERS aren’t much good anyways?  Is the standard NOWADAYS to use DX9… not performance drivers much less openGL?

Shoot, just go out and get a GTX260 (great for the money...better than the GTX 250, but not $$$$ like anything higher and still AWESOME).  If you don’t like it, take it back, then plunk down $$$$$ for a Quadro or Fire*. I am guessing you won’t get much performance gain in 3ds due to the drivers????  But may indeed see huge differnce when using other software such as Solidworks, Inventor, etc??????  not sure… don’t know.

Intel i7 930 2.8Ghz 8 CORE HT / CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus (no OC yet!)
Nvidia EVGA GTX 260 v296.10 driver (Nitrous in max) / Dual Dell Professional P2311H 23” Displays
ASUS P6X58D-E / Corsair Dominator 12GB 1600 DDR3 / Antec tp750 blue / Antec 300 Illusion
Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1
3ds max design 2012 x64 SP2 (since the 1st DOS version!), Mudbox 2012 x64 SP3, Softimage 2012 x64 SP1, Maya 2012 x64 HF2, Adobe CS5.5 x64, CorelDRAW x5 SP3, Painter 12, etc etc
Wacom Intuos4 v6.2.0w5 / 3DConnexion Space Navigator (drv6.15.2)/ Logitech Performance MX mouse (5.33.14)

FX570 is a pretty week card. i get good performance from my old gtx8800 768mb and on my other system a 285 1GB. stick with gaming cards if your on a budget, although i wish could afford a quadro 5800.

3Ds Max 2012+Sp2 +SAP, Vray 2.2, Photoshop CS5.1
OS - Windows 7 Pro x64 Sp1
sys1: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 580 (3GB) (295.51), OCZ vertex 2 120GB SSD, Wacom Intuos 3
sys2: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 560 (1GB) (295.51), wacom bamboo

I found an HP Quadro FX3700 on eBay for £175 including a warranty… going to give it a go!

Thanks for all the suggestions guys

(ps, vendor is in the UK and has more - checkout eBay item 260539787178)

i wouldn’t of bothered personally with a 3700FX even though its a good price. but you could of got for a similar price a 275 (896mb), 250 (1GB) or a 260 (896mb) because there are faster and have more video memory and they will still be under warranty.

3Ds Max 2012+Sp2 +SAP, Vray 2.2, Photoshop CS5.1
OS - Windows 7 Pro x64 Sp1
sys1: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 580 (3GB) (295.51), OCZ vertex 2 120GB SSD, Wacom Intuos 3
sys2: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 560 (1GB) (295.51), wacom bamboo