GeForce 6800 GPU vs Quadro4 900 XGL

I doubt that you will see any impact of 256MB vs. 128MB. It might make a difference if you do a lot of renderings, but I don't think it will matter much in normal SolidWorks. The Quadro will do better when you have many windows open, but apparently that doesn't matter much to you anyway. Try it and see. Report back to us.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

As I understand it alot of memory comes in handy if you are running two screens off same video card or very high resolutions and/or high colour depth. So if neither of those applies to you there should be very little difference.

"Boris" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

My understanding is that this large amount of memory is used to store texture in games. That much is not necessary in CAD.

Nothing personal - but I don't think those guys know what they are talking about.

Since I definately do not know what I am talking about I will venture a guess.

Solidworks is Open GL based. Gaming cards process OpenGL very nicely. IMO SWx appears to have an agreement with Nvidia. Think about it. The realview is a toggled setting supposedly needing a Quadro card to enable it. I think it is purely a gimmick with coding provided by Nvidia to sell Quadro cards. I'm not saying that a workstation card isn't the better choice. I just think realview is a marketing gimmick and that any number of decent Gamer cards could render a realview view if they could hack through the Quadro identifier lock.

I don't fully understand how on card memory works and it would be nice for someone to spell it out for us. I think it has a big impact in what we do in SWx. There is something else to consider. Vid Games run tons of textures mapped to triangles but do so with software engines built for speed. Gameing cards are buit for these engines. It would be interesting to understand what kind of "engine" is driving SWx. Is it closer to a gaming engine or something completely different? It would be nice to be able to benchmark it some how.

Nothing personal - but I don't think those guys know what they are talking about.

Since I definately do not know what I am talking about I will venture a guess.

Solidworks is Open GL based. Gaming cards process OpenGL very nicely. IMO SWx appears to have an agreement with Nvidia. Think about it. The realview is a toggled setting supposedly needing a Quadro card to enable it. I think it is purely a gimmick with coding provided by Nvidia to sell Quadro cards. I'm not saying that a workstation card isn't the better choice. I just think realview is a marketing gimmick and that any number of decent Gamer cards could render a realview view if they could hack through the Quadro identifier lock.

I don't fully understand how on card memory works and it would be nice for someone to spell it out for us. I think it has a big impact in what we do in SWx. There is something else to consider. Vid Games run tons of textures mapped to triangles but do so with software engines built for speed. Gameing cards are buit for these engines. It would be interesting to understand what kind of "engine" is driving SWx. Is it closer to a gaming engine or something completely different? It would be nice to be able to benchmark it some how.

Nothing personal mate - but don't blow people off before your in possession of the facts.

What I ventured as some simple friendly guidance for Boris, came from listening to the chief hardware development engineer for the Wildcat range of cards at a talk he gave to our Solidworks user group a while back.

He would definitely know what he was talking about.

Thank you all for good comments. One more thing that I didn't mention - GeForce card is a PCI Express interface, Quadro is PCI or AGP (not sure yet), but not express. Wonder how this affects performance. I will report back on how the cards actualy compare when I try the Quadro. Wish there was a way to benchmark performance for objective testing. Thanks again to all, Boris

Boris, Try this thread link.

was a comparison of video cards performed by Eddy Hicks a while ago now on comp.cad.solidworks.

Also, have a browse thru this search on google comp.cad.solidworks

Cheers

Neville Williams "remove the KNOT to reply"

Well why didn't you say that in the first place *dude*? Then I would have slammed that guy instead. ;-)

BTW that was a interesting thread you linked. Which benchmark did they use - just curious. If interested there is a Quadro vs. Geforce datasheet

Are you near Dunedin by chance?

Nothing personal mate - but don't blow people off before your in possession of the facts.

What I ventured as some simple friendly guidance for Boris, came from listening to the chief hardware development engineer for the Wildcat range of cards at a talk he gave to our Solidworks user group a while back.

He would definitely know what he was talking about.

Quadro cards are built for precision and stability. Gaming cards are built for speed and not so much precision. I have used both and Quadro cards are way more stable. Even if a Quadro card has less memory I feel it would out perform a gaming card with more memory. Look at the testing for SolidWorks, it isnt really a science. Someone has spelled it out for us. They have ATI cards on there that are tested excellent also, but they are not gaming cards they are CAD cards.

Interesting that you mention Dunedin - I had the opportunity to spend a few days there in 1980. I was on my way home from 4 months in Australia and stopped to visit a penpal that I have had since grade school named John Grant. He picked me up at the airport and we spent the time looking around the countryside. We went up to Benmore Power Station and had the good fortune of being there at the right time to get a personal tour from the boss. We got to go everywhere, including down to the turbines, the control room , etc. I think we spent about 3 hours there!

WT

Other end of country - Auckland