6800 Ultra vs. Quadro FX1100

[Elfear]

Sorry, I know I'm a little ignorant when it comes to workstation graphics cards so that's why I'm asking you guys.

My buddy is in the market for a graphics card to use for his work PC. He's a graphic designer and works a lot with Maya 6. He does game a bit but he isn't hardcore or anything.

He has the chance to buy a Nvidia Quadro FX1100 for around $300. I was trying to talk him into a 6800Gt/Ultra but I don't want to lead him astray if the FX1100 would be a better card for his application. Any thoughts?

[Razor1]

tell him to get the 6800 gt or ultra its much faster for everything then the Quadro FX1100

[Knot3D]

I'm not sure. $ 300 for a QFX1100 is a very good deal. If his work in Maya involves ALOT of use of textures (Hypershade window) or/and high poly
mesh deformations, the QFX1100 might be the better choice. For the upcoming hot games like HL2 and such, the quadro is of course mediocre at best.

[Razor1]

the quadro fx 1100 isn't that a gf fx 5700....

I'm pretty sure it is, there is no way a fx 5700 can keep up with the amount of polygon transformations that a gf 6800 can do.

the quadro has some extra ogl extensions but its not going to get even close.

[Knot3D]

Well, as for fillrate in games the 6800 surely wins. But the QuadroFX1100 is optimized to handle those big amounts of poly's when you use deformators on them ; animating a high poly character for example. Just modeling a static high poly model is really a whole different story ; for that, any high end game card certainly suffices.

Indeed, the 6800 is a good option. I'm running a Gainward GT at 400/1100 in Maya and Cinema4D. Before I had a QuadroFX1000. The GT beats the Quadro at Cinebench03 by a nice little margin. In some heavy Maya benches it's slightly behind the QFX 1000 (NV30). Gouraud shaded viewport performance seems a bit quicker on the GT, at least in the scenes I have. Hypershade loads a bit slower/more clunky with the GT.

[Elfear]

Thanks for the advice guys. Sorry it took me awhile to respond. I'll show this post to my buddy and let him decide since I only understood about half of what you said.