9700 Pro good for CAD work?

[Smokey]

I have been asked by a friend if he could use a 9700 Pro for CAD work? Money is the problem so he would like to stay within about £400, I know that the gf3/4 could be modded into a quadro, hard/software, but would the 9700Pro still be the superior card under CAD? Sorry if I sound a bit vague, but I dont know anything about CAD ;)

[The Baron]

Actually, the Quadro4 beat the R300-based FireGL card handily, according to Tom's Hardware.

Quadro 4 is probably the way to go. Nice, stable, MATURE drivers for CAD/workstation stuff.

[Smokey]

Thanks for that, I new I had read something, but couldnt remeber where :banghead: but I think at the time I was just looking at the QuadroFX numbers :p

So in that case, know if the Ti4600 can be changed into Quadro via the likes of RivaTuner? or any links to the hard mod, think its a solder job?

[pastor]

smokey, check this :

i guess you can read french :) :

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marley/pagequadro.htm

there you can find the explanation , and the already patched nvidia drivers ( my personal driver set recomendation : 42.82 WHQL for quadro )

then also the rivatuner software needed

here the related thread :

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marley/pagequadro.htm

also a complete an interesting article in your native language :
http://nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html


i use my GF3TI500 with softquadro so now i'm working with a quadroDCC and it really rocks now for 3D apps

[pastor]

also you have to know, if i'm not wrong, i thing you can transform GF1,2,3 to pure quadro but it is not the case for GF4
. on GF4 they are some accelerations fonction you can only unlock with physically modded GF4

http://nvworld.ru/pics/sq4/image078.gif

http://nvworld.ru/pics/sq4/image063.gif

[Smokey]

Thanks very much for that information pastor :thumbsup:

I can read enough french to get me by, just dont ask me to write it ;)

Well it does look to me that for the price, the GF4 to Quadro will certainly do, I'll list the other specs of the machine as the more feedback the better, keep in mind, I am working within a smallish budget.

MSI Kt3 Ultra2 (fast and very stable MB)
Barton 2500+
1GB PC2700 w/winbond chips
Maxtor Diamond Max 9 w/8meg cache
GF4 Ti4600/4800SE to quadro, via software mod <--UPDATE, make that a 9700 Pro to FireGL w/software mod ;)
Aluminium case w/Q-Tec 550watt PSU
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 19"
Epson Stylus Photo 1290S A3 printer
Intellimouse Explorer
for got to add, LiteOn cd-rw also

I was told that they wanted a 19" monitor, A3 colour printer and sound wasnt going to be used, but the motherboard has onboard sound if needed. I have come under the budget given, so I would like to know if this system seems fine for CAD work and if there is anything that could be changed/upgraded?

Here is a pic of the case, I thought that its not bad at all, for £50 including VAT

http://www.komplett.co.uk/mlf/produkt/bilder/CDS/I159787.jpg

[Spiritwalker]

IIRC there was a hack out there that enabled you to softmod your 9700 into a FireGLX1. Add that to the new drivers that made huge increases in FireGL OGL performance and you have your best bet.

[Spiritwalker]

built into a patch for rivatuner http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

[Smokey]

Originally posted by Spiritwalker
built into a patch for rivatuner http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

Perfect :p Not saying the Gf4 to quadro sint any good, but really the 9700 should be better. I take it the rest of the system looks fine then? Would 1GB of ram be enough for a CAD machine? or would another stick of 512mb help or would it be overkill?

[pastor]

smokey if you seek for more info, performance benchmark :

check this out :

http://www.xbitlabs.com/search?query=quadro


for the ATI stuff what i can say is that : in all my attempt to work on ATI stuff for Pro 3d Apps i always got some bugs or some part of the software showing abnormal decrease in speed

for instance : in 3dsmax on ATI cards it run just in little slower than equivalent Nvidias card but when u try a special vertex editing mode , i experienced dramatical decrease in speed

So i don't know with the last ati drivers if they solve the issue but ...

[pastor]

1.5 Gb RAM is nice :)


if he wants to work on high resolution picts for print (so also photoshop them) 1.5 GB is really better than 1 Gb

for huge complex 3d scenes 1.5gb can be usefull

if he wants to RAM player his 3d animations it give you 25s more ...