video card for games + CAD

[MrDudeMan]

I am about to upgrade my computer and would love to get some advice on the video card. I have 3x 30" U3011 monitors that are currently being driven by 2x GTX260s. I like to game in my spare time, but I do quite a bit of CAD for my business and the opengl version used by SolidWorks is not the same as what my video card supports, so it uses the software version. Needless to say, that sucks.

My current video cards play any game I have time for at 2560x1600 with a pretty large amount of eye candy enabled just fine. I'm not looking for a killer gaming card, but I was hoping to find something that could do both. I don't want to get a Quadro because it can't game much at all, but I don't want to get a GTX if it will be software opengl again.

Is it possible to mix a Quadro and a GTX if there isn't a card that can do both? By that I mean could I do CAD on the monitor connected to the Quadro and then game on the monitor connected to the GTX? I'm not sure if it works that way.

Lastly, I was very surprised by this but it almost looks like the GTX46* is a side step compared to my GTX260. Am I missing something? Is there a newer line of cards in the 175-250 range that will outperform my GTX260 by more than a marginal amount?

Thanks.

 

[MrDudeMan]

After searching around, it seems like the answer to my question is that I can't do both unless I mod the GTX.

Is this card pretty good compared to my GTX260?

Can it use the mini-hdmi output as well as both DVI outputs simultaneously?

I'd like to add that I'm not interested in overclocking. I just want it to be stable and reliable while delivering good performance relative to what I need.

 

[Cerb]

Lastly, I was very surprised by this but it almost looks like the GTX46* is a side step compared to my GTX260. Am I missing something? Is there a newer line of cards in the 175-250 range that will outperform my GTX260 by more than a marginal amount?

Thanks.

AA & AF: 460 wins.
SLI: 460 wins.
Performance per Watt: 460 wins.
Serious CUDA work: 460 wins.
AMD not laughing all the way to the bank: 460 won, for a little while.
GTX 465? Hot, loud, usually performs worse. Don't.

Also, I wouldn't pay near $200 for a 460, today, save maybe for a 2GB one. Maybe $150, for an everyday 1GB 700Mhz+ pre-OC model.

The GTX 260 was a card for nVidia lovers, and helped sell many a Radeon.

You can lower your PC's dB rating quite a bit for that kind of money, but you won't get a major performance upgrade. $250, though, and you're good to go. A GTX 560 would be a fair upgrade, but not an insane one. However, 400 series cards in general are slower than older cards in OpenG, relative to Quadros. nVidia has been intentionally gimping the drivers. If you look around the 'net, you can find folks getting better scores in some not-too-popular OpenGL games w/ Quadros, and find that the Fermi Quadros are many times faster in synthetic OpenGL tests than their consumer counterparts, as well. If you just need newer OpenGL support, and aren't worried about GPU performance for SolidWorks, I think a gaming Fermi will be fine, though.

Finally, if you need a pro card (IE, if SolidWorks will tell you to get a Quadro, if you need support), you need a pro card, and are pretty much screwed. The hardware/software support requirement is the the reason people still get pro cards, for the most part. So often, AMD IGP, or a $50-100 feature/gamer video card will do the job, but they gots to have that Quadro(tm) or FireWhateverTheyAreTheseDays(tm) on them, for official support.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Thanks for your reply. I have a few questions I'll ask in parts.

AA & AF: 460 wins.
SLI: 460 wins.
Performance per Watt: 460 wins.
Serious CUDA work: 460 wins.
AMD not laughing all the way to the bank: 460 won, for a little while.
GTX 465? Hot, loud, usually performs worse. Don't.

Also, I wouldn't pay near $200 for a 460, today, save maybe for a 2GB one. Maybe $150, for an everyday 1GB 700Mhz+ pre-OC model.

Maybe that was part of the confusion. I figured the 465 would be better than the 460, but it seems that is backward based on what you are saying.

The GTX 260 was a card for nVidia lovers, and helped sell many a Radeon.

I'm not sure what your point is with this statement. The GTX260 has been pretty good to me, but I don't keep up with this stuff all that much.

You can lower your PC's dB rating quite a bit for that kind of money, but you won't get a major performance upgrade. $250, though, and you're good to go. A GTX 560 would be a fair upgrade, but not an insane one.

What would be the insane upgrade? I also happened to notice the GTX260 has a wider bus than most of the newer cards. Can you explain that? I would have guessed keeping it wider (384 bits or more) would have been better for performance.

However, 400 series cards in general are slower than older cards in OpenGL, relative to Quadros. nVidia has been intentionally gimping the drivers. If you look around the 'net, you can find folks getting better scores in some not-too-popular OpenGL games w/ Quadros, and find that the Fermi Quadros are many times faster in synthetic OpenGL tests than their consumer counterparts, as well. If you just need newer OpenGL support, and aren't worried about GPU performance for SolidWorks, I think a gaming Fermi will be fine, though.

This sounds like exactly the information I was looking for, but I didn't quite understand what you were telling me. I'm not sure if I need newer OpenGL support other than in CAD. The main objective is to use CAD with hardware OpenGL on any video card and also be able to play World of Warcraft (it's really the only game I play anymore).

Finally, if you need a pro card (IE, if SolidWorks will tell you to get a Quadro, if you need support), you need a pro card, and are pretty much screwed. The hardware/software support requirement is the the reason people still get pro cards, for the most part. So often, AMD IGP, or a $50-100 feature/gamer video card will do the job, but they gots to have that Quadro(tm) or FireWhateverTheyAreTheseDays(tm) on them, for official support.

I don't need a pro card for support, but it seems as though I need one to use hardware OpenGL unless I missed something.

If I bought a GTX560, would I be able to make the computer think it was a Quadro and turn on OpenGL support?

If I bought a GTX560 and a Quadro, would I be able to play games on the GTX560 to get the gaming performance and do CAD on the Quadro for OpenGL support (on another monitor obviously)? Does it work like that?

 

[darckhart]

to jump in, afaik, 384-bits bus is really 128x3 banks, and each 128 is just 64 doubled. so they sum it up to give you 384, unless they can all talk across to each other, which i doubt, but don't know anymore.

the difference in the nv gaming vs pro/cad cards used to just be drivers as the hardware was the same. (i recall softmodding my 6800gt into the quadro equivalent (minus the extra vram) back in the day.) however, the 400 to 500 series jump saw also hardware changes in the way the cores were restructured, i believe. (you'll have to google, but i was trying to find info on this specifically for cuda performance.) in the past, the main way game cards were perf tweaked for opengl was to draw only things you could see. but the pro/cad cards you want it to draw ALL parts of your model, including things you can't see AT THIS MOMENT. (of course there's billions of other difference, but those were the main performance diff that I could see.)

now i don't know if hardware+drivers are what differentiates the quadros from the game cards these days, but i can say that with 10K+ parts in ProE, quadro wins. same with autocad. i assume same for SW, what with those fancy lighting renders and animations and prettyfying things etc. haha.

imo if >80% is for pro work, then get the pro card. if youre not teh "zomg i need the most fps and eyecandy" gamer, the perf should be suitable for wow. (subject to all the usual wow fallacies.) gl

 

[nanaki333]

just get a pro card and a gtx 560 or something and run 1 of your displays on that for gaming and the other 2 for professional design. keep your gaming card as the primary and just move the cad stuff to 1 of the other displays. you lose 1 display for cad, but you get the best of both worlds.

i'm not 100% sure this works though. i'm going based on personal experience of having 2 different gaming cards to drive more than 2 displays before eyefinity was out. games moved to the slower card would run like crap, while the primary ran smooth as soon as it was moved.

 

[MrDudeMan]

just get a pro card and a gtx 560 or something and run 1 of your displays on that for gaming and the other 2 for professional design. keep your gaming card as the primary and just move the cad stuff to 1 of the other displays. you lose 1 display for cad, but you get the best of both worlds.

i'm not 100% sure this works though. i'm going based on personal experience of having 2 different gaming cards to drive more than 2 displays before eyefinity was out. games moved to the slower card would run like crap, while the primary ran smooth as soon as it was moved.

If what you suggested works that will definitely be the solution I choose. Now I need to figure out the answer.

 

[nanaki333]

do you have like an older quaddro laying around you can test with? worst case you can buy a quaddro to use and leave 1 of your GTX 260 cards in there. if it works as intended, then upgrade the 260 later

 

[MrDudeMan]

Unfortunately I do not. I posted a question on the Nvidia forums to see if I can get an answer to this question.

I am waiting for the Z68 chipset before I build the computer. Hopefully I'll have an answer by then, but I plan on trying my GTX260s in the computer first to see if the vastly superior system will give me acceptable performance in CAD. If none of these solutions work, though, I'll be forced to buy a pro card because the slowdowns are starting to annoy me quite a bit.

I'll post in this thread again when I get a response from Nvidia about mixing a gamer card with a pro card.

 

[96Firebird]

I don't think you can have both cards installed at the same time due to the different drivers needed for each card. However, you can have two different gaming cards drive different monitors in the same rig because they use the same drivers (if they are of the same vendor). How accurate do you need your models to be in SolidWorks? You can buy a gaming card and use it for light to moderate CAD modeling, but you can't buy a professional card and use it for gaming.

 

[MrDudeMan]

I don't think you can have both cards installed at the same time due to the different drivers needed for each card. However, you can have two different gaming cards drive different monitors in the same rig because they use the same drivers (if they are of the same vendor). How accurate do you need your models to be in SolidWorks? You can buy a gaming card and use it for light to moderate CAD modeling, but you can't buy a professional card and use it for gaming.

I'm not sure what you mean by accurate.

 

[96Firebird]

Basically how the model looks. My work computer has a Quadro 600 in it, and the model looks great in SolidWorks. My home computer has a GTX 460 in it, and the model looks a little more "blocky", and the shadows, etc... don't look nearly as nice. I can increase the image quality, but it will slow down quite a bit if there are a lot of features, especially in assemblies. With my GTX 460, holes look more like octagons than round. It doesn't bother me though, I know what the feature should look like...

 

[MrDudeMan]

Basically how the model looks. My work computer has a Quadro 600 in it, and the model looks great in SolidWorks. My home computer has a GTX 460 in it, and the model looks a little more "blocky", and the shadows, etc... don't look nearly as nice. I can increase the image quality, but it will slow down quite a bit if there are a lot of features, especially in assemblies. With my GTX 460, holes look more like octagons than round. It doesn't bother me though, I know what the feature should look like...

Oh I see what you are saying. Unfortunately it looks like I actually do need a pro card...crap. It seems crazy to me that this can't be done on a single computer (high end gaming + CAD).

 

[Cerb]

Maybe that was part of the confusion. I figured the 465 would be better than the 460, but it seems that is backward based on what you are saying.

I'm not sure what your point is with this statement. The GTX260 has been pretty good to me, but I don't keep up with this stuff all that much.

The 465 was a cut-down 480, and the 480 was insanely hot and loud for for what it offered. The 460 is based on a newer chip, with most of it fixed.

It's not that the 260 didn't perform, but that most of them were nVidia dustbusters, often wouldn't fit in smaller cases, and tended to offer very little, once AMD got some very nice Radeons out. There's been plenty of demand for a card around the 260's performance, but smaller, quieter, and more efficient. It's not that you should hate your card, just realize that there were important hings missing, in terms of a total package.

What would be the insane upgrade? I also happened to notice the GTX260 has a wider bus than most of the newer cards. Can you explain that? I would have guessed keeping it wider (384 bits or more) would have been better for performance.

That's 384 cores for the GTX 460 (7/8 of the 560). The memory bus on the 460 1GB and 2GB cards is 256-bit (192-bit for the 768MB version). GDDR5 has double the bandwidth of GDDR3 at any given base speed, so there is less need for far wider configurations.

For a Fermi, a Quadro 2000 would probably be the minimum to try to game, assuming you have a decent res monitor (near 1080p or so). See if you can run multiple cards. If so, a GTX 460 (~$150 1GB, <$200 2GB) or 560 would have more than enough power for WoW.

It seems crazy to me that this can't be done on a single computer (high end gaming + CAD).

Small vertical markets resist change. In this case, the commoditizaton of the PC. However much I may get frustrated with Autodesk's practices, big props to them moving to D3D. What would be ideal would be high quality modeling software to move straight to HLSL/GLSL, to make good use of consumer HW (it would be slower, but the results could be made identical, from Intel IGP to the fanciest pro cards). Technically, you could get a GF100 Quadro, and be set, but that would be insanely expensive, and make your GTX 260 seem quiet.

 

[nanaki333]

I don't think you can have both cards installed at the same time due to the different drivers needed for each card. However, you can have two different gaming cards drive different monitors in the same rig because they use the same drivers (if they are of the same vendor). How accurate do you need your models to be in SolidWorks? You can buy a gaming card and use it for light to moderate CAD modeling, but you can't buy a professional card and use it for gaming.

i couldn't use 2 of the same brand cards. i actually had to have 1 ati card and 1 nvidia card for it to work properly. i had issues using 2 of the same brand. so using like a quaddro and a radeon 6950 or a firegl and a gtx 260.

 

[betasub]

^ With completely two completely distinct sets of drivers (different brand/driver keeping Gamer & Pro pathways apart).

 

[Sylvanas]

to jump in, afaik, 384-bits bus is really 128x3 banks, and each 128 is just 64 doubled. so they sum it up to give you 384, unless they can all talk across to each other, which i doubt, but don't know anymore.

They can 'talk across to each other'. The memory controller distributes load according to the resources available in each module. Just like how a card with '1GB of RAM' is not actually 1 bank of 1GB of memory- It's usually 16 Banks of 64mb.