Quadro & FireGL VS Geforce & Radeon

[Abhik262]

Hi, i was curious as to how much of a difference, in terms of performance, would these cards make to their counterparts? Say for example, i have a hd 4850. The professional equivalents in terms of price are the 256MB Quadro FX570 & the 256MB ATI FireGL V3600. I do my fair share of 3d work (3ds max exclusively) , compositing (after effects) and video editing (premier pro) as well as some gaming on the side, so would these professional cards be a better choice than these home consumer cards? Im not looking to purchase, just curious. Thanks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There were some drivers for the HD3850 and HD3870 which modded them to the equivalent FireGL cards. People reported an increase in performance with some applications.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=255976

[cptwhite_uk]

That is very interesting, did they ever manage the same feat with 4850 / 4870?

[kalniel]

Pro cards can't always play games due to the drivers. Likewise consumer cards can't always accelerate pro work. So choose what you really want to be able to do and research that you'll be able to do it.

If the linked post is accurate then it'd be best to go for the consumer card and mod for the pro work.

[Abhik262]

Why cant pro cards play games? Surely, they have the capability

[Powderhound]

IIRC, the main difference is the additional RAM (Which is useful for CAD work but of limited use in games), ISV certified drivers to ensure compatibility with mission critical software and higher standards of manufacturer support.

[Crevan]

Why cant pro cards play games? Surely, they have the capability

It's all about driver optimisation for different tasks. Games usually use DirectX API (for shiny graphics, dynamical scenes and special fx), and that's what consumer cards are good at. Pro apps, I think, mostly use OpenGL (for number crunching and complex static scenes), therefore the drivers get optimised for that.

[Abhik262]

It's all about driver optimisation for different tasks. Games usually use DirectX API (for shiny graphics, dynamical scenes and special fx), and that's what consumer cards are good at. Pro apps, I think, mostly use OpenGL (for number crunching and complex static scenes), therefore the drivers get optimised for that.

So, in theory, one could play openGL games? No high profile games use it so it would be of no use in a gaming system. How much of a difference in 3ds max would it make (say in percentage for example).

[Pob255]

Not just drivers, procards are often far slower esp at the cheap end.

Also the cheap end procards are pritty rubbish for prowork as well.
Unless you are prepaired to put £1000ish into a pro card then don't bother get a high end gameing card instead.
That said remember that if you are doing 3d rendering then the card plays no part in the final renders, that is all done by the cpu, the gpu only helps offload "view port" rendering ie what you see in the view ports when working on your 3d models.

Bit if trivia, the original GeForce 256 was based on the then profesional GLINT chip.

EDIT: Sorry this is a bit of a topic that gets to me.
You could have a hunt about for a 3DLabs wildcat Realizm, while 3DLabs stop makeing & developing 3d cards back in 2005 the Realizm where the last they made and seriously out performed both ati and nvidia cards at the time. (the low end realizm 200 performed around the level of the high end ati&nvidia and the realizm 800 left them behind )
Pro 3d cards was one of the big victims of the nvidia vs ati war, there wer a few good companies produceing very good cards that got squeeze out of the market by ati&nvidia