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I'm looking to build budget system for learning 3Ds Max and Blender.
For now I have options for new NVidia 9500GT 512 GDDR3, Radeon HD4670 512/1024 GDDR3 and used Quadro FX 570 256 GDDR2.
Software in use is 3Ds Max 2009, Blender 2.48, Win XP 64bit.
Will the proper Quadro FX card would be more reliable and precise ?
It's not that the Quadro will be more reliable and precise, but it supports the full openGL spectrum of features & other effects. If you're going to be gaming as well, you can hapily get by on the other cards, especially the HD4670, where more ram will give it a small edge.
Get the Quadro FX. It'll save you hassle in the long run with driver verifications and error free CADing. It will also work with the 3d glasses systems later in the spring when nVidia bring out new drivers.
Any new Autodesk product will indeed be very picky about cards & drivers :)
Gaming cards "should" be fully OpenGL 2.0 fuctional.
You have to remember here just how little the graphics card can effect 3d modeling, they are used almost solely for "view port" rendering, ie your active work screens, not final renders, which is almost purely on the cpu and system ram.
That said a graphics card does free up cpu and system memory resources so does improve things and "workstation" cards generally have better more compliant drivers and additional features/plugin's with certain software, so work better.
However the big issue on thoes choises is the Quadro FX 570 256 GDDR2 is a low end "workstation" card and the low end are badly performing over priced junk.
If you cannot afford a mid to high end "workstation" card you're probably going to be better off with a gaming card.
But again it comes down to usage, even within 3Ds max the higher the polygon count of a scene and the more the complexity the more a workstation card will pull ahead.
But again at the same time when your scenes start to reach the complexity where workkstation cards perform better the low end cards just cannot cope.
From what I've read the older ati 3870 or nvidia 8800gtx are very good for 3ds max, have a look at 2nd hand prices on thoes.
Supposedly there are soft-mods available to convert the HD3850 and HD3870 to FireGL cards
Quadro and other workstation cards are optimised for producing lines, gaming cards for textures and polygons.
I would choose a decent gaming card with plenty of RAM for now.
I also agree with Pob you are unlikely to get good value from a workstation card until you hit the mid-range.