Pro graphics cards vs. the rest?

[Henry Rollins II]

I guess that many of you are aware of the high-end workstation graphics card that is out there. Monsters that take up not only the AGP port but also one or two PCI slots, have AGP pro50 or pro100 lots, 200 megs of memory or more....etc etc....and costs thousands of dollars.

Now and then one can find these monsters at quite resonable prices at ebay(compared to retail), but the cheapest still go for like the same as 4 Ti500´s.

Now I wonder: Is there any point in getting such a card for users like us, that like 3d games with high framerates and stunning picture quality? What are all these circuits on these board for? Why do they need so much memory?

I must admit that even though I stand with both my feet on the ground, I would like to have a super-duper grapchics only because it´s cool. :D Imagine having a video card that require that you have a PSU that delivers an additional 100 watts. Toghether with O/Céd dual AMD´s and a few HDD´s, the limit of using only one PSU regardless of power rating is if not reached very close to it. :burn:

regards,
Henry.

[Arkaine23]

Those expensive professional cards are desinged for... guess what?.... professional graphics programs. For gamers its best to stick with the garden variety cards. However, if you desire to have that extra bit of performance whether or not you use those super-cool graphics programs, you could always get a geforce 2 or 3 and modify it into a Quadro card. Geforces and Quadros have the same gpu, but the quadro gets extra advanced instrucions and superior opengl performance. There are two ways to Quadrofy a geforce card, 1) moving a couple of resistors on the back of the card, 2) patching the drivers with softquadro. This will not improve game performance, although it might improve image quality in games which use opengl.

I've turned my GF2 Ti into a Quadro 2 Pro. $110 card into $650+ card.

GF2 MX's can be modded into Quadro MXR's
Geforce 3's can be modded into Quadro DDC's

[Henry Rollins II]

Originally posted by Arkaine23

GF2 MX's can be modded into Quadro MXR's


Seriously?? What kind of performance can one expect to achevie with the modified MX? That is most intrestning in this case, I can take the loss of a busted $50 video card, but loosing a $300 card would make me really sad.

regards,
Henry.

[Zuck Gou :)]

Originally posted by Henry Rollins II


Seriously?? What kind of performance can one expect to achevie with the modified MX? That is most intrestning in this case, I can take the loss of a busted $50 video card, but loosing a $300 card would make me really sad.

regards,
Henry.

You probably won't notice a difference. I at least didn't.

[RainMaQer]

From what I've read thus far... modding a regular card into a professional one doesn't deminish gaming and bench performance at all or VERY little. Yet greatly improves 3d design software performance.

[Arkaine23]

Originally posted by RainMaQer
From what I've read thus far... modding a regular card into a professional one doesn't deminish gaming and bench performance at all or VERY little. Yet greatly improves 3d design software performance.

Well stated. And you don't have to do the hardware mod. It only takes a minute to patch some drivers with Riva Tuner. And NVmax has an opengl setting for advanced geforce instructions, which is what the quadro conversion is for. I suggest getting a benchmark called glexcess to test opengl performance. (I still haven't gone back and tested my card with glexcess with just the regular non-patched drivers... mental note: do it this morning and post the scores.) People report a 60-150% improvement in opengl performance.

Just look on madonion's forums under the drivers discussion for a guide about using softquadro. With patched drivers you don't have to worry about messing up your card, and you can switch back whenever you want.

I've patched 23.11, 22.40, and 27.20 detonators. No loss in 3dmark score. In fact it's gone up a bit. But that's probably from a slightly different overclock and from different drivers.

Oh yeah, this also works on original geforces.

[Henry Rollins II]

So there is no point of doing the mod unless you use software that is written to take advantage of the extra instructions, huh?

regards,
Henry.