OpenGL Cards

[rockjockjared]

Hi all,
I'm looking for suggestions on a GOOD OpenGL card. Not necessarily a card for gaming, but more geared toward high end graphics. I do a good amount of 3D Modelling and Graphic design and would like a card with OpenGL built into it, not just software rendering. I have heard a lot of good things about the new GeForce 3 Ti 500, but it's generally geared towards gaming (from what I've heard)

Any suggestions are appreciated. I would like to keep the cost under $400 for the card itself, but if there is something just really mind blowing for more I don't have a problem spending the money as long as I'll get some benefit out of it.

Thanks In Advance,
Jared

[Wilan Wong]

If you do 2d graphic design such as Photoshop, you don't need a powerful graphics card, CPU and a good amount of RAM is usually the way to go if you do a lot of Photoshop. I'm not sure about the high-end openGL professional cards, but if you want the really high-end ones, I'm sure they would cost more than $400, I'll say any GeForce2 GTS and above should do.. I'm not sure.. since i don't actually do any 3d rendering and their relations to video cards.. ya gotta ask someone else?

[LostBok]

If you're using 3D Studio, Solid Gear, etc etc you need a professional 3D card.... the likes of GeForces are almost purely aimed at the gaming community, but do provide some limited OpenGL support.

You would probably be better off with an nVidia Quadro - same at teh GeForce cards, but with the professional OpenGL hardware enabled: the Quadro 1's tend to go for about $350-$450 (cheaper SDR or faster DDR), the Quadro 2's are more like $550-$650....

However there is another "budget range" on Quadro 2MXR's - which are like the GeForce2MX's - such as the Synergy III Quadro 2MXR 32MB Dual Screen, which should be about $275-$325.

The Quadro 2MXR will probably do reasonably well for you, unless you need especially high resolutions - limited memory bandwidth and less memory will leave you a bit short!

There are a lot of REALLY funky cards out there though... I had an eval. computer in... half-way through evaluating it I opened the case up to find a full length AGP-Pro card, with four heat-sinks and a few fans on it... certainly looked impressive... I then found out that it was worth over £1400 ($2000) - I suddenly started to feel guilty for degrading the card with the likes of Half-Life and Quake! :) it was the 3D Wildcat II 5110... which is an out -and-out OpenGL card, but not great for gaming :D

You SERIOUSLY need to check out the Toms Hardware article (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q2/010615/index.html) which has a list of applications which are supported by the Quadro2pro chip (same as Quadro2mxr, but even faster). The review also compares Quadro's to mainstream professional OpenGL cards and elsewhere I knwo Tomshardware has doen reviews on GeForce vs the professional OpenGl cards...

NB - I'm guessing at prices - normally the US is about 20-30% cheaper than the UK - very seldom wrong with these guesses!

Good Luck!

[dawgtuff]

I've ran across a couple posts here which involve changing a Geforce card to a Quadro card. It involves some careful soldering.Use the search engine here to check it out.