Recommended Quality Graphics Card for Workstation (Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe)

K

kuphryn

Geek Trainee
Greetings,

Planning for a high-performance workstation (Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe). Here is the discussion on the CPU.

http://www.hardwareforums.com/recom...intel-present-2006-a-13184/?highlight=kuphryn

Next, I would like to talk about graphics card (PCI Express).

As mentioned in the post about CPU, I spend much time on developing software, including compiling multiple applications, and watching DVD. Sometimes I play PC games especially RPG and simulation. Great if the graphics card could provide exceptional visual effects when playing games (RPG) and watching DVD.

What are some quality graphics cards that would match well with the new high-performance workstation?

ATI or Nvidia? What quality is the driver software especially on windows platforms (xp and vista)? Which graphics card?

Kuphryn
 
Well, If you wanting to watch DVDs, any card will do, but of course, when it comes to games that's a different story, the best cards currently out are the X1900XT from ATi and the 7900GTX from NVIDIA, from my experience with Nvidia and ATi drivers, i would say that Nvidia's drivers are the best, i find ATi's drivers slow at loading, and i don't really like the navigation of them, maybe you would think differently. If you can, i would go for the ATi Radeon X1900XT, its really cheap now, you can pick them up for around £212 from stores like Overclockers UK, there 512MB, 256MB used to be the best, but now its all 512MB +. Sometime in September i think, DX10 (Direct X 10) cards are going to be released, to play games in Direct X 10, Windows Vista will be required and you will obviously need a Direct X 10 Graphics Card, now when ATi and Nvidia release there Direct X 10 graphics cards, it's more than likely going to be there flagship first i believe, it will probably have a very high price tag too, if you had a DX9 card, and decided to buy a DX10 game, you would still need Windows Vista, but your DX9 card would be compatible with the games, you just wouldn't be able to get the best experience out of the game. I would go with ATi, but its up to you which brand you go for, they both have excellent graphics cards, weather you choose a 7900GT or X1900XT, i think you will be happy with either of those :)

For developing software i don't really thing a graphics card will be that important for that job, that will be mostly dependant on CPU , RAM, and Hard Drive space depending on what your going to be doing :)

I hope that has helped you :)
 
Really depends on your price range. If you've got a lot of money to spare, go for the new GeForce card (7800). If you don't have that much, I would settle for a GeForce 6800 GS (my current card). It's reliable and packs a decent punch. With that and the rest of my system specs, I can max out games like Oblivion and Prey. Not bad. And you'll notice that I'm only mentioning GeForce cards. I've never tried any Radeon cards, and GeForce has been very reliable so far and extremely useful. Hope that helps.
 
Down to these graphics cards:

ATI Radeon x1600 Pro 512MB PCI-E
GEFORCE 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E

Never bought ATI graphics card. Always bought Nvidia

Nvidia features really stable windows driver software. ATI not as good before radeon driver software.

I have noticed ATI graphics card displays clearer, more accurate images on windows platform. Noticeably better than Nvidia (Geforce 2).

How good is ATI driver software on windows platform - present and future?

ATI: clear, accurate image display

Nvidia: stable driver software and great performance especially games even if hardware is old

Experience says Nvidia. Optimism and desire says ATI.

(Planning DirectX 10 graphics card when available.)

Kuphryn
 
ATi's driver software is not very good, its even got advertisments in it lol, its preety slow, and the CCC (Catalyst Control Center) takes ages to load, ok, get the 7600GT, this card is alot better than the X1600PRO, infact, the 7600GT performs a little better in modern games to my X800XTPE, and thats somthing an X1600 dont do.

Your right when you say Nvidia Drivers offer stable software, its a shame that ATi drivers are not as good as Nvidia drivers in Linux :(
 
If you run Linux, avoid ATi. For RPG's, you're generally not looking at a real graphical monster, although there are a few out there that might. If you're considering FPS games, then you'll want to look at a GeForce 7600GT for starters. If not, then look at a Radeon X800 or GeForce 6600GT.
 
I'm sorry guys but I can't keep out of this one.

I for myself have never own a recent nvidia card, so let me talk about ATI for a sec.

I've had a 9600 Pro, 9800 non-pro, a 9800 Pro and currently own an x800gto 256mb, which, for as little as $120 cad (that's canadian money), can run Oblivion in 1024x768 everything maxed except HDR(not supported)/Bloom, grass and shadows @ 4xAA 16xHQAF. This will give you between 25fps and 75fps. The image quality on this card is unbelievable, and I might add that the image quality of any ATI DX9 card is better than any nvidia card, period.

As for the drivers, if one knows how to use them, one knows how to appreciate ATI cards. I for myself use the official Catalyst 6.7, WITHOUT CCC, I use ATI Tray Tools instead, which gives you a lot of goodies like overclocking, monitoring, and loads of tweaks, amongst which are Triple Buffering, Geometry Instancing, etc, including everything CCC gives you, with none of the drawbacks, i.e. ATT is not a ressource hog. Also, ATI releases a driver set each and every month, so it's easy to find one that suits you, although some people have certain problems, especially those who have a Crossfire setup.

However, I wouldn't recommend my card, if you can afford a bit more, because what you need if you go the ATI route is a 16 pipe card. You can get cheap x8x0xt/xt pe if you search a bit. Also, their flagship is currently the x1900XTX which are clocked a bit higher than the xt (25mhz on the gpu, 100mhz on the memory.

Last but not least, the x1k series all have a programmable memory controller, which means that, through driver releases, the dev team can reprogram it, increasing greatly its performance over the lifespan of the card. And this isn't some BS feature either, just read the release notes from this month's release at ATI Technologies Inc.
Performance Improvement

As with most Catalyst® releases, performance has increased in various situations.

Improved shader compiler and transform engine optimizations have led to many significant performance gains in OpenGL applications across the entire Radeon® X1000 series of products. These include:

* Doom 3 performance improves as much as 6.5%
* Quake 4 (v1.2 or higher) performance improves as much as 18%
* Chronicles of Riddick performance improves as much as 20%. Average improvements of 5-10% are commonly seen
* Prey performance improves as much as 16%

Optimizations made to ATI's graphics memory manager have led to significant gains in DirectX applications that make heavy use of graphics memory on 256MB ATI graphics cards:

* 3DMark06 performance improves as much as 22% on single ATI Radeon® X1000 series cards with 256MB of graphics memory at 1280x1024 and higher when anti-aliasing is enabled. The largest gains are found on the ATI Radeon® X1800 series and ATI Radeon® X1900 series of products
* Call of Duty 2 performance improves as much as 30% on single ATI Radeon® X550 cards or higher with 256MB of video memory at 1280x1024 and higher when anti-aliasing enabled. The largest gains are found on the ATI Radeon® X1800 series and ATI Radeon® X1900 series of products
Click to expand...

What I can say about nvidia is they make good cards too, and they're clearly the best there is as far as OpenGL goes, but I still prefer ATI
/end of rant
 
X800XT PE's are cheap now, can get em from under £120 now!, i have one, cant play F.E.A.R and Oblivion on 1280x1024 @ max settings not inc HDR, its a steal, but if upgrading now and want a decent graphics card, i wouldent touch anyhting under X1800 series, only cards i would put into concideration are x1900xt and 7900GT/GTX.

I wouldent bother with ATi offical drivers, i think there preety rubbish, try either DNA or Omega drivers (for Nvidia and ATi)

i remember the radeon 9600 graphics card i had, was an amzing overclocker, core clock of 250mhz i think, on passive cooling i could play games at 480Mhz and had no problems :O

ATi have been beating Nvidia in OpenGL, they beat Nvidia in Doom 3 aswell, just shows, ATi is getting better, and now there owned by AMD, so i would think its only going to get alot better!
 
Well Catalyst drivers aren't rubbish. In fact, they're the same omega and DNA use. They just tweak them a bit to give them a certain direction (performance vs. quality and also compatibility).

Anyway, like I said, nvidia also makes good cards, and they also have driver issues, so in the end it's a personal decision imo.
 
yea i know Omega and DNA take the official drivers and tweak them, they get rid of the catalyst control center too, and there alot better than offical nvidia and Omega, thats why i say that the Catalyst drivers are rubbish, there slow, the catalyst control center looks total crap, and it would be better if the catalyst drivers and nvidia drivers were like Omega or DNA.
 
Re-read the original part, and if this is strictly a workstation, the category changes a little. If you're doing 3D modeling, then you'll want to look at cards like the 3DLabs Wildcat, the nVidia Quadro series, or ATi's FireGL line. Those are specifically designed with the required precision in mind. If you're not doing 3D modeling, then you're better off with a cheap Radeon X300/1300 or GeForce 6200 or even a Matrox G550.
 
Yea but he said he plays PC games too, i dont think Fire Gl and Nvidia Quadro cards would be good for games, with ATi cards there is mods on the internet to turn your normal ATi card say X800 into a fully working Fire Gl card, of course the mods are only compatible with certain cores, and its preety dangerous, if there is one for a card like an X800 its going to be a preety powerfull Fire GL card, i was going to do it on my Radeon 9600np, but dint have the right core :(
 
Not as good, but they will still play it. The professional versions have a higher precision with the hardware and drivers. The arguement for this is that if you're designing something in CAD or Maya (for example) precision needs to take priority over speed. The top-end GeForce will top the top-end Quadro in best FEAR framerates. However, you'll have more precision when designing a car.

If the primary function is going to be graphics design with 3D modeling, a Quadro or FireGL card would be a better choice. However, if it's not the main use or you'll be video and photo editing, a GeForce or Radeon will do the job.
 
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