Firepro M7820 or FX 3800M

I am getting a free upgraded system from HP to capture my problematic 8740w. I can chose to stick with the ATI GPU (which is GDDR5 and DirectX 11) or get the far more expensive and slighter better ranked Nvidia Quadro FX 3800M (GDDR3 DirectX 10)...my choice, no cost. I don't use any apps that use CUDA. While I do use AutoCAD, I got the GPU more for gaming since I don't do rendering or anything fancy in AutoCAD. Also, the ATI is far more power efficient. I need to decide in the next hour and call back. Please give me your opinion asap.

 

i'd say the ATI.. newer tech less power and ur less likely to roast ur laptop..

 

I would say, go for nVidia. It is more expensive, so you can resell it, buy the ATI card, and you still have spare cash (in case you haven´t liked nVidia)

 

Go for Nvidia if they both cost the same, as said above.

Though some points to consider, if you are using it for a lot of 3D work, Nvidia's quadro driver is a lot more supported and compatible with work softwares than ATI's Firepro, because Nvidia invested a lot more into compatibility and support with all those software companies.

 

I went for the ATI. I don't use any programs that use CUDA, and I'm a pretty basic AutoCAD user. The ATI card is newer technology (though lower clocked) and uses far less power. I thought about resale value, but I'm not going to void my awesome warranty by swapping out the GPU, nor do I want to sell the system whole and rebuy. So I just gave up free $900 upgrade. Still, I went from 720qm to 820qm and 2x2GB RAM to 2x4GB RAM (2 dimm open).