CADD GPU questions. b

We run ATI 5850 cards in our systems now and we are (I think) reaching the GPU limit. The desktops other hardware is pretty top of the line and the GPU is the only thing that can make a foreseeable difference. My question is when working with auto cad MEP 2009 and 2010 do workstation cards make enough difference over their gaming card twin? We are loading some hefty 3d now and its only getting tougher on the hardware by the day. Granted we dont use revit, but viewing several stories of intricate 3d is slowing down our i7950/12GB ram/5850 machines to a crawl at some points.

 

You are currently not using certified hardware.

Autodesk - AutoCAD Services & Support - Graphics Hardware List

Show results for... Certified cards only
Show drivers that are... supported, recommended
Show results for... AutoCAD 2009 + 2010
Show results for... (Pick your OS)

Any listed card that search yields should be able to handle anything you throw at it. It's probably safe to say that the more powerful GPUs on the list will give better performance, but almost any certified hardware+drivers will improve your performance.

I've read a few real-world comparisons of GeForce vs. Quadro vs. Radeon vs. FirePro/GL. What I got out of it was this;
2011 - Quadro gets nearly twice the performance of the alternatives
2010 - Radeon & GeForce perform best, except in realistic view style or lots of curves
2009 - Haven't read anything about this, sorry.

I replaced boss's 6870 with a Quadro 600 (~$150) yesterday and saw a slight performance gain in AutoCAD 2010 (just the base program, not MEP).

EDIT:
wow, just did the search assuming XP, XP 64-bit, 7, and 7 64-bit and all results were AMD/ATi. That's nice to see!
Autodesk is fairly truthful in regards to performance of combining certified hardware with recommended drivers for their programs.

 

A work station card would handle AutoCad better (well, it should; there are always exceptions. It is really dependent om how/ what you use AutoCad for -heavy 3d ["wireframe" or "reallistic"], or 2d)
So, upgrade one or two at first (maybe even get two different cards [try a NVIDIA card for one of them] to test the difference, and to see what will bring better price/ performance for what you guys need it for)

 

can you overclock those cards that you guys have ?

 

OC'ing isn't usually the best idea, as the cards are usually being pushed as it is, and they can be in use for very long periods of time with high stress; so OC'ing will only make them wear out faster; and it would be awkward to get a firms whole set of computers OC'ed properly, and monitor them to make sure all is well. It should be able to eek a bit more performance out of them, but probably not enough

 

you test on one computer and make sure everything is fine, then just apply same settings to all the others (assuming all are same specs) in the office. In my case (personal computer here though) my OC went 50%+, stable in continues usage (i.e. 5 hours at 100%) all well worth it for sure. Running like that for ~3 years already

but really, I would call that a geek-oriented firm if they do it and it works fine I mean it's a free try at last (hope the test machine video card doesnt get destroyed)

 

I don't think overclocking will help much. Using uncertified hardware and uncertified drivers makes it incredibly difficult to push the GPU load up beyond 30% of max

 

The problem is that overclocking is highly dependent on individual variation; much like CPUs, one card may overclock better than another card, even if it's the same model. Thus, a working setting on one computer, may crash on another, or that other may actually be able to go even higher. As well, with this being a business, if they overclock too high and burn out the card, they're out time, which is expensive, on top of replacement costs. In business, there's a very strong emphasis on making sure things work; it's a not small part of the reason why business computers are more expensive than consumer models.

 

Well I'm looking at 2 cards. The firepro v7750 and v7800. Their stats don't look too bad and they aren't as expensive as the workstations. Going to do a little more research though.

 

The 7800 will last you quite a bit longer than the 7750

 

I figured this much. I now need to compare the card to the 5850 once I dig my way out of UPS planning hell...should be soon hopefully.

 

I feel your pain
I keep trying to pan in firefox
....and I just typed mt<space> before writing this message...

lol

 

We are talking about desktop graphics card here right? If you want to save a few bucks, get a second hand ATI 3870 and softmod into a ATI FirePro graphics card.

That is the cheapest way of getting CAD performance for the minimum dollar investment.

 

I think we are pretty settled on the v7800.