Does anyone know if it would be worth buying a firegl v3600 workstation graphics card as i will be mostly using my new built pc for 3d rendering(maybe animation) in 3ds MAX and Autocad Architecture.
Here is a spec that 'sammorris' put together for me for my budget build:
hey man, you posted in my thread (http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/684023#4226745) about using a 3850 vs a fireGl card, I actually ended up picking the ati hd 4850 card. I was told on another site that because the 4870 and 4850 have more stream processors, than any other video card they would be the absolute best for 3d rendering, with the 4870 being slightly faster, and more money. I would guess that the 3850 is just a little behind these two, but I can't say for sure.
The other thread I mentioned sparked a lot of heated debate over workstation cards or desktop cards, I put the link below so you can see for yourself, because theres a lot of good technical information, but the final consensus seemed to be that for 3d rendering, other work in 3dsmax/maya/lightwave/etc, and video editing, the 4870/4850 would be the best, while the workstation cards would have a bit of an advantage in autoCAD performance.
The Link: actually it looks like my thread was deleted for causing too much of an argument...
Another good point they brought up is that with these cards, the majority of work in 3d applications would not even fully tax the video cards. This means that no matter which one you pick, you'll probably be very happy with the performance.
Having said all that, I haven't gotten to use my machine too much, but I have to say that so far I could not be happier. Everything is blazingly faster than what I was used too with my old low end machine.
I hope this helps, and makes the choice easier and not harder!
