one more thing , while this article does prove thtat you can game on workstation hardware better than you can work on gaming hardware . Running 3ds max with a consumer card is not impossible especailly if all you are model is lower poly models for games and game mods.
I'm currently runnign a radeon 5770 , and I'm majoring in game art design. NOW first off the gpu even work station gpu's DONT compute the render. the GPU is used purely for running the view ports and only then if you have teh view ports set to run in hardware (the default setting these days). that my average frames in the 3ds max view ports , with a poly count ranging 10,000 - 20,000 is around 30-40 fps. if i push to 100,000 poly scene i do strt seeing it slow to around 25 fps, 200,000 \or more and i start seeing a slide show . As i stated though , this is a moot issue for me ,since my major is game art design , most video games never push past 100,000 poly's on screen at once any way and individual models in games even today , rarely go over 10,000 polys unless you are usuing some crazy mods. Fighting games use more polys on theri characters than any other game (because they can skimp on polys in the back ground (since it doesn't require a huge level). and even teh most up todate fighting games , rarely go over 15K polys per character , now take into account you have two characters on screen and back ground props you are looking at a total poly count of 50k-60k polys at most.
that said my point i'm getting at is - if all you do work station wise is game models (unprofessionally) .. it is a waste of money to pay a fortune for a workstation card.
now on teh professional side , sure if you want to do pro game work go ahead and get the workstation card you'll need teh tech support at some point when you run a buisness or work in one . and for god's sakes.. don't think you can get by with a consumer card doing movie level CGI, but the average amature modder will be fine on the same gear they game with.