Workstation or gaming card?

[tspace24]

I'm in the process of building my first computer and i'm stuck on selecting a graphics card. Everyone i ask seems to tell me something different so i'm hoping to clear it up. I will mainly be using my computer as a workstation for 3d animation and rendering in maya2013 but i would also like the option of playing games. So do i need to buy a workstation card and a gaming card or will one specific card work for both or is there something else i can do? I'm looking to spend about $200-300 on it. Thanks in advance.

 

[austing]

I'm in the process of building my first computer and i'm stuck on selecting a graphics card. Everyone i ask seems to tell me something different so i'm hoping to clear it up. I will mainly be using my computer as a workstation for 3d animation and rendering in maya2013 but i would also like the option of playing games. So do i need to buy a workstation card and a gaming card or will one specific card work for both or is there something else i can do? I'm looking to spend about $200-300 on it. Thanks in advance.

Workstation cards have poor preformance in games. (A Quadro 5000 cant achieve even 40fps in Crysis 3) They are designed for RAW rendering capabilities

You'd be better off getting both and switching back and fourth depending on what you're doing.

 

[bigshootr8]

Correct a graphics card is like a jet and a workstation card is like a 747. One way you could go is buy a workstation card and save up for a graphics card or you can get a graphics card and just do things slower.

 

[Guest]

i suggest a higher end graphics card like the 7950. it will do close to a low end workstation card for rendering in 3D maya. (about the same price)

 

[tspace24]

Workstation cards have poor preformance in games. (A Quadro 5000 cant achieve even 40fps in Crysis 3) They are designed for RAW rendering capabilities

You'd be better off getting both and switching back and fourth depending on what you're doing.

So I would have to manually switch them every time I did one or the other? Is something like that even practical? i've never buit a computer before so im not sure if doing that would be really simple or complex.

 

[bigshootr8]

Well you could either switch or you could have them both connected and just switch between them. For 3D rendering I hear like loon has said that AMD is stronger then NVIDIA so maybe a 7950 is a decent option for kind of a budget card for everything.

 

[k1114]

Maya works perfectly fine on gaming cards. My 560ti handles any project I throw at it. It doesn't matter if you use amd or nvidia in this case since nothing native in maya is gpu accelerated.

 

[fil1p]

I once had a quadro 600 mainly for photo editing, and I switched to a gaming card as I am mainly a gamer. The quadro was not very good for gaming, although I was able to play some games on medium settings with a reduced resolution. If you are doing a lot of rendering or 3d work, then as others have said a gaming card like a hd7950 should be good. Also the gtx500's are good, but they are last generation and the hd7000's from amd are a better choice. The gtx600's don't have very good compute performance, and wont do so well with rendering. So if you want a balance between gaming and rendering I think the hd7950 is a good choice. You should think of getting a non reference model though, as they run quieter and cooler then the normal ones.

Hope this helps!

 

[k1114]

The 600 series is actually good with rendering, just not if it's opencl. So if you want to gpu render, use one that uses cuda if using a 600 series. But amd currently has better options at the 200-300 range that you are looking at.

 

[fil1p]

The 600 series is actually good with rendering, just not if it's opencl. So if you want to gpu render, use one that uses cuda if using a 600 series. But amd currently has better options at the 200-300 range that you are looking at.

I don't do much rendering(I use the maxwell render plugin in sketchup but thats entirely CPU), but from what I heard the HD7000's were better overall for rendering. Nvidia still has CUDA which is good in many situations, but from what I heard in certain renderers it does not do as well due to its reduced compute/opencl performance. Still a hd7950 for $299 (gigabyte has a nice windforce cooler for $299) is quite a good deal, some bundles include free games, and it will be good both gaming wise and for rendering.

 

[tspace24]

I don't do much rendering(I use the maxwell render plugin in sketchup but thats entirely CPU), but from what I heard the HD7000's were better overall for rendering. Nvidia still has CUDA which is good in many situations, but from what I heard in certain renderers it does not do as well due to its reduced compute/opencl performance. Still a hd7950 for $299 (gigabyte has a nice windforce cooler for $299) is quite a good deal, some bundles include free games, and it will be good both gaming wise and for rendering.

Yeah I think the 7950 is going to be the one I go with. From what i heard it works just as well as a $150 workstation card for 3d modeling. Thanks for the help.