Viewport is intentionally crippled in nVidia consumer cards. On the other hand, AMD consumer cards can compete with lower-end workstation at times. Crippled in certain cases, not crippled in certain cases. I'm not even talking about FirePro.
V4800 is an old card. I think it was replaced by V4900.
Then came W600, W5000 etc. which are based on the newer GCN architecture, I think. Still very expensive.
But then gaming on consumer cards isn't going to be good. A question of priorities and compromise.
Interesting information there, about Viewport performance being intentionally crippled by NVidia.. I always wondered why viewports shouldn't be rendered by the graphics card by default, since it's basically just like rendering a low end game.. something Graphics cards are good at.
I also remember reading something about how the 8800 could be made to 'transform' into a Quadro variant, by installing a different driver.. Not sure how true that is though. Maybe nvidia/amd want to keep the 'pro' cards separate so they can charge companies higher prices? Or is there any physical difference in the way these cards are made that justifies the high premium they command?
Anyway, to come back to the topic, if i were to choose between gaming and viewport performances, i'd definitely choose Viewports.
Should i then go for the Firepro card? I'm hearing a lot of people saying there are driver issues.. don't want to spend all that money just to end up pulling my hair out trying to get it to work..
I checked out the W600 and 5900.. both WAY over my current budget!
What would you suggest i do? Get an nvidia gaming card and live with the viewport throttling or go with firepro and live with potential driver issues? Again, gaming is NOT the priority..
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Stumbled upon this while browsing : *www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539&pgno=1
Wonder if i could end up bricking my card if i go ahead with SoftModding a geforce into a quadro..