Quick: what is a suitable video card for AutoCAD?

[Tea]

Have to send this quote off in a half hour or so, I'm doing some web hunting right now (bit of the old LTSTBW) but one of you gentlemen might be able to (a) save me some legwork and (b) give me an opinion I trust.

He has a competing quote right now for a P4 2400 with 512MB , 20GB HDD, and (believe it or not!) on-board video. I expect that (failing evidence that the P4 is better than the Athlon for ACAD, which I don't think it is IIRC) I'll suggest he buys an Athlon 2200 or so with a stand alone video card - total coming in at about the same price or a little less than that weirdo 2400MHz-with-integrated-video system he's looking at.

 

[Jake the Dog]

ATI FireGL or Nvidia Quadro's would be perfectly suited to the job but I doubt they would be within the budget contraints you have. so, I'd recommend a GF4 Ti. they do a surprisingly admirable job rendering objects in Autocad and 3DSMax. in fact a GF4 Ti can be hacked so that it's turned into a fully functional Quadro.

64mb 4200's have come down in price a fair bit so it should fit in nicely, besides even without the hack, it would easily outclass any onboard video system that one could find.

 

[jtr1962]

A P4 system with onboard video?! Why? I didn't know such an aberration existed.

Seriously, I don't use Autocad but I use GMax, which is a freeware version of 3DStudio Max, on my PII-450 with a Voodoo3 video card(16 MB RAM). Even with this system it seems reasonably fast, so I think any halfway decent video card with 32MB or more should do fine, although someone else here might know more than me. I base this on the fact that he's even considering something with onboard graphics, which evidently means he's not designing anything too complex with Autocad. Granted, these CAD programs can push a system with a 128MB video card and 4GB RAM to the limit, but that's more the exception than the rule.

Just a suggestion, but given the low prices of RAM these days it might not be a bad thing to suggest that he get a full gig of RAM. He may not need it today or tomorrow, but better to have it in case you need it. Also, a 20GB hard drive on a system like that? I didn't know they even still make 20 GB hard drives. I know it's a matter of preference, but I'd probably have a few hundred GB in that system, spread out over a couple of drives, but that's just me. At least suggest that he get 40 or 60 GB. The price difference is almost negligible these days.

 

[Tea]

Thanks for the fast answer! I suspect that even the CF4 Ti 4200 will be a ittle out of range, Jake. Is an MX-440 out of the question? (I feel much more comfortable with a Nvidia-based card than I do with ATI, by the way. I absolutely hate it one of our business systems gives trouble. Gaming systems being buggy, that I can live with.)

 

[Buck]

This customer doesn't sound like a true CAD operator to me. Such little RAM and an onboard video controller? That is an overrated email system with a hyperactive CPU. If he was a true CAD professional he might consider a Wildcat III 6110 or 6210 from 3Dlabs.

Either way, both of Jakes recommendations are good.

 

[Buck]

Thanks for the fast answer! I suspect that even the CF4 Ti 4200 will be a ittle out of range, Jake. Is an MX-440 out of the question? (I feel much more comfortable with a Nvidia-based card than I do with ATI, by the way. I absolutely hate it one of our business systems gives trouble. Gaming systems being buggy, that I can live with.)

Yes, I like the GeForce4 MX-440T.

 

[Jake the Dog]

I concur, MX440!

 

[Mercutio]

iGary is the man to ask, I'll bet.

Here's a couple of other choices:

ATI Fire GL 8700. They're about $200 in a 64MB configuration, but they're "real" workstation cards with vector filters and everything, but missing the other $2000 worth of stuff that makes ATI's GL4 a high-end card.
The older Diamond/S3 Fire GL cards are still highly prized as well, and probably much cheaper.

I hate to suggest nvidia on general principle, but for CAD work I think I'd rather have a Quadro of some kind than any Geforce. Again, the Quadro has some features to improve display quality, even if it isn't as fast with the rendering. But maybe the GF2-based Quadros aren't that bad any more (modern Quadros run about $800, according to my father, who just bought a couple of $$$ Dell Precisions).

Low-end: My father's suggestion is a Permedia2-based card. They're older but apparently they have a lot of workstation-ish features.

 

[Tea]

JTR: yes, I'll be quoting on a Samsung 40GB 7200. The last time I played with video and AutoCAD was a while ago. A friend/customer and I spent some time in the workshop with his K6-2 or K6-III trying to find a way to juice it up that he could afford. We went from his old PCI card to an 8MB S3, which was better, I think we might have tried a Voodoo III, and ended up going with a 16MB TNT Vanta. A few months later he ponied up for a 32MB TNT M64, which was much better again. I can't remember now if he ended up getting a TNT Pro or not, though we did think about it. Time I sent that quote in, guess I'll go with a Gforce.

I recall Sol telling me that the GF4MX is actually a modified Quadra (Nvidia'a higher-end OpenGL card for professional - i.e., non-games - use), so they may perhaps have kept a little of that heritage.

As for the ridiculous existing spec - P4 2.4, on-board video, and so on, my guess is that my man called a computer shop and said "I need a faster computer but I don't want to spend a fortune on it", so the moron in the other shop said "right, a P4 2400 is fast, and we can give you one for this low, low price". The customer is an electrician who uses the system for office work and needs to knock up drawings on it too. I guess that their ACAD usage is moderate.

 

[Tea]

Cool! MX-440 it iz.

 

[Tea]

Neat! I just found some ACAD benchmarks over on Ace's. http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000270 These are summary ones, time in seconds, so lower is better:

Radeon 8500 127.6
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128.77
GeForce 4 Ti4400 129.23
GeForce 4 MX440 129.91
Parhelia 136.74


In other words, the MX440 outpaces the Parhelia, is near enough to just as good as the Ti 4200 and 4400, and is not disgraced by the Radeon. The high-end stuff we need not consider, so it's clearly the one to have.

Storage Forum provides the fastest, bestest answerz one again.

Thanks guyz!

 

[Tea]

I am sitting here holding a purchase order. Well done guyz!

He has gone for:

Epox KT-333 board
Athlon XP 2400
512MB PC-2700
GF 4MX440, 64MB
40GB Spinpoint 7200
Lite-On burner
Videocom 19 inch

 

[Handruin]

I am sitting here holding a purchase order. Well done guyz!

He has gone for:

Epox KT-333 board
Athlon XP 2400
512MB PC-2700
GF 4MX440, 64MB
40GB Spinpoint 7200
Lite-On burner
Videocom 19 inch

Congrats on the sale! Hope he becomes a repeat customer!

 

[Jake the Dog]

good for you Tea! now you can buy Tannin a better chrissy present! how 'bout one of these: http://www.panoramtech.com/products/pv230.html

 

[Buck]

Tannin would get even less work done.

 

[Mercutio]

All those inputs and not a single one of 'em for component video. That's a damn shame.

Personally, I think Tannin could do with a long tour of the States. I'm fairly certain he could get free drinks and places to stay from California to New York.

 

[blakerwry]

All those inputs and not a single one of 'em for component video. That's a damn shame.

Personally, I think Tannin could do with a long tour of the States. I'm fairly certain he could get free drinks and places to stay from California to New York.

merc, you can get HD15 to 3, 4 or 5 way component video converter cables... no electronics needed.

3 way is for component video sync on green(common for HDTV's)... 4 is for fixed refresh rate monitors that sync on the horizontal (Some workstation displays/projectors)... and 5 way is for variable refresh monitors that need to sync on both horisontal and vertical(Multimedia projectors and high quality workstation monitors).

 

[Tea]

By the way, the competing quote was for about $1750. I quoted on four variations - Athlons from 1600+ to 2400+ with a couple of different main board choices and minor other stuff - ranging from about $1900 to about $2300 They have gone with the top quote. In another thread, Tannin wrote about selling against Dell, and said something about Rule One, which is to "never ever quote on the exact same system that your competitor is selling". Here is a good example of the rule working in practice.

I spent several hours researching the video card question (posting here, searching the web, and so on), and another hour or so writing up a three page letter explaining just why I believed that particular system was a good idea, but the research time is something I needed to do sooner or later anyway, and the remaining time is the price I pay for selling at full price and not busting a gut trying to match a too-low price on an unsuitable system.It's always worth it.

-------

Hey! What'z thiz? Tannin? Free tour? What about me??? Ztuck here at home, zlaving away over a hot motherboard while Tannin cazhez in on my effortz?

 

[Buck]

I am sitting here holding a purchase order. Well done guyz!

He has gone for:

Epox KT-333 board
Athlon XP 2400
512MB PC-2700
GF 4MX440, 64MB
40GB Spinpoint 7200
Lite-On burner
Videocom 19 inch

AUD2,300.00 is that roughly USD1,300.00?

 

[Handruin]

http://www.xe.net/ucc/

 

[Buck]

Thanks Handy, I was spot on too.

 

[Onomatopoeic]

iGary is the man to ask, I'll bet.

No, not really. I definitely do not keep up with AutoCAD.

As for needing a particular graphics card for AutoCAD, I don't think it's such a big deal -- at least not anymore, unless you are still running the ancient DOS version of AutoCAD, then yes, you'd want "AutoCAD for DOS" drivers.

I used to use AutoCAD a lot back in the mid~late 1980s. Back then, AutoCAD graphics cards were HOT stuff. There was a manufacturer of AutoCAD cards here in town (er... OmniGraphics or OmniComp I think) that was the speed king of AutoCAD for DOS along with Elsa (German company) nipping at its heels. Omni-whatever had various models that used the super-duper Texas Instruments 34000-series 32-bit raster engine and a whopping (then) 16MB of display dual-ported VRAM with up to 32MB of "private" RAM that parts of AutoCAD ran in. If I recall correctly, some of these cards could cost as much as US$8K or $10K.

Nowadays... no. All you need now is at least a decent OpenGL graphics card, unless you want to render objects to photographic quality. Then, you might consider something like the Parhelia, only because it can actually directly display 36-bit colour imagery. (By the way, there will be an "inexpensive" Parhelia coming out in about 6 months.) Today's CPU's are so fast, I don't think you need much of anything other than a stable graphics card and OpenGL driver for Windows.

 

[Sol]

I guess this would be a pretty crappy time to mention that the only difference between GForce cards and Quadro cards is software and that a GForce2 can run as its Quadro equivilent with just some software tweaking...
On the up side it takes very little soldering to make a Quadro out of the G4MX440...

 

[Tea]

Not at all, Sol. Customer picked up the system today, complete with GF4 MX440.

PS: If you are reading this, Tannin has a job for you. Yes, the Ansonia's external burner has finally arrived!