gaming vs. workstation?

E

ecory

New Member
What is the difference between cards geared towards gaming versus work oriented systems? I'm planning on building a workstation in a couple of weeks. What features should I look for in a video card that may differ from good gaming cards? Right now I'm looking at the ATI 3870 and GeForce 8800 or 8600 and I'm wide open to suggestions. I also want to run dual monitors on a single card (may add a 2nd card later so I want to get crossfire or SLI equip. now)

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
 
1. Sli can only be run on 1 monitor.
2. Do you need a graphics card for no games? thought an On board one would do the job.
 
I would say that the ATI 3870 and GeForce 8800 are more for gamers but would still do great for 3d modeling, although it may be overkill if your not going to be playing games such as cyrsis or cod4.

Please anyone correct me if you think im wrong :D
 
Candy said:
I would say that the ATI 3870 and GeForce 8800 are more for gamers but would still do great for 3d modeling, although it may be overkill if your not going to be playing games such as cyrsis or cod4.

Please anyone correct me if you think im wrong :D
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Well a good 8600 gt would Probly do it no probs but this guy sounds like hes got the doe to blow ( sorry but i wanted to ryhme ). it would probly Be better in the long run to get an 8800 gt because 3d modeling will require better GPU. And Hes gonna use it for some games so im with you on that 1 candy, 8800 gt sounds good :D
 
The big difference is the drivers. GeForce drivers are good at different things than Quadro drivers. You can do CAD/CAM and what not on a GeForce but a Quadro does it better/more accurately.
 
ecory said:
crossfire can be run on 2 though?
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Thats why I went for Ati rather than NVidia on my latest card :) (and the power consumption of the Ati cards beeing lower when idle/low load, ideal for a workstation pc too I recon, since desktop stuff (emails, exel, internet etc) keep the card at idle :) )


performance wise the 3870 was somewhere between 5~10% behind the 8800GT (G92) iirc. but its also quite a bit cheaper, and has a much lower power consumption. I could ofcourse stard advertising here, but those are the reasons why I went for the 3870 myself (and to b honest, I'm quite impressed with its performance, that said, i'm not easely impressed :o )
 
Great info, thanks! It looks like 3870 is the way to go for several reasons.

Here's my build:
Core 2 QuadQ6600
ABIT IP35 Pro
SeaSonic 80+ 600W Power Supply
mushkin 4GB(2 x 2GB) DDR2 800
GIGABYTE GV-RX387512H Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB 32MB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB 16MB
Antec P182 ATX Mid Tower
ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
 
Have you already purchased? The Abit IP35 pro is a good board, but have you considered the P35 DS3R?

Also the DS3R only has 1 PCIe slot while the Abit has two. However if you ever wanted to run dual 3870s in crossfire, you would want the X38 chipset. The P35 will only run crossfire at x16/x4 speeds, while the x38 runs the full x16/x16 ;)
 
Yeah i would have to agree with the 3870. I have the 3850 and im pretty happy with that so i can only imagine how much better the 3870 is :D
 
Yeah I got my Sapphire HD3870 today and when I first started playing Crysis it blew me away. I guess it was expected going from an integrated video card to a HD3870. Crysis runs at an average of 25fps with everything on high and 1280x1024 with my build.
 
I haven't purchased yet. I did consider a P35 DS3R but after comparing the specs decided on the Abit. What x38 board would you recommend? I'm also finding that once I add an OS and 22" monitor that I'm breaking the budget so I'm looking for places to save some $ without compromising performance too much.

I was favoring nVidia before but I have to say I feel really good about going with the 3870 now.
 
The 3870 is a superior card for the money, if you have the money, these in crossfire are killer.

I'd recommend the Gigabyte EX38-DS4, $205.

If you never plan on dual graphic cards then the Abit or DS3R will be fine. Also i would recommend the Foxconn Mars or DS3R before the ABIT.
 
For your use and gaming the 3870 is great.

For X38 i recommend the EX38-DS4, i would have said the asus P5E x38, but i went for the DS4 because asus boards are known for memory problems and bad vdroop.

Also the 8800GT slightly does outperform the 3870, but the 3870 in crossfire outperforms the 8800GT in SLI.
 
So I'm getting flack everywhere for going with the abit board and I need to spend less rather than more so I'll probably go with the P35-DS3L. I don't plan on running crossfire anytime soon and maybe never, so the x16/x4 limitation isn't a big deal.
 
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