I'm in the market for a new Mac and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the geforce 8800 vs the quadro fx.

I know the quadro fx is much better, and it's what we use in our linux machines, but does anyone know how the geforce will perform in the real world?

$2,700 is a big jump in price between the two. I'm willing to pay it, if the geforce isn't up to the challenge, but if I don't have to, why should I?

Dave

Heya Dave,

You are likely to receive many views on this matter – it's borderline on a religious perspective.

Running the geforce grade cards (most recently, the 7950GT, and now the 9800GTX), I've never ran into an issue that warranted the extra expense.

plainly put, i've never had a problem that needed a $2000 solution.

Others have obviously had different experiences, or else, the market for these amazing beauties wouldn't exist, so the problem must be real – it just hasn't manifested itself in the way that I work.

G

ps: I have 0 experience with the MAC. All this feedback is based on Windows/Linux experience.

I have an older GeForce 7300, and Houdini works pretty well for me. The GeForce/Quadro cards would indeed be better for Houdini, though the Quadro is only really necessary if you have lots of massive textures on dense models.

Barefeats.com has some benchmarks, using games, and the nVidia cards are faster for OpenGL games and apps (like Houdini), but the Radeon's are better overall for Macs, as they are significantly faster doing Core Image, Core Video, and Core Animation.

http://barefeats.com/harper8.html [barefeats.com]
http://barefeats.com/harper15.html [barefeats.com]
http://barefeats.com/harper16.html [barefeats.com]
http://barefeats.com/harper17.html [barefeats.com]

I would get the GeForce 8800, or Radeon 3870 if you use Final Cut Studio a ton, as they should be more than capable for working with Houdini, or other 3D Apps under OS X. Quadro is overkill in most cases. If you're going to be working under Windows, find any GeForce or Quadro you want to use, and use it. It's only under OS X that you're limited in which cards have OS X drivers.

Hope that helps!

I know it is a religious question, but that will almost guarantee many responses, which is all I'm really after. :wink:

The lower end card will work, it will give you issues for some things. Only reason I get the quadros for work is nothing more complicated than ‘less headaches’. At work, a headache costs money, far more than $2000 if you work it out. If you're at home, or running a small studio, occasional headaches might be worth saving the money.

Cheers,

J.C.

Consumer cards have one major problem - driver updates. They tend to be much less stable than the professional drivers, as they're geared towards the current popular games & gaming performance. If you find a stable driver on a consumer product, hold on to it! Resist the urge to update to the latest & greatest *unless* you are experiencing an issue that you need resolved. We have encountered some consumer drivers that are 1 step forward, 10 steps back.

Thanks for the input. I'm going with John's idea of less headaches and I ordered it today. I'll post my findings in a couple weeks (or sooner if I have news.)

Dave