Im taking cad in high school and some other stuff like 3d studio max, auto cad 200 and stuff, and i was looking into getting a cad card for my other rig. I was looking at one of the older nvidia quadros, but they are still overpriced. Heres what im looking for
64-128 ram
any chipset
dont need d3d performance too but i would like it if possible.
price: 50-130 dollars

All my AutoCAD renders are done on my ATi Radeon card, though as of late I haven't done a lot of CAD because AutoCAD 2000 won't work in XP Pro

I would not buy a CAD card unless I was going all-out on a project, professional level. Infact some of my best work, believe it or not, was rendered on a Rage Pro Turbo 8MB. That car that you saw in my sig was rendered on a TNT2 32MB PCI. But if you absolutely need a CAD card I don't know of much for that price range. I hear there is a mod where you can convert a Geforce MX 400 to a Quadro, theoretically making it a CAD card but I don't know what the mod is. A 3DLabs Wildcat is the choice for professional level draftsmen, but they are pricey as hell. Your best bet is to get an entry-level Quadro. If you just wanna speed up render times, invest in a faster CPU (though your +1800 should be just fine)

Hope that helps somehow

how did i know the cad pro would be the one to respond first? Anyone i cant believe how long it takes to render a model of an airplane i made with my athlon 1800+ at 2800+ with 512 mg of ram and a radeon 9600 pro. Im feeling a entry level quadro and im ganna go look that up right now

When it comes to rendering, the processor takes the blunt of the load. I do lots of rendering and 3D modeling, and I use NVIDIA 5900Ultra. I use a FX1000 at work and you cannot tell the difference between the 2. Prior to that I was using a TI4600 for rendering.

Cad cards have there uses, but it is mainly in representing the line on the screen accuratly. But when it comes to rendering then just about any newer (2002-2003 year)card will do. There is one exception. When using SolidWorks 2004 and RealView features, then you must have a quadro4 (700 or better sieres card) to be able to enable RealView. But after 20 min. of the wow factor I turned RealView off. So now any NVIDIA card with 64mb of ram or better will work. I do not recommend getting a ATI anything card. I have always had problems with them.

my dad uses a geforce 3 ti series card with 64mbs. and in the house he uses an xfx geforce 4 ti 4200 64mb card. and both machines run solid works 2004 with out a problem.

If you stay away from ProE and UG you are ok with standard gaming cards, but UG and ProE run into issues for standard cards(for certain abilities) you should be able to get a Quadro or a ATI entry level for under 200 bucks.

ATI Fire GL 8800 is running 150-200 bucks

Quadro 2 EX is about 150 bucks as well

both are good enough for almost all cad Functions

Ninja Edit!

BTW I work with a engineering firm as their IT manager/staff.

and hopefully the forums will be kind to me here

Question. What is CAD?

Computer Aided Design.



www.google.com <-- your friend

Aha..

i'd assume that a low end cad card will be just as good as your 9600- (and probly pricier) even though the 9600 wasnt MADE for cad, it would still be decent at it, i cant think of any reaosn to get a cad card unless youare doing proffesional stuff, and then you get a good card

i'd sugest a low end cad card if you are building a lower end sys for secificly for cad- but otherwise ther is no reason to get a low end cad card (as far as i know)

Quote: Originally posted by j-dogg I hear there is a mod where you can convert a Geforce MX 400 to a Quadro, theoretically making it a CAD card but I don't know what the mod is.

I think RivaTuner has the mod, just look through the options.
I belive it only works on the MX420 (Mott, you still got yours?)

i am a little late getting into the forums tonight, but i have had no problems running AutoCad 2002 on Windows 98 with my GeForce 5600 258.....

and it runs fine on my moms comcrap nVidia onboard graphics (running WinXP home no less)

EDIT: forgot to mention that the only problem on the comcrap that i have come across is that vertical lines don't "touch" horizontal lines.

mot, i dunno if you'd want it cause it only works on DX7, but i'd be willing to part with my oxygen GVX420 for very little or a small trade- its still a good card, just DX7 only- damn 3dlabs and their terrible suport