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g. bon · Guest

Hello,

For using with Wildfire2, I don't know what card I should choose : quadro fx
1400 or 3400.
In spec viewperf benchmarks that are published, fx1400 have a speed of 46.8
and fx3400 have a speed of 48 (difference is less than 3%).
So, the speed difference seems to be ridiculous in regard of price
difference.
However, is there any other significant difference I didn't noticed between
the two cards or is there a real difference just in some other softwares
(that are more "graphicals" ?)
I know that Fx1400 have 128Mb of Vram and fx3400 have 256Mb but I don't know
how this can Improve working with ProE or not and in which circumstances ...

Thanks for any advice,
GB

GWDavis28 · Joined: 08 Apr 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Massachusetts

g.bon the on board ram for the video will help when you are working in a large assembly (ie. 1000+ parts). If most of the assemblies that you work in are like 100+ parts then you might not need the more expense card. You need to accdess your needs and determine which works best for your situation.

I'm running a Quadpro card and I've used ATI cards like on a laptop and man can you tell the differnce, but between the 2 cards you are looking at it's probably going to unoticalbe.

Good luck, Glenn |B)

Guest · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 4:10 pm Post subject: Re: Quadro Fx 1400 vs 3400

I read an article once that explained OpenGL graphics and was shocked
at the conclusion. Because of the way OpenGL works, the amount of
video RAM needed is (relatively) miniscule and is a function of color
depth (16,24,32 bit etc) and screen resolution. I think the conclusion
was that you needed about 7 or 8 MB of RAM per ProE window open. After
having sunk thousands over the years into the latest and greatest video
cards (I remember paying Dell $1800 for a 256MB Wildcat at one time) I
realize that I was hardly even scratching the surface of the card's
ability. If you're gaming, running lots of textures and shadows, etc,
the high amount of RAM helps, but with ProE just spinning and
zooming/panning, etc, it makes no difference.

What does make a difference is the speed of the processor on the video
card, so I would focus on that. In your case, with a 3% difference, I
would buy the cheaper card.

Regards

ps. If anyone here read the same OpenGL explanation, could they post a
link? I would like to print it out.

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