8 series gforce vs. quadro card

[MrBibz]

I'm going to need a new laptop and most of the ones that I'm looking at either carry something around an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS or a Quadro NVS 140M.

For school I'm going to need to do 3d modeling and animation, so I get the impression the the quadro would fair better. On the other hand I would also like to use this as a gaming laptop, and I think a gforce could handle my 3d work.

Which card type is a better choice?

[Randy74]

Not sure which one is better but I have a Geforce (don't know which version) and it kicks ass.

[EndGameOmega]

At 7/14/08 11:46 PM, MrBibz wrote: I'm going to need a new laptop and most of the ones that I'm looking at either carry something around an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS or a Quadro NVS 140M.

For school I'm going to need to do 3d modeling and animation, so I get the impression the the quadro would fair better. On the other hand I would also like to use this as a gaming laptop, and I think a gforce could handle my 3d work.

Which card type is a better choice?

tl;dr Version: the 8600M is my personal choice.

The advantage of the Quadro series is stability. The card is built to a higher stander, and the drivers are geared with stability (not speed) in mind. The Quadro is probably a better choice if your doing serious modeling work. However the Quadro is not for gaming. The 140 is based on the 8400 core, which is significantly less powerful then the 8600 core.

As such I would go with the 8600 if you plan to use your laptop for entertainment purposes (especially games). But I'm not sure how well it would work for rendering, I don't think the drivers allow for partial processing on the GPU during rendering, though I've never tried.

[Tinkco86]

I have a friend that games on a quadro fine. He plays COD4. Just go with the quadro, it will be better in school. Games should come second.

[Masculine]

What kind of laptop are you getting anyway?

[MrBibz]

At 7/15/08 12:46 AM, Tinkco86 wrote: I have a friend that games on a quadro fine. He plays COD4. Just go with the quadro, it will be better in school. Games should come second.

What quadro did he have? They vary greatly. The Quadro NVS 140m is nothing compared to the FX 1600m. However, I do agree. Modeling/animation is more important, and I don't plan on gaming all the time.

EndGameOmega, Idk either how well it would work for rendering. all my novice 3d work has been done with a borrowed comp that has an integrated gforce 6150 SE *cries* the render times dragged by, but it was tolerable for beginning work.

masculine:
ive been looking at the hps (around the dv9930us) or the lenovo thinkpads in the t-series.
the alienware laptops like the Area-51® m9750m9750 offer highend quadro cards but the memory and processors cost a lot to improve

i noticed that one of the Sager laptops has a Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT for a pretty low price, so i might just go for that.

[jenny-cadaver]

At 7/16/08 11:26 AM, MercatorMap wrote: Go for the Nvidia cards dude.

Not always the best choice... What are you doing the 3D modeling for? Artwork or engineering? I find that to operate the engineering programs at my school I need more speed than stability just to rotate an object.

[packerman]

At 7/16/08 11:30 AM, jenny-cadaver wrote:

At 7/16/08 11:26 AM, MercatorMap wrote: Go for the Nvidia cards dude.

Not always the best choice... What are you doing the 3D modeling for? Artwork or engineering? I find that to operate the engineering programs at my school I need more speed than stability just to rotate an object.

what he said he sounds like he knows things.

[MrBibz]

At 7/16/08 11:30 AM, jenny-cadaver wrote:

At 7/16/08 11:26 AM, MercatorMap wrote: Go for the Nvidia cards dude.

Not always the best choice... What are you doing the 3D modeling for? Artwork or engineering? I find that to operate the engineering programs at my school I need more speed than stability just to rotate an object.

The 3d modeling and animation I do is more art-based than anything else. Mostly I work in Lightwave and Maya. However, I'd still call myself a beginner, so I'm not entirely what direction I'll take my 3D work. I'm a novice at the specs, but I can understand how the use of OpenGL and realtime rendering are a plus, but my 3d work is rather basic.

To clear up anyones confusion, the geforce cards and the quadro are both nvidia. I hear that ATI FireGLs are cheaper, but I haven't come across any laptops that carry them.

[jenny-cadaver]

At 7/16/08 01:41 PM, MrBibz wrote:

At 7/16/08 11:30 AM, jenny-cadaver wrote:

At 7/16/08 11:26 AM, MercatorMap wrote: Go for the Nvidia cards dude.

Not always the best choice... What are you doing the 3D modeling for? Artwork or engineering? I find that to operate the engineering programs at my school I need more speed than stability just to rotate an object.

The 3d modeling and animation I do is more art-based than anything else. Mostly I work in Lightwave and Maya. However, I'd still call myself a beginner, so I'm not entirely what direction I'll take my 3D work. I'm a novice at the specs, but I can understand how the use of OpenGL and realtime rendering are a plus, but my 3d work is rather basic.

To clear up anyones confusion, the geforce cards and the quadro are both nvidia. I hear that ATI FireGLs are cheaper, but I haven't come across any laptops that carry them.

Well if your focus is mainly art then I doubt it would be very taxing on the system unless you do intensely complex stuff, which you say your not into yet... So get the cheaper one... or the one that will still be competitive whenever you decide to amp up the complexity... :3 I'm such a help...

[MrBibz]

At 7/16/08 01:44 PM, jenny-cadaver wrote: Well if your focus is mainly art then I doubt it would be very taxing on the system unless you do intensely complex stuff, which you say your not into yet... So get the cheaper one... or the one that will still be competitive whenever you decide to amp up the complexity... :3 I'm such a help...

Alright, thanks for the insight. Just to clarify, is the biggest edge with the quadro cards that the rendering is done in real time so I can get a better picture of what the object will look like when it's finished? At this point my biggest issue is flaws in the modeling where the polygons are offset, but these mistakes show up the same in navigation and after the frame is rendered. So im guessing the quadro wont make a difference for that?

The quadro equivilant is much more expensive. So I'll probably go for the more powerful GeForce 9600M GT, and also go for better ram and processing :]

[MrBibz]

sooo