Is the 3DLabs WildCat 6210 the best video card?

[yodaeyes]

hey,

I just purchased all the parts to my new system (runs on Windows 2000 Pro) and the only thing now thats missing is a video card. I am mainly using my computer for 3d applications such as maya so therefore I want the best video card for the job.

I heard the Elsa Quadro 900XGL is a very good card and it got good reviews from www.cgchannel.com but I also heard the Elsa is on the verge of bankruptcy so they would have no support or warranty for any of the cards.

The next best card I heard was the 3DLabs WildCat 6210 with 416mb of on-board memory. It's qualified on the A|W site and it has no problems with maya. I know it is very expensive but if its worth it and with help speed up production time then I dont mind spending the money.

Has anyone ever used a WildCat 6210 in Maya, if so how does it perform in the maya environment?

How does in handle interactive texturing?

How well does it perform with the Maya renderer?

How well does it handle HW particles?

are there any other problems with it?

if there any other suggestions please leave them.

thanks

[tansdenwedge]

I have used Wildcat 4105 and are currently using Wildcat II 5110 with XSI 2. I don't know about its compatibility with Maya but with XSI it is extremely fast and stable. I'll probably get Wildcat IV 7210 when it comes out. If you can afford it get it.

jenneth

[ozz-2005]

it really depends what you want to do.

if its a lot of texturing. then both cards have something to offer.
the quadro has much faster fillrates. so shaded+textured+lit geometry will be faster on a quadro than wildcat.

but on the other hand.....the wildcat has a lot more storage for textures..

also you should try to find out how their latest direct x attempt is. for the longest time you couldnt do much with a wildcat except JUST 3d. so ..some 2d editing apps that use direct x would perform either poorly or not at all ( from what i read. but no actual experience )
i know that the 6210 has direct x. but you should try to find out anyway how good of a job they did in that arena.

the quadro has a rather good direct x support.

another area to take into consideration is that nvidia seems to have a VERY good record for supporting their videocards and getting new drivers out. and support their products for a long time because of the unified driver. while 3dlabs tends to cut off support after a while. ( especially their entry-midrange cards )

[devdoka]

@@...while 3dlabs tends to cut off support after a while. ( especially their entry-midrange cards )

I wouldn't say that. I've got the entry level Oxygen VX1 and it's still fully supported with drivers for XP and Linux...and it's 4+ years old.

One thing to consider when choosing cards is track record of development. The engineers developing the Wildcat (originally from Intergraph) have a long history of producing top notch results with stable and optimized drivers. Just the other day, 3DLabs announced their new P10 architecture to be released later this year. It will support DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0 while also shattering even the current Wildcat in performance. There will probably be demo versions showing at Siggraph.

[skullnation]

The 6210 also has dual graphics pipelines sobsically it can take its 256 MB of memory and split it between two monitors to run two seperate apps at the same time so Maya on one Deep Paint on the other or whatever. If youre only using a single monitor all 256 MB of storage will go to that one program running.

The Quadros are great cards as well and will support dual monitors but don't have as much RAM as the Wildcats, but they do support full DirectX so you can use it tp play games as well, something the Wildcat lacks in.

I think you may have a difficult time buying the 6210 by itself since it's only offered asa an OEM part, I don't know how the 6110 compares to the 6210, I know it's quite a bit cheaper and can be bought individually but it doesnt have nearly as much memory.

The Quadro 900XGL can be purchased from ELSA and some other manufacturers for a pretty reasonable price.

So I would say Check out both Nvidias and 3DLabs sites and compare the cards. They supply full spec sheets and will help you decide.

A friend of mine demoed the 6210 at the GDC in March and I wasn't to impressed with it's realtime refresh rates, especially when textures were being displayed. I also checked out Nvidias booth and they were demonstrating a plugin foir Maya that works with withe the Quadros allowing it to display real time shadows, reflections and BumpMapping. They used their Chameleon model running the animation inside of Maya and changing from refelctive to bumpy and all that. Pretty impressive.