Quadro Fx 4500 Versus Geforce 7800 Gt On Quad-core G5 Power Mac

[doghouse]

I need some help. We are testing Maya 7 on a Quad-Core G5/2.5GHz Power Mac. We are trying to determine if the $1650 Quadro FX 4500 really does things in Maya 7 that the $350 GeForce 7800 GT does not do.

Apple claims, for example, that the Quadro supports clip panes, two-sided lighting, and anti-aliased points/lines. The implication is that the GeForce 7800 GT does not. I was even told my an Alias employee that the GeForce 7800 GT is "just a game card." But we are not convinced since both cards use the same chip.

Alias (AutoDesk) muddies the water by "qualifying" the Quadro FX 4500 and ignoring the GeForce 7800GT. Yet they qualified the GeForce 6800 Utlra on the PCI-X G5 -- which is "just a game card."

We acknowlege that the Quadro had two Dual-Link DVI ports (able to support two gigapixel displays) while the GeForce only has one Dual-Link DVI and one standard DVI port. We know the Quadro has a 3D Stereo port and the Geforce does not. But those features do not justify the gap in the cost between the two cards.

We also understand that the core clock and memory clock speeds of the Quadro FX 4500 are higher than the GeForce 7800 GT, though we can overclock the GeForce to match those speeds. And the Quadro has more video memory (512MB vs 256MB).

So here's what we need. Can any of you provide or point us to a sample Maya scene that we can manipuate or render or playback in Maya 7 in such way as to verify that the Quadro FX 4500 really does do things that the GeForce 7800 GT does not do.

In other words, we want to be able to say either,
"Get a GeForce 7800 GT -- it does everything in Maya 7 that the Quadro does only slower."
or
"If you want to do this and this, you'll have to get a Quadro."

[jtk77]

as said before it all comes down to the extra time they spend optimising the drivers that work with the quadro cards to work with the professional application. Thats the big difference.
Honestly, I've used maya on a gFX5200 card that cost 60 bucks and besides particle hardware renders, it worked fine. Believe it or not.
Although, at work I'm on a quadrofx 1400 (I think ), solid, and it works without a hitch. Does anything with no complaint , artifacts or wrongness. Gets the job done.

If you're doing work you're being paided to do, get the big fat pro card.

If you're working on your reel, or just hobbying around, or maybe trying to get work...perhaps spending that cash on more ram, more software, might be a better move then upgrade as your profesional level increases.

It sounds like you guys are doing profestional stuff. So, it would really be a good idea to just go with the card that has the optimised and better drivers. Besides the fact that if you call Alias under support with an unsupported card, 9 times out of 10 you're SOL .
The biggest thing I've seen different between similar "gaming cards" and Quadro "rpo" cards is just the display responce with things like IK, particles, and correctly displaying wireframes even when it starts getting crazy.
The main reason for this is the time Alias and Nvidia have put into tweeking the drivers. Its less about the hardware itself. Just saves you some headahces as projects get bigger.

Also, I've found that a lot of times hardware rendering out of maya with "gamer" cards that do not have the optimised drivers tend to come out wrong in some way or another.

If you don't do that sort of thing. It may not matter. Or maybe have one workstation with the pro card and a few that you'll use to model and animate with "gamer" cards. Who knows?
It all comes down to how much work you're doing. Get the best you can afford at the time you're getting it.

[klawz]

One problem that I have come across with the GeForce 7800GT is that it will not correctly display the grid overlay when inporting an image plane into the orthograpic view windows. Apparently this is due to it's lack of support for open GL overlay, even though on NVIDIA's tech specs for the card it says that open GL is fully supported. The alpha gain slider in the attribute editor also has no effect on the image plane transparency.
This is the only performance issue that I have come across, everything else works just fine, but this is a big inconvience if you are using image planes a lot for modelling references.
If anyone knows of a fix for this issue i'd love to know about it,
Michael