What's a Good Graphics Card For Both Gaming and 3D Work?

Inhert

I'm sure this has been asked many times but I was wondering what is a good graphics card both for gaming and 3D work. I do know that if you want to do gaming you would choose the Ge Force GTX series for excellent gaming and the Quadro cards for doing professional 3D work. I've heard that some Ge Force GTX cards run well for 3D work. Quadros from what I have read on other forums are pretty expensive to buy and that regular consumer cards like Ge Force GT or GTX can run just as good as Quadro cards.

Is there a gaming card that handle both games and 3D professional work out there? Seems that some gaming cards do not play well with 3D applications and the drivers provided do not work well with 3D apps either. If there is a card that can run both games and 3D apps, I sure would like to know which ones.

I think the first time I heard anybody use a gaming card for 3D work was from Grant Warrick who used a GTX 285 I believe on his workstation using 3Ds Max.

Kbrom12

I have a Palit GTX 560 2GB and I love it, runs every game I play at ultra settings with a beautiful lag free picture at 1080P (games like BF2, Metro 2033, etc...). Granted I have a great processor and a crap load of ram, the GTX 560 so far has served me very well in 3ds max, and it shines when using UDK; I have yet to have a scene that it can't handle but I wish you luck in whatever you choose.

Oniram

id definitely recommend a GTX 460 or higher. ive got a GTX460 4gb (its technically 1 card but takes up both slots.. total of 4gb).

Justin Meisse

I'm sure 90% of the people here use gaming cards. If you're doing film stuff a professional card might be worth it but for real time stuff, a pro card isn't worth the high price and may underperform compared to an equivalent gaming card. I work with an 8800 gt, it's still doing fine for me.

Inhert

Thanks guys for the reply. I figured that the GTX series is good enough to handle 3D applications as well as gaming . I don't think I can afford a Quadro card at this time as they are ridiculously expensive :poly116:.

R3D

I will direct you to this, as far as gaming goes.
http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png

throttlekitty

Cool guide, but annoying as a picture on 1024x768.

Maph

GTX460 and higher or equivalent Radeon card.
I've no experiences with ATI cards, but my previous card was a Quadro 3700FX; and while I felt a slight increase in performance viewport wise (the thing could handle a LOT of polygons), it can't handle texture swapping all that good, so playing games with it wasn't exactly all that. Also, Quadro's make a shitload of noise when stressed...
So in the end, get a high end gaming card and you're set.

Inhert

Okay another question that I have in mind. What's the difference between a GTX and GT in an Nvidia card? I've heard of the GTX a lot for higher end gaming graphics card but I also hear GT used in some laptops for gaming and multimedia. Is the GTX more powerful than the GT in terms of video RAM and speed (overclocked which I'm guessing could lead to heat problems)?

Ace-Angel

GTX is the big daddy of the series of the cards, while GT, is more akin to the budget card idea.

glottis8

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html