GeForce Go 7800 GTX vs Quadro FX Go 1400

The quadro is designed for digital content/CAD/3D animation type stuff, the 7800 is for gaming. The 7800 is faster, but is less precise for workstation/animation type applications. The quadro go1400 is based on the go6800 core, which means it is a generation behind the go7800. Hope that clears things up.

The Quadro is a proffesional level graphics card manufactured for rendering 3D models, CAD, HD video fx, etc...

The key is understanding the cards were manufactured for different uses...

If you are a hardcore gamer, then go with the 7800 (no question). You will undeniably get the best gaming performance with this GeForce card.

However, If your primary use of the system is not gaming, but rather 3D modeling, CAD, photoshop, video editing, etc... then it would be best to go with the Quadro.

nVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_go.html

Long and short the Quadro is design for worstation performance and stability, not gaming.

It is based on the core logic with the way that the card renders the information based on the version of DirectX instructions that the card supports.

In your example:
"For example if you have a processor that can do multplication 100 times faster than another processor can simply add then you'll be able to do alot better with the processor that can multiply, right?"

No..that is not correct. This is how Mac's and PC's differed. For the LONGEST time, you could have a 2.2 GHZ PC running with 9800Pro ATI card running against a 400MHZ G4 Mac with a 9800Pro (Diffrent chips..risc or mips,etc..) based processor and due to the way the Mac compiled the information, handled the data through the bus and as well multi threaded the information (diffrent piplines as well for the Quattro vs. Geforce) you would have FAR better performance on the MAC than on the PC with a "higher" processor. It is not always the case of "faster specs mean...better" .. and as a matter of fact if you were to render high quality and very extensive parts in AutoCAD Inventor on a 7800GTX vs the Quad you would probably wind up with a ton of issues as the 7800GTX isn't certified for most of these CAD apps and the nVidia software does not take advantage of any CAD related programming features for that core / pipeline, etc, where as the "instructions" embedded in the Quadro would as that is what CAD was optimized for.

erm ... isnt the quadro thingie just marketing from nvidia?

at least you could mod older geforce generations to quadros and spare some serious amount of money. so the cards are basically the same when you can mod them to run with the quadro drivers. is this different now?

i'm just saying this because he wanted to know if there is a difference hardwarewise and i'm saying no there isn't.

What you speak of has to be obtained now through a BIOS flash, what seperates the quad from the geforce is not the hardware but the instructions on firmware. The hardware is "technically speaking the same" but when you flash your bios to another "make/model" you most certainly void your warranty.

Here is probably the best "information" on the diffrences between the Quadro and the Geforce line of products.

http://www.leadtek.com.tw/eng/suppor...p?faqlineid=44

Read it 100% completely before posting a refutal

Thanks for linking to the Leadtek article, gerdawg. That was very informative, and concretely confirmed my choice in the Quadro.

a literal comparison

On that note....

Are there any literal comparisons out there between the two cards in question? Say someone who has put a Quattro FX Go 1400 into a Clevo laptop and then thuroughly tested it against the Ge-force Go 7800. Tests like Rendering speed and quality in MAX, CAD etc and also their gaming preformance.

I have an issue that I want to both Game and Model on the same machine.

That would really answer a great deal of quesitons.

I can say without a doubt if your intent is to "game" with some fps based games you will be SOL with the quad as it is horrible for gaming purposes, literally a 1440 will run Quake 3 at best on "high" graffix. If your intent is to do both your probably better off getting a geforce as that will run Max decent but you'll miss some options that the geforce cannot take advantage of in that program due to rendering that the geforce does not support. A geforce however will work a LOT better for CAD than how a quad would work for gaming hands down without a doubt. (I know this from experience based on thouse scenario's and specifically the cards in question)

Ok, so with this Quadro does it only effect the real time 3D display e.g.: when you are panning about in 3D max and other CAD programms before rendering? Ie, quadro won't suffer from some artifacts that might occur on a non professional card and would be smoother when in the process of making the 3D model?

Is the actual final scene rendering purely done through the CPU, avoiding the graphics card altogether? Damn, if it is I'm, going G-force. I probably don't need the Quadro as I'm never going to be doing things on the level of professional CAD, I'm a student of architecture. A product design student told me to avoid Quadro altogether at one point. Said they were much more expensive and the benefits were minimal.

As the 7800gtx go can do 3d modeling and games, I went that way. The quadro really can't do games well. On top of that, I do game development so I need a card to test my models. Can't really do that on a quadro.

The quadro does have some really nifty features if you're working with some very complex scenes. I have one scene in particular that I'm sure the quadro wold rock. It's a dog on my 7800go.

Rendering is based soley on the cpu, (final render that is) anything real time is handled by the gpu.

What aspect of the modelling that you were doing turned out to be a difficalty on the Geforce that the Quadro would handle better?

The Quadro 1400 has slower 3.3 ns memory versus the fast 1.1 ns memory on the 7800... The 7800 beats the 1400 in gaming benchmarks but the 1400 is better stability...