Should i switch to Quadro?

I am a 3D artist and a video editor. I currently use a Sager NP5691 (8700GT). I always wanted to move to Quadro cards because they work much smoother for CAD and other 3D programs. I love the new dell precision notebooks, but i can get more power for the same price, for example an alienware 17m. But i also like the classy look of the business notebooks and the matte led displays.

So what do you guys think?

 

You need a Quadro card if you need a high level of precision in your work and if the apps you are using support it. Otherwise, you can skip it.

 

More power for the same price? Really? With AW? Please do link!

 

i reckon he's referring to the price difference between business class and consumer grade laptops.like a fx770 is more expensve than a 9600gt....but the "power" is relative, the 9600gt has less "power" for professional apps

 

Video editing won't see a change. You'll be after fast storage, or large storage depending if you are layering compositions or just splicing clips.

If you are a 3D artist, and use Maya, seach online for "geforce maya" along with "glitch" or "problems" etc. and you will get an earful. 3DS Max I don't think has significant problems, but I haven't looked. (I've just heard people say it supports them better through its Direct3D rendering mode.)

If you don't experience those problems on your 8700GT, I'd be interested to hear. I suspect also that some of those people actually have issues with kludgy driver installs. Some of them (my school had a whole lab full) have real problems that never get solved. It seems to depend more on the phase of the moon than anything reasonable, except it happens more to 8000-series owners (i.e. 8600 and 8800). That, or nobody bought a 9000- or 200-series card who uses Maya. (ehhh... maybe one person on cgtalk. He never said whether he fixed his gtx280 issues.)

Quadro cards usually have a Geforce card that they are closest to. Fudging for any differences like memory bandwidth, your game performance is roughly what you would expect from that similarity. But the Quadros also support these features (supposedly, hence the compatibility problems if an app needs them):

hardware overlay planes (like a layer in photoshop, except for graphics drawn on your screen. Used for tool manipulators, Artisan tool and prolly some others.)

complex viewport clipping. Like having a 3D view, but partially obscured by 4 different windows like your Outliner and Attrib. Editor.

hardware OpenGL XOR rendering - used for component highlight, and for having 3D manipulators drawn in 3D, but making them always visible in front even if they are behind something.

Some other features too I'm sure but those are good examples.