Hi,

I always get a big lag when I'm dealing with complicated CAD geometry. So I'm thinking about upgrading my display card. What brand do you think it's best for rendering and 3D modelling? My budget is around A$200++.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers, Lisa

Are you using a MAC, PC, UNIX box, or ??

PC....Any comments? :O

gforce 4 ti 4200

GeForce 4 might not be the best solution... it depends on exactly what CAD operations you want to speed up. Nvidia handicaps their GeForce drivers for some features (e.g. antialiased line geometry, if I remember correctly) in order to give pro users an incentive to buy their professional graphics cards (Quadro series), which are quite a bit more expensive. If you can't afford a Quadro-type card, though, go for a card with a fast clockrate (the memory bandwidth is usually less of an issue for professional applications). Maybe consider the following: GeForceFX 5600/5700, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro.

I would recommend visiting some PC hardware sites, such as: http://www.anandtech.com http://www.aceshardware.com http://www.tech-report.com They have reviews of the newest consumer cards, and frequently include a few CAD/engineering benchmarks (maybe Pro/E or something similar). Not much, but maybe it will help you make your decision.

I would go for a radeon every time go for a 9800 should be within your budget, i find that they ATI are generally much more "up" on emerging technologies, their cards had DX 9 compatability long before Nvidia. have a look at this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=47511 obviously thats in punds stirling (as im a brit) but they rig all the prices over here to be way more than the states anyway so it should be dirt cheap over there!