Good economical graphics card
 

Okay, so I am starting up soon with another company as a product design engineer. Basically, it would consist of drafting(possibly Autodesk or SolidWorks... they haven't decided yet) and possibly FEA.
They want my input on what system to set up.

What does everyone suppose I should get?
Do you suppose one of these computers with the QuadroNVS cards will be sufficient for good operation of a CAD program?
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/prod...=04&l=en&s=bsd

Any other thoughts will be welcome. Just remember that I want to keep this as inexpensive as possible.

Thanks.

It should be fine. I'd probably go for the Pentium 820D instead of the 830D though, it's not as fast, but it should be adequate while saving some $. Throw 1-2GB of Ram in them, a nice Quadro card and you have a great CAD machine. The last one I built for someone was essentially the 820 w/ 1GB and a Quadro FX1400.

Thanks Pug, but you didn't really address my primary concerns, which were those of a graphics card.

I have already advised my future employer about purchasing this computer setup from Dell.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...h11b&x=12&y=14

However, I also suggested being willing to purchase a good graphics card to complement the system. What does everyone think of the Quadro4 NVS series? What about the Quadro FX series? And what models of each of these groups are good?

Thanks.

Oops, thought you wanted help picking which machine to use your NVS card in.

I know that the FX1400 seemed much faster than was needed. Never seen something crunch on AutoCAD like it did. I've unfortunately never had experience with other CAD cards of the current generation. The NVS 285 looks, on paper, to be a good enough card, but with such a huge price difference, I'd be a little concerned about performance. Since they are so cheap, I'd actually suggest trying it out, and be ready to switch it out for a a more high end proffesional card. If you are happy with the ~$100 card, then you'll have saved a couple of hundred bucks. If you feel the need to jump to a faster one then a couple of hundred bucks is not a cost prohibitive upgrade (on a CAD workstation).