CAD & gaming card

[Drag0nAbyss]

Hey can anyone suggest a good gaming and CAD card i am looking at upgrading my desktop and i am also an engineering student so i need something that can do both gaming and CAD at the sometime?

[FloRolf]

i'm using just normal GTX cards and it works fine. Something like a 970.

[W-L]

Hey can anyone suggest a good gaming and CAD card i am looking at upgrading my desktop and i am also an engineering student so i need something that can do both gaming and CAD at the sometime?

 

Welcome to the Forums!

 

For CAD depending on the software your using most don't gain much from adding in a dedicated or certified workstation graphics since the rendering on most programs they are CPU based. The only main benefit would be things like live views.

[Drag0nAbyss]

I mostly use solidworks and autodesk. i also run 2 Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP 30 which are 2560x1600res if that helps. i was thinking about the gtx titan black what do you think??

[19_blackie_73]

i do this with inventor on a 970, works great

[Grrizz]

CAD and gaming are almost mutually exclusive, for Solidworks at least, unless you are getting into gigantic models CAD doesn't need a lot of GPU power because it primarily uses the CPU (single thread), the benefits you can get from a GPU are usually driver bound i.e. you need a Quadro but the Quadro driver doesn't have the game optimizations in it.

I believe Autodesk products added DX render support a while back but I haven't used AutoCAD/Inventor in a long time so couldn't comment on that, regardless I would say a Titan X is still way overkill AFAIK that's more targeted towards things like computer learning.

[W-L]

I mostly use solidworks and autodesk. i also run 2 Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP 30 which are 2560x1600res if that helps. i was thinking about the gtx titan black what do you think??

 

Solidworks basically uses very little GPU as said it's CPU based for all it's rendering, and only the live views which aren't absolutely necessary, would ever make good use of workstations graphics. Autocad though if it's complex 3D models have some benefit with workstations graphics, in general most regular GPU's are very capable but if your using it for 2D modeling it would be better to invest in a higher tier CPU instead of GPU.

[PolyRemi]

I'm also an engineering student and I CAD on Catia. I did some quick tests and my GTX970 never goes over 25-30% usage even when rendering. It's almost only on the CPU since I get high CPU usage and lown GPU usage. A good GPU won't help unless you have the right drivers, and those only work with Quadro cards and some softwares. 

 

I would recommend you get the GPU you want for the games you intend to play and don't bother with the CAD part, you will be fine no mather what. If you want the best CAD performance possible, just get a good CPU and be happy with it.