Choosing between 2 lesser graphics cards.

[MadMango]

At work we have 2 computers that are not being used. I want to take the best of both to make one decent machine.

One computer has 512mb memory, PIII 500mhz and a Oxygen GVX-1 32mb graphics card.

The other has 1gb memory, P4 800mhz and a Matrox G400 32mb graphics card.

I am thinking that I'll just pull the GVX-1 out and stuff it into the box that has the P4, but before I do this (hoping that my IT department doesn't catch me ) I was hoping to get some feedback from you folks. Is the GXV-1 better than the G400? "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[SBaugh]

Yes!

Good luck, Scott Baugh, CSWP
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dmca.com

http://home.insightbb.com/~scott.baugh/

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[josephv]

Hello,

I will second that "Yes!".

The Matrox is designed for multimedia applications and video games, which require high frame rate and a low polygon count (low detail).

Solid Modeling requires low frame rate and high detail. The Oxygen is designed for Solid Modelling and CAD. In fact the Oxygen driver has a setting optimized for "SolidWorks".

In short, the Matrox is a good card, but it is not meant for SolidWorks. The Oxygen was designed for SolidWorks and other CAD applications.

cheers,

Joseph

 

[MadMango]

Thanks for confirming my gut feeling guys. I used a GVX-1 Pro (64mb), but never the "plain" GVX-1. I wasn't entirely sure which was better suited to CAD work, as the G400 was a year or two newer than the GVX-1.

Time to don my ski mask, and make that swap... "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[RawheadRex]

I'm a day late and a dollar short with my two-cents (hmm,that doesn't sound right does it?) but I'd like to chime in anyhow.

By all means, go with the Oxygen card. I've never been happy with any machine running SolidWorks with any Matrox product. The speed and image quality were the pits.

A couple of years back, we found (through a bit of trial and error) that the Oxygen GVX1 cards served our needs best in terms of price/performance and only changed graphics cards recently when our workstations were replaced. We're now running with nVidia Quadro 4 graphics cards and to be honest I'm personally not noticing any big difference between the two one way or another.

Chris Gervais
Mechanical Designer
American Superconductor

 

[MadMango]

Well, just to update you folks following this thread, I was able to talk my IT department into swapping out the Matrox G400 with an Oxygen GVX-1 yesterady (seems that had a "spare" hidden away).

Graphics improvements are many, like no repaint issues, faster rotations, etc. Also, the system stability is improved as well. Before I was crashing about 3-5 times a day when working on an assembly of about 300 parts. No crashes thus far with the GVX-1... (crosses fingers) "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[jdsmi]

We've also had extremely good luck with the GVX-1 cards. This card may be old but it performs very well.