Upgrading GPU

OpenGL OpenGL: User Software
1

Hi. I’ve never personally purchased a graphics card before and am seeking some consumer wisdom. My current machine has a nice Quadro 3450, but it’s getting old, has 256 MB memory, and doesn’t support a lot of modern extensions like geometry shaders. CUDA might be fun to play with too.

I don’t do much gaming, but I do develop scientific applications for volume and isosurface rendering.

I don’t have money to buy a new workstation-level GPU like the Quadro. What differences should I expect if I were to get, say, a NVIDIA 9800 GTX? A GTX 280? Would I see slowdowns or speedups given the Quadro 3450’s age?

Thanks for any input.

  • Chris
2

You will probably not see any slowdowns as it should be a pretty decent upgrade.