dont get the quadro 580. its not a great card by any means.
its equivallent to the worst geforce card, except that its got some of the quadro code from the drivers that is used in the higher end cards.
its a slow card for the money, and you would be better off with a standard geforce card.
if you NEED a quadro card then something like the 1700- 3800 is good, and probably wont break the bank.
im guessing you wont be playing any games, if you dont, and want a quadro card then just get a card that is atleast one generation old now. it will be perfectly fine, because3d software doesnt evolve too fast in terms of 3d viewports.
if you end up working on games… then just get a geforce videocard. most companies working in games dont bother with quadros because they dont need them.
heres the thing. a geforce for 300 dollars is a LOT faster than a quadro for 300 dollars. the only thing you pay for is for a different driver which is more stable, but that doesnt mean that maya itself will be more stable. the application will still crash when the program is at fault.
windows xpx64 is fine, but out of the box win 7 will get you moving along faster. however if you use windows 7, i would recommend getting a machine with a minimum of 8gb ram, and closer to 12gb. the reason for this is that windows 7 uses more ram for itself than windows xp x64 does, so you would need extra ram to compensate.
to summarize
if windows 7, then get 12gb ram
geforce>quadro value per dollar
if quadro, then get the quadro fx 1700-3800.
i would recommend a http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=9048
its somewhat old now… its cheap to buy, its solid… and doesnt draw much power. that way when the newer videocards come out next year and you feel like updating, you will have more money left over for that upgrade.
other recommendations are.
http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=9836
http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=9988
http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=8004
http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=9560
any of these cards will do just fine.
ive personally used these:
geforce 7800 gtx
quadro fx 1700
geforce 8800 gts512 ( current workstation card )
ati 4850 ( secondary workstation card )
quadro fx 3800
I will tell you now that I personally see no difference between any of the last 3 cards i mentioned.
The links i gave you are mostly to faster cards than i have in my machine currently. Thing is, I dont find the need to upgrade because the performance I get out of these is really good. I usually dont like to spend too much on a videocard, because every two years I upgrade them anyway. I would rather spend that money on more ram, or a bigger/higher quality monitor, or a nice wacom tablet, or software.
