What Does a High vs Low End Graphics Card Buy You?

What would be the capability and operational differences between an nVidia
Geforce4 MX and Quadro750? I know the SW stated the Geforce4 works with
limitation (can open limited accelerated windows), but what other
differences? Speed, rendering quality, enabled features ?

TIA

 

The "limited accelerated windows" limitation of the GeForce4 cards is the
killer for me. In my experience there is very little performance difference
between the basic gamer card such as a GeForce4 vs. a CAD specific card such
as a Quadro. I frequently have 10+ windows open (not all showing, but still
all occupying video memory) and once I hit that magic number (which depends
on how much memory your video card has and the complexity of the models you
have open) SWX grinds to a halt. You can get around this problem with the
SoftQuadro hack for a GeForce4, but in the end I saved money by spending
$300 on the Quadro and being done with it for once and all. Yes, you can
spend well over $1000 on some of the higher end CAD cards, but I think I've
hit the point of diminishing returns at $300.

I have a Quadro 580XGL with 64MB video memory and have had zero problems.
The performance is on par with my previously SoftQuadro'd GeForce4 but
without the headaches of having to hack multiple workstations each time an
OS upgrade or some other random software event kills the driver.