There are a large number of companies out there that depend on their computers to be able to edit, create, and manipulate video and graphics quickly. That means that they are dependent on the graphics cards within their computers to work quickly. The requirement for a fast professional grade video card for these professionals does not come out of the GeForce and Radeon series from Nvidia and AMD. Instead they come from the Quadro, and FirePro series from their respective companies.
The Quadro and FirePro line of graphics cards are aimed at being able to drive through editing/creating images and video as quickly as possible. The technological requirements for these tasks is much different then what most consumers would be doing with their PCs.
There is a range of different cards within each line up, depending on a business’s needs. On the low end Nvidia and AMD have cards that are really more aimed towards hobbyists or companies that are doing light video and graphics work. These types of cards will work better then integrated graphics, or most of the cards out there meant for gaming. They will run you $150-$300, expect improved performance over standard graphics card performance, but don’t think you’ll be getting the best quality and speed out there. In this range, it does not matter whether you buy a Nvidia or AMD based GPU. They offer similar performance, and the amount of work you do on chips in this category should not be enough to notice any difference.
In the mid-range of professional grade cards, a business can look to spend in the $400-$800 range. These cards are going to be the best bang for your buck. They offer good performance, a reasonable price, and they will not be outdated by the time they are installed. These cards are going to be perfect for about 90% of companies who need a professional graphics cards. Just so long as you are not looking to be Pixar. Both Nvidia and AMD offer decent offerings in this category, but it is also the category where there becomes a more defined leader. Nvidia starts to pull ahead in this category. They do have a slightly higher average asking price, but the performance increase justifies the cost. Especially since at the amount most users will use these chips, a performance increase becomes noticeable.
The high end cards is really where all the magic is. These cards are going to be putting a company back $850+ per card, but if all you are doing is heavy visual work then this is where you want to look. Again, you cannot really go wrong with either Nvidia or AMD, but given how much the cards are you want the best. Nvidia seems to really pull ahead in this category here as well, putting them in the throne of professional grade GPU’s. Anybody buying a video card in the high end segment will not be disappointed, but it will set you back!
To take a look at benchmarks, here is where we pulled our information from.
uDream Digital 