Graphics Card Question

[Ethan Krupp]

Greetings all,

I'm at a university with a 4 year life cycle on computers and have been asked for specs for my new pc within a framework of systems on the state contract.

For my video card, I can choose between

NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT 512MB Full Height (DVI-I+DisplayPort)

or

NVIDIA Quadro FX370 256MB ATX (DMS59)

Is there a distinct advantage of one over the other? I realize VW doesn't use the video card for much of the rendering and I've looked at the graphics advice sheet but since I'm given the choice of a lower end workstation card (Quadro) vs a desktop card with more memory (GeForce), there is no clear winner to me. Are the two cards really that similar in terms of performance even though the desktop one has twice the memory?

Anyone willing to share thoughts or advice? I am also maxing out the processor and the RAM.

Thanks!

Ethan