Workstation video cards are a totally different market from the consumer gaming cards. What is unacceptable in price to the average consumer is considered a bargain for workstation video cards. Quadro cards are the number one workstation graphics card on the market today, according to Jon Peddie Research. If you want a workstation class video card and use Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 4 or programs like it, the Quadro CX is the card for you. Note that you can use GPUs like the FireGL series or ATI's Radeon series, or GeForce cards on NVIDIA's side to accelerate features in Photoshop CS4, but they are going to perform slower in encoding videos due to the lack of the RapiHD encoder. The Quadro CX can also play video games like Crysis Warhead or FEAR 2 just like a GeForce GTX 260 192 core with the same specifications and performance. The Quadro CX is priced at a MSRP of $1999, which is higher than the equivalent Quadro 4600 but the CX is the only card that sports the RapiHD video encoder which speeds up the encoding of High Definition Videos. For those wanting the ultimate video encoding performance this is the card for you. The difference in performance between a Core i7 965 and the Quadro CX is almost 40% faster even though the Core i7 965 is Intel's fastest CPU. SpecViewPerf scores are through the roof with the combination of a professional graphics card and fastest Intel CPU making for extremely fast performance.
