Best 256MB Card on the market?

I need to buy one for a new employee that is going to be doing 3-d modeling. Mostly photoshop, solidworks and 3-d studio.

Any ideas on the best card for those apps? Thanks!

look into a wildcat card, not a consumer desktop card like the gf4 or radeon series.

Especially if you do solidworks.

You could also check into the high end workstation cards made by nvidia, the quatro series. but i'd go with a 3dlabs (wildcat)

Depends on what kind of cash you have...

Wildcat = Horribly Fast + Horribly Expensive(more than most PCs)
ATI FireGL = Great card...expensive...but great
Nvidia Quadro Series = Good cards...expensive...but good

IMO...after doing 3D modeling for 3 years, Photoshop for 5 and various other stuff...I suggest getting a standard GeForce6 or ATI X800...they aren't designed specifically for 3D modeling...but work almost as well as the ones mentioned above for MUCH less money($400 vs. $950 or more for a wildcat).

Unless you are doing extremely intensive high quality work...eg...film quality for the big screen...you don't need the super high end cards. They make a difference...but not enough when you are only working with less than 100,000 polys on the screen..

I still use my GeForce4 Ti4600...and I can work on a 75,000 poly model with very little slow down.