Hello,
I am building a new computer with a fairly large budget (it will be my last for a while) and am trying to nail down the video card to be used.
Right now the decision is between an Nvidea GeForce GTX 480 vs an Nvidea Quadra FX 4800.
I don’t play games, and the primary use of this computer is 3d graphics and animation. I will be using Windows 7 and my primary programs will be Blender, Poser, Modo, and ZBrush.
Any help will be appreciated.
hmm, I wonder if modo get’s any serious extra boost from a quadro,
none of the others does, serious that is,
quadro’s have more memory for texture display,
but then again, this quadro isn’t the newest gen. so it looses
pretty much all quadro edges compared to the gtx 480 I bet. 
as I understand though the 480’s are rather hard to get right now,
or has that lately changed?
Several flavors of the 480s seem to be available at NewEgg.
D. Jay Newman
Just out of curiosity: Do you make usage of CUDA. Because if not, then I’d recommend you getting an ATI graphic card of the newest generation instead.
It’s rarely worth the extra money for the quadro. I would get the Cintiq, as you would be more happy with the extra screen/drawing abilities than you will notice the performance of the quadro.
I’d get some CUDA benchmarks for the Quadro and 480 series. From what I’ve seen previously, you got more umph from the GeForce series as the software made better use of the GeForce, even though the Quadro was physically a better card (this was a while ago though).
I’d get some benchmarks in what soft you are using and base my decision on that. If you use a modern version of Photoshop, you are going to be very interested in the CUDA figures, as if you have a crap card, PS will behave like crap on an intel decelerator ferinstance.
The 480 (480 cores) is much more powerfull than the Quadro 4800 (192 cores). The Quadro is designed for people doing professional rendering. For instance. its memory system has error correction. The Quadro cards are more expensive because of all those “professional” features. If you don’t plan to use the GPU in a “professional” setup, then you have a better power/money ratio with the 480. Even the 470, for that matter is much more powerfull than the 4800. If you really want a Quadro, then wait for the Fermi based Quadro.
Just to note that zbrush doesn’t use the gpu so will have no bearing on the video card you choose.
OK, so the GTX 480 it is. Now I’ll try to optimize the rest of my build to see what I can have over for fun toys. 
D. Jay Newman
A little learning is a dangerous thing.