Workstation?

I have a bit of a beginners question regarding a computer purchase I will be making. I'm going to probably be building a workstation in the next few months and I'm just curious about one thing. I'm intending this computer for some courses I'm taking in graphics design, 3d models, etc.

Are there any negative effects of using a workstation graphics card / processor like an AMD Opteron and an ATI Fire GL graphics card for other things such as gaming? I don't think I want to purchase another computer for gaming, and I don't think I could anyways. I've heard workstation specific graphic cards / processors don't run games nearly as fast or very well as their pure gaming counterparts?

Can someone clarify on this?

 

The CPU for the most part, isn't going to be any different in gaming, with maybe the exception that it has more L2 cache than some of the lower end AMD 64s (the newer, higher cores have identical L2 cache).


The graphics card is your concern. Typically, professional 3d cards are poor 3d game performers, and may not even be supported in some games.

 

Hrmm.. you provide an interesting point. Looks like I might have to build another computer for gaming afterall.. *sigh* heh. Or find an alternative, maybe purchase a workstation notebook and a barebones gaming desktop.