Newer cards can handle insane amounts of polygons anyway, and my models tend to have massive amounts of polys, and even my 8800 has no problems pushing them.
As long as you have enough system memory (I only have 3GB as I only have a 32bit system, which isn't enough) then you won't have a problem rendering either, but I got around the problem with my last project by rendering in sections.
This is what I have as of tonight before I go to bed now
Off work tommorow so I expect to do a lot more, and have a massive update. Heres hoping. Want to get the supports/screw holes done, where it connects to the chassis of a case, and finish the overall shape/ add circuit board, etc
Here's a quick "coffee mug" I whipped up in 10 minutes. I can do some rendering and all, not a whole lot though.
This program is similar to Autodesk Inventor I think. Different type of modeling than yours?? Do you model in inches and actual dimensions?
Yeah, completely different I think. Modeling the way I do isn't accurate at all. You can model to a specific size (to a picture), etc, and to mm,cm, etc but it'd never be good enough for production, etc, like CAD models would be.
I'm going to finish up the holes, etc tonight, so I hopefully just have the circuit board to do tomorrow, and then finally, make a bump map texture for the little indentations on the drive to make it look more realistic.
Oh, and then comes the lighting/rendering.
This is just an OpenGL set of previews directly from modo, as I haven't got the materials on the back looking spot on yet, and it helps you see the overall look better in my opinion