Workstation Graphics Cards? Will An Entertainment Card Do The Job?

I heard entertainment cards are the ones driving the industry (e.g. gaming computers) so it should suffice for a workstation …or will it?
This is going to be a workstation for a CMM (coordinate measuring machine) which is for reverse engineering, just the opposite of CAD.
A cheaper route for a laptop selection is the HP computer with the entertainment graphics card: NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7600
The CMM has used a Dell computer with the workstation graphics card of: NVIDIA Quadro FX 350M Turbocache OpenGL
What does a workstation graphics card have over a gaming card? (HP 17″ entertainment/gaming laptop is about $1500 while a 17″ Dell workstation laptop is almost twice the cost)