Comparison Quadro FX & GeForce

[Srek]

Check Wikipedia. There is a chart that shows which GPUs are used in which cards. In general you can compare Quadros and Geforce cards that use the same GPU and RAM type.
Cheers
Björn

[ossosso]

Thank you very much Srek, really useful Wikipedia page.

Just take a look at this 2 video cards:


GeForce 8500GT
Fab(nm): 80
Memory (MB): 256/512
ConfigCore: 16.8.4
Core (Mhz): 450
Memory (Mhz): 800
Pixel (MP/s): 1800
Texture (MT/s): 3600
Bandwith Reference (GB/s): 12.8
Bus Width (bit): 128

Quadro FX3450
Fab(nm): 130
Memory (MB): 256
ConfigCore: 5.12.12.8
Core (Mhz): 425
Memory (Mhz): 1000
Pixel (MP/s): -
Texture (MT/s): 5100
Bandwith Reference (GB/s): 32
Bus Width (bit): 256

GeForce8500GT = 80euro
QuadroFX3450 = 1.000euro

If I take a look at performance features above I can't notice a so big difference, why instead I notice it on the price?

[TheNeverman]

look at the numbers again, some significant differences there in the memory department (bandwidth)

[ossosso]

yes but... 1000euro vs 80euro... I don't know if the difference of price justify the performance difference...

[dontgvadamn]

Thank you very much Srek, really useful Wikipedia page.

Just take a look at this 2 video cards:


GeForce 8500GT
Fab(nm): 80
Memory (MB): 256/512
ConfigCore: 16.8.4
Core (Mhz): 450
Memory (Mhz): 800
Pixel (MP/s): 1800
Texture (MT/s): 3600
Bandwith Reference (GB/s): 12.8
Bus Width (bit): 128

Quadro FX3450
Fab(nm): 130
Memory (MB): 256
ConfigCore: 5.12.12.8
Core (Mhz): 425
Memory (Mhz): 1000
Pixel (MP/s): -
Texture (MT/s): 5100
Bandwith Reference (GB/s): 32
Bus Width (bit): 256

GeForce8500GT = 80euro
QuadroFX3450 = 1.000euro

If I take a look at performance features above I can't notice a so big difference, why instead I notice it on the price?

There are a lot of differences between these two cards. For example teh Bus width is double in the quadro card. Bus width is the amount of info that can be transfered at one time. So the quadro can move twice the amount of info per clock speed that the beforce can. And as stated earlier the bandiwth is much higher. Then if you look at the memory speed....its not a huge difference but 1000mhz is faster than 800mhz.

But you can flash a geforce to have the same characteristics of a quadro...

[lollygag]

But you can flash a geforce to have the same characteristics of a quadro...

not since the GeForce 6800

[AnimAitor]

I've been using "pro" cards since 3DLabs was the king of the Hill at work and to tell you the truth, there's so little difference between a Quadro and a GeForce that there's absolutely nothing that will make me go and spend $1000+ on a "pro" card. By the way, if you use Maya try the hacked drivers on any ATI Radeon 2X00 series to make it FireGL and the performance will blow you away! Not even the top of the line Quadros can show as many fps as the hacked ATI's.

[enian82]

Hello there
Check out the nvidias latest 9600 card its like 199$ think its prity close to ur price range..
cheers

[DoctorLister]

By the way, if you use Maya try the hacked drivers on any ATI Radeon 2X00 series to make it FireGL and the performance will blow you away!

Which series do you mean? I'm not familiar with that designation.

[cherrick]

I've read a few good threads about this on this forum in the past and my impression is that quadro and firegl are something of a joke. They use the same gpu's as their ordinary counterparts which is why there used to be hacks to turn a geforce into a quadro, etc. They are astronomically expensive because they're geared at corporations.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the only substantial difference is that they do antialiasing whereas regular cards do not, so when you have a diagonal line it doesn't look jaggie on your screen.

However the graphics card has absolutely nothing to do with what the end image looks like or the rendering time, that's why there's hundreds of award winners in here and professional studios who don't have a single quadro. I can deal with jaggie lines for $1000!

[lollygag]

Ok.. I'll correct you.. your wrong.

[al35mm]

I concur. I think pro cards are a rip off. I understand the fact that fewer of them are made, and sold, which is why they have a higher price tag, although I don't believe the ultra high prices are really justified. I'm by no means an authority on graphics cards (far from it), but it seems that pro cards date back to a time when there really was a big difference, and a consumer card simply couldn't cope. However, the line between high end consumer and pro seems to be becoming less defined, and perhaps in the not too distant future the need for two different grades will be phased out, although I imagine NV & ATI will string it out as long as they can. The change would be consumer driven, as pro cards become less necessary, pros will start switching to high end consumer cards, software companies will be forced to support consumer cards (many already do), fewer pro cards will be sold, which in turn will push their prices up even higher, which will drive more pros to switch to high end consumer cards, and more software companies to do the same etc etc.... maybe.

[lots]

With pro cards you are mainly paying for the optimized drivers for Maya, Max, CAD, etc. There are hardware differences between the two as well, though I'm not sure atm how big the differences are. The more quoted differences are:

(snatched from another forum)

Line and Point AA (not FSAA) for wireframe models
Up to 8 clipping regions (to the Geforce's 1)
HW accelerated clipping planes
HW accelerated overlay planes
2-sided lighting
OpenGL logic operation support
Quad-buffered stereo viewing for passive (polarized) or active (shutter) 3D


Additionally, unlike CPUs where the only things that change from model to model are FSB and multiplier settings, GPUs differ from eachother by leaving un-needed parts out entirely and having very minor differences in clock speeds.

Rendering graphics on the graphics card is like rendering images in a renderer like MR. Its a highly parallel task. Thus GPUs are highly parallel processors that are specialized in rendering images. Removing or disabling parts of the GPUs them selves is how most makers create the different models.

Think of it this way, say you've got a render farm with 128 computers. It should in theory render a whole heck of alot faster than one with 16. And to top it off individual CPU speed of each computer doesn't make a big impact on performance. Not as big as adding more systems.

[Fedace]

I like ATI cards myself. Always gives more vesatile applications.

[AnimAitor]

lots, all those numbers and technical words must be true but what everything boils down to is if the sometimes $1000+ "pro" card gives a big advantage when working on any 3D application and I'll say NO!

It's true that while working with Radeons or GeForce some drivers might give you small errors like not showing vertex color or not supporting hardware render (at least under Maya) but I can live with that. Just change the drivers or hack the game card. Besides, the latest videocards for games (also expensive) are faster than the latest "pro" cards most of the time!! I'm tired of seing extremely overprice products just because they are targeted to 3D artists as if we were rich! (CPUs, tablets, LCDs...) My company is welcome to do whatever it want (is its money) but at home I'll get Radeon or GeForce any day!!

[lukasdesign]

former wavefront products (StudioTools and Maya) are the worst. I hope Autodesk can fix these problems. Lightwave, Cinema4d work perfectly with high end gamer cards.

[BigCurly]

Having just bought a quadro card I thought I would chime in. I was having problems with maya. The viewports were going crazy all the time and I would have to shut down maya after about an hour, sometimes two, of using it. Sometimes my computer would just freeze unexpectedly as well. I am working on a short film that is very demanding so I needed something that wouldn't fail me. I decided to replace my Geforce 7800 GTX with a quadro fx 570. I was worried because the 570 is based on, from what I could tell, an inferior card (the 8500 gt i think), but maya has never run better. It's smooth, fast, better than my old 7800 GTX ever was. At only $189 it was well worth it. So do I think paying $1000 for a quadro card is a rip off? Yes. But you do get your money's worth out of the "lower end" quadros.

Oh and just to give you a frame of reference; I am running dual monitors with the main maya window open on one screen, and another modelling panel, the hypergraph, and graph editor open on the other.

[AnimAitor]

BigCurly, try different drivers. I've been using Maya with Quadros for the last 3 years at work (we have a mix of gaming cards and "pro" cards) and never had a problem with them. We still don't have Maya 2008. Always used Maya 6.5 and 7 (before it was bought by Autodesk)

[lots]

I never said the quadro was a GOOD price/performance. But there is indeed quite a large difference between the 8500 and the Quadro 3450 ;)

In most cases high end gamer cards are more than enough.

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