GPU for Architecture Student

tonytnnt

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I have been tasked with helping put together/select parts for a new computer for an architecture student. He'll be using Adobe CS5 (I'm still trying to figure out exactly what components of CS5), AutoCAD, AutoDesk Revit, AutoDesk 3ds Max (all 2012), and Rhino3D 4. I can figure out everything but which video card to select. How important is getting a Quadro over a GeForce for the above programs? I see that a Quadro 2000 will work for all of the above programs (I can probably get a 600 to work if I change CS5's config file) but it doesn't feel good including what are essentially a $450 GTS 450 or a $170 GT 430. Do the Quadro drivers really improve the software performance enough to justify the price premium for a student? If I went with a consumer grade card it would probably be a $120ish GeForce GTS 450 or a Radeon 5770.
 
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Quadros are like super optimized for these programs. They will work out of the box and render perfectly every time. With Geforce's there is a chance that the render could glitch out due to Open GL glitches and what not...

Or in other Words:

Geforce = Gaming
Quadro/Tesla = Rendering out the ass...


A Geforce can do it but if your going Geforce get atleast a 480/580 for it to be worth it...
 
You can modify a GeForce's BIOS or another part of its configuration files to turn it into the Quadro equivalent. I don't know much about it myself, but it gives a performance improvement, putting the flashed card roughly in between the original GeForce and its Quadro equivalent. It might be worth checking out since you don't want to spend 3x a regular GeForce (neither would I).
 
I would like to see some gaming GPU vs workstation GPU benchmarks.
 
You can modify a GeForce's BIOS or another part of its configuration files to turn it into the Quadro equivalent. I don't know much about it myself, but it gives a performance improvement, putting the flashed card roughly in between the original GeForce and its Quadro equivalent. It might be worth checking out since you don't want to spend 3x a regular GeForce (neither would I).

Aye, I'd definitely go high end GeForce and reflash the firmware to basically turn it into a Quadro.
 
You can modify a GeForce's BIOS or another part of its configuration files to turn it into the Quadro equivalent. I don't know much about it myself, but it gives a performance improvement, putting the flashed card roughly in between the original GeForce and its Quadro equivalent. It might be worth checking out since you don't want to spend 3x a regular GeForce (neither would I).

I looked into that, and unfortunately it looks like GeForce to Quadro flashing hasn't been possible since the G80 GPUs.

I would like to see some gaming GPU vs workstation GPU benchmarks.

Me too! I haven't been able to find very conclusive comparisons. Maybe there is no noticible difference...
 
It's been a while since I read up on this, so bear with me, but as I recall the most significant difference between a quadro or fireGL and a regular geforce or Radeon is that the professional versions have hardware antialiased line graphics.

The hardware is very similar (and in some cases identical) but the firmware disables the support for the hardware antialiased line graphics on the consumer boards.

This allows professional cad applications to work more smoothly.

In essence with the professional versions you are paying a whole lot more for this feature. Other than the lines (and I think some models also have higher bit screen output) the cards are typically not very remarkable, and in most cases are actually slower than gaming cards.

I don't know if this is something that is still a big deal these days or not. It would seem that with modern computers, line drawings would be relatively low intensity computations, but I could be very wrong.

I do remember reading that many non-quadro geforce boards can be flashed to a quadro through firmware, but this may or may not be the case for the most modern cards.
 
There's a huge performance difference between Quadro and Geforce cards in some CAD apps due to driver optimizations, even when the Geforce has far superior specs. Look for SPECviewperf benchmark results. Quadros can perform several times faster than a comparable Geforce.

However, for the particular programs you've listed, I don't think performance will be an issue. In fact, a higher-end 5XX Geforce will probably be much faster. The main issue to consider is driver compatibility/quality.

If you do decide to get a Quadro, you can save a lot of money by purchasing on ebay/privately. There are occasionally great deals to be found on OEM workstation pulls.
 
Maybe you could go with two video cards?

One older 8800 unlocked to a Quadro, and one more modern cards for games?

I doubt as a student the projects he'll be working on will be complex enough as to warrant a dedicated quadro board.

I did a lot of CAD (mainly autocad, ProENGINEER and Solidworks) in college, and the stuff we did for class never got to the level where I couldn't run it comfortably on my own computer without quadro support.

If I had designed really complex shit, well then that would have been different.

I was an engineering student though, so I can't speak for the intensity of Architecture applications.
 
If cost savings are worthwhile, it might not be a terrible idea to consider just using university computers where the performance is needed- I know our architecture and civil engineering labs have FirePro cards (ATi equiv of Quadro) as of a couple years ago.

If it turns out that won't work (or just waiting until the performance is actually needed), you could just purchase the components then.
 
I guess I forgot to mention that PC gaming isn't an issue for him. (He's a console gamer.)
 
Zarathustra[H];1037139687 said:
One older 8800 unlocked to a Quadro,.

IIRC.. Geforce Unlocking was haulted after the Geforce 6 Series, but professional features could still be enabled in the 7 and 8 Series?
 
he is a student, why does it matter?

If he can't even figure out why its better, just save the money. Its not like he has been commissioned to come up with the plans for the next white house
 
If he can afford those expensive pro software then why not pony up for a Quadro/FireGL card?
 
Also, I believe Radeon can be modified to FireGL, that would also save you some decent coin. I'll update if I find any useful info about it.

you can waste money and flash a expensive Geforce into a quadro which will not work anyway and be prepared to have crashes or you can just get one of these for cheaper meant for professional work
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/...utperforms_GeForce_GTX_580_by_Five_Times.html

Spooony you're a diamond in the rough man :p. Sometimes you write off-topic one-liners, other times you hit the nail on the head and drive it home in one blow. That card looks fantastic. If I were OP I'd find out more about it.
 
Actually, that Quadro 400 doesn't look too good for 3D apps. Only ~12GB/s memory bandwidth?! Might as well consider an old G80/G92-based Quadro in that case.
 
If he can afford those expensive pro software then why not pony up for a Quadro/FireGL card?
Student versions are free or severely discounted. All Autodesk software is free for students and people who are gainfully un-employed. The software can not be used for paid work. In the case of the CAD software, all output is watermarked, otherwise it's got the same features as the regular version.

Paid student versions of Autodesk CAD software can be upgraded for about $1100 to full pro version if they provide proof of hire on their first job. Saving them a few thousand dollars.

Just thought you'd like to know.
 
Just find a good deal on a Geforce 460 or 560 and use that.

My stepdad is a mechanical engineer and he has a quadro card at work (i forget the model but its not terribly ancient) and he says it performs poorly on complex drawings. He recently got a 570 for his home PC and decided to try some of the drawings at home and he was amazed by the difference.
 
you can waste money and flash a expensive Geforce into a quadro which will not work anyway and be prepared to have crashes or you can just get one of these for cheaper meant for professional work
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/...utperforms_GeForce_GTX_580_by_Five_Times.html

I'm very skeptical that a 48 shader, 512 MB, 64-bit anything is worth it. Especially something that would also be doing doing rendering with 3ds Max.

Zarathustra[H];1037139531 said:
It's been a while since I read up on this, so bear with me, but as I recall the most significant difference between a quadro or fireGL and a regular geforce or Radeon is that the professional versions have hardware antialiased line graphics.

The hardware is very similar (and in some cases identical) but the firmware disables the support for the hardware antialiased line graphics on the consumer boards.

This allows professional cad applications to work more smoothly.

In essence with the professional versions you are paying a whole lot more for this feature. Other than the lines (and I think some models also have higher bit screen output) the cards are typically not very remarkable, and in most cases are actually slower than gaming cards.

I don't know if this is something that is still a big deal these days or not. It would seem that with modern computers, line drawings would be relatively low intensity computations, but I could be very wrong.

I do remember reading that many non-quadro geforce boards can be flashed to a quadro through firmware, but this may or may not be the case for the most modern cards.

Thanks. This is the type of information I'm looking for. The more first hand knowledge I can get the better.

Just find a good deal on a Geforce 460 or 560 and use that.

My stepdad is a mechanical engineer and he has a quadro card at work (i forget the model but its not terribly ancient) and he says it performs poorly on complex drawings. He recently got a 570 for his home PC and decided to try some of the drawings at home and he was amazed by the difference.

Thanks. I'm guessing he's using something similar to 3ds Max so that's good to know.
 
I run Rhino 4 extensively at work, and occasionally at home. Until the model gets seriously complex there is very little practical difference between my regular work machine (Core2Duo with a 9400GT), and the lab machines (i7 930's with Quadro FX 1800) -- or my home machine with a 460 GTX. 3dsMax does have more optimizations for Quadro cards and the difference is more apparent earlier... however it's worth noting that the improved performance provided by the Quadro or FireGL cards only affects the performance of your live render 'perspective' views... it makes pretty much zero difference to your actual 'rendering' time which is all CPU. The Quadro card will let you spin the model around at a higher frame rate, and let you run more detail options like more accurate lighting and transparency, but you can easily live without this and just do a quick preview render when you need to.

However, this is likely to change as we start seeing proper rendering solutions that take advantage of the GPU instead of just the CPU. Nvidia has been playing with this.

My general recommendation these days for students looking to get a CAD machine at the art college where I work is to spend the extra $$$ they might have spent on a Quadro card and get more ram and/or CPU speed. The 5x premium Nvidia charges for a Quadro card compared to the gaming card with the same family of GPU just makes it a losing trade-off unless money is no issue.
 
I work on pretty much all those apps every day, all day, 368 hours last month...

In all actuality the graphics card you select is not as important as a great CPU, lots of memory and fast drives. For 2 D work any dog-shit simple 1/2 GB card will work great. For REVIT and MAX a larger frame buffer tends to help and speed things along, but NONE of the processing is done there and unless you are using some specialized software the rendering takes place on the CPU as well.

I have had the top of the line FirePRO & Quadro cards, they will help, but not a great deal until you get to the upper ranges of card ( which are probably out of your price range) currently I have a 4 GB FX5800 at the office in a hexcore system with 12 GB and an FX1800M in my 8gb/quadcore laptop. At my system back home in the US I have a pair of GTX 480's (in my sig)

Like DarkSaturn stated, you don't really see much difference until the scene gets complex, even then I will take my home system over my quadro lappy any day (more memory and way faster processor)

What are you doing with the rest of the system?
 
I think a consumer level card will probably be what gets put into the system. I'm leaning toward a GeForce GTS 450 because it's A) Cheap and B) has CUDA.

I'll post a "build thread" over in general hardware once I can get a firmer budget out of him, but currently I think it'll be at least a $1000 budget including a 22-24" monitor (might go dual or triple head but that will obviously increase the budget.) I also need to find out how important color accuracy is to him. The software (including OS) is seperate since he gets pretty big discounts from his school. This purchase might also be over a month or two off so specific parts are fluid (especially with Z68 and Bulldozer around the corner.)

Core i5-2500/i7-2600 (depending on budget, maybe K series but I doubt he'll overclock. Stability is more important.)
8GB of RAM (maybe 16 depending on budget)
P67 motherboard (probably something like an MSI P67A-C43, P67A-G43, or Asus P8P67 LE)
1 TB 7200 RPM HDD
SSD? Besides the OS performance improvements I'm not sure how much this would help him, especially with how expensive 128GB+ ones are.
GeForce GTS 450, Radeon 5770/6850, or something else that comes out (remember he doesn't game, so this would be more of an accelerator for OpenGL or CUDA-enabled applications.)
Everything else (good PSU, decent case, DVD-burner, etc.)
 
I work on pretty much all those apps every day, all day, 368 hours last month...

In all actuality the graphics card you select is not as important as a great CPU, lots of memory and fast drives. For 2 D work any dog-shit simple 1/2 GB card will work great. For REVIT and MAX a larger frame buffer tends to help and speed things along, but NONE of the processing is done there and unless you are using some specialized software the rendering takes place on the CPU as well.

I have had the top of the line FirePRO & Quadro cards, they will help, but not a great deal until you get to the upper ranges of card ( which are probably out of your price range) currently I have a 4 GB FX5800 at the office in a hexcore system with 12 GB and an FX1800M in my 8gb/quadcore laptop. At my system back home in the US I have a pair of GTX 480's (in my sig)

Like DarkSaturn stated, you don't really see much difference until the scene gets complex, even then I will take my home system over my quadro lappy any day (more memory and way faster processor)

What are you doing with the rest of the system?

THIS. +100 THIS. I built a comp for an arch student a couple years ago. He quickly realized that it was his CPU and not his GPU that was his limiting factor. Honestly, just go with a GTX570 and either a 2600k OC'd as high as possible, or if you can spring for it, a i7-970, OC'd as well. That'll help you the most for the programs you'll be using.
 
I think a consumer level card will probably be what gets put into the system. I'm leaning toward a GeForce GTS 450 because it's A) Cheap and B) has CUDA.

I'll post a "build thread" over in general hardware once I can get a firmer budget out of him, but currently I think it'll be at least a $1000 budget including a 22-24" monitor (might go dual or triple head but that will obviously increase the budget.) I also need to find out how important color accuracy is to him. The software (including OS) is seperate since he gets pretty big discounts from his school. This purchase might also be over a month or two off so specific parts are fluid (especially with Z68 and Bulldozer around the corner.)

Core i5-2500/i7-2600 (depending on budget, maybe K series but I doubt he'll overclock. Stability is more important.)
8GB of RAM (maybe 16 depending on budget)
P67 motherboard (probably something like an MSI P67A-C43, P67A-G43, or Asus P8P67 LE)
1 TB 7200 RPM HDD
SSD? Besides the OS performance improvements I'm not sure how much this would help him, especially with how expensive 128GB+ ones are.
GeForce GTS 450, Radeon 5770/6850, or something else that comes out (remember he doesn't game, so this would be more of an accelerator for OpenGL or CUDA-enabled applications.)
Everything else (good PSU, decent case, DVD-burner, etc.)

If you can swing it the GTX 460/768 is a better choice http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/315?vs=316 - you see them on sale for $130 ish every now and again.

If you are not going to OC then don't bother with a p67 board, get one of the less expensive alternative. The 2500 seems to makes sense from a bang/buck perspective.

If your budget is 1k then an SSD is probably out of the question, be sure to get the fastest drive you can find, it makes a huge difference in these apps as they create very large files and tend to access the disk quite often.

Also, be sure to have him install a 64 bit OS and as much RAM as you can afford, 16 GB can be had for $140 these days if you look around.
 
If you can swing it the GTX 460/768 is a better choice http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/315?vs=316 - you see them on sale for $130 ish every now and again.

If you are not going to OC then don't bother with a p67 board, get one of the less expensive alternative. The 2500 seems to makes sense from a bang/buck perspective.

If your budget is 1k then an SSD is probably out of the question, be sure to get the fastest drive you can find, it makes a huge difference in these apps as they create very large files and tend to access the disk quite often.

Also, be sure to have him install a 64 bit OS and as much RAM as you can afford, 16 GB can be had for $140 these days if you look around.

I'll keep the GTX 460 in mind. $1000 is more a ball park rather than a max price. I'm still waiting on a reply for a final budget and when he wants to purchase. Would an SSD provide a large benefit to these programs since they're accessing files so often? Would I need to go all the way to a 256 GB drive to get enough space for OS + applications + project files or would a 128 GB suffice?
 
I'll keep the GTX 460 in mind. $1000 is more a ball park rather than a max price. I'm still waiting on a reply for a final budget and when he wants to purchase. Would an SSD provide a large benefit to these programs since they're accessing files so often? Would I need to go all the way to a 256 GB drive to get enough space for OS + applications + project files or would a 128 GB suffice?

A single 128 is more than enough for your OS, the apps and the ancillary support files that go along with the apps. But keep your project files on another disk. I have all the project that I have used for the past 5 years stored on a single 500 right now..... Granted, I don't keep animations on there, but it's still plenty. Be sure to get an external drive for backups in the budget too
 
I am graduate arch student right now and what everyone is saying *was* true, CPU was what mattered for doing renders quickly, and graphics card didn't really matter.

However, now I'm using CUDA based rendering (OctaneRender - http://www.refractivesoftware.com/ no affiliation, just what I use) and bought my 2 480s explicitly for this purpose. Everyone in studio is extremely jealous of my nonexistent wait times, highly recommend you/him looking into this.

edit: btw this is coming from the typical (at my school at least) Rhino/Vray workflow to Rhino+Octane.
 
I am graduate arch student right now and what everyone is saying *was* true, CPU was what mattered for doing renders quickly, and graphics card didn't really matter.

However, now I'm using CUDA based rendering (OctaneRender - http://www.refractivesoftware.com/ no affiliation, just what I use) and bought my 2 480s explicitly for this purpose. Everyone in studio is extremely jealous of my nonexistent wait times, highly recommend you/him looking into this.

edit: btw this is coming from the typical (at my school at least) Rhino/Vray workflow to Rhino+Octane.


OP is on a budget and is more concerned with smooth CAD and REVIT than uber fast rendering speeds

I have an Octane license too and have done the same thing with my 480's, but since the new version of MAX has GPU rendering built in (not cuda specific) I have not really used it much since switching.
 
OP is on a budget and is more concerned with smooth CAD and REVIT than uber fast rendering speeds

I have an Octane license too and have done the same thing with my 480's, but since the new version of MAX has GPU rendering built in (not cuda specific) I have not really used it much since switching.

point is that a graphics card is useful again. I can't imagine any arch student not being concerned with render times, it's certainly not the heart of the program but with all the all-nighters we pull it sure helps to be able to knock them out and get onto the next thing.
 
You can modify a GeForce's BIOS or another part of its configuration files to turn it into the Quadro equivalent. I don't know much about it myself, but it gives a performance improvement, putting the flashed card roughly in between the original GeForce and its Quadro equivalent. It might be worth checking out since you don't want to spend 3x a regular GeForce (neither would I).

Now quite sure how this works. Aren't gaming cards chock full of optimizations and cheats (Angle dependent AA, overly agressive culling, less mesh feedback, etc.)? Something that you can't tolerate on professional CAD work?

If you take out the gaming specific, 1+1=0.98, algorithms, and replace them with high precision, no compromise, ones. How can it be faster?
 
Honestly if he is a student I don't think it'll be a big deal either way. A mid-level geforce card will probably be way better than what most will be working with anyways. I went to a school that's pretty well known for architecture and most people use the cheap laptop they get freshmen year for all 5 years.
 
As a recently graduated engineering student, I never needed more than the 8800GTS 320mb that was in my old computer and the GTX460 in my current PC has never had a hitch. Even the post grad machines at Uni only had GTS450s or whatever the ATI equivalant is, a couple of them had Quadro cards but I never noticed the difference. The only time I knew of people having graphics issues was when they were running on integrated graphics, or the old GPUs that had barely any VRAM which would severly bottleneck the CAD programs, though any discrete card with a reasonable amount of ram was fine.

We would assemble an entire car with a few hundred individual parts using Unigraphics UGS NX3 to 7.5 (NX3 when I started a few years back and now up to NX7.5). Also use the same computers to analyse results of FEA and CFD simulations and admittedly they dont run super fast, but that's because its thrashing the CPU to calculate the results, not because the GPU is holding things up.

But that said, I was doing engineering not architecture. Engineers dont give 2 fucks about rendering pretty colors, reflections and shaders except for the final product that goes into the reports (and if they do care, they aren't real engineers, they're probably Industrial Design fags :p).

I even remember taking our entire car model and rotating it and checking with FRAPs that I was getting about 20fps on the 8800GTS 320mb ;) The initial few seconds of rotation is a bit freeze-frame-ish, though I think that's attributed to the fact the model itself has to load initially and was about 2GB.
 
Yeah I think I'll suggest a consumer level card. I'll probably try and get him one with a bit more graphics memory on board (assuming it already has 16 GB of RAM for the processor) in case he ever does need to view a large project. Now I'm just torn between getting him AMD or nVidia. The CUDA acceleration is attractive, but I've heard bad things about Fermi's OpenGL performance, and I don't even know if he'll use any CUDA enabled plugins/applications.
 
Yeah I think I'll suggest a consumer level card. I'll probably try and get him one with a bit more graphics memory on board (assuming it already has 16 GB of RAM for the processor) in case he ever does need to view a large project. Now I'm just torn between getting him AMD or nVidia. The CUDA acceleration is attractive, but I've heard bad things about Fermi's OpenGL performance, and I don't even know if he'll use any CUDA enabled plugins/applications.


I wouldn't worry too much about openGL, I haven't used it in years - everything is going D3d

Granted, the optimized quadro drivers for AutoCAD and 3dsMAX are nice, but, again, it does not make a significant difference until the models get large.
 
So nVidia is probably the better bet here because of CUDA since he'll have CS5? Or should I just go with whatever's cheaper? Or with whatever has more graphics memory? If this were a gaming rig I'd be suggesting a 6870 or 6950, but my pro software experience is limited to geophysics and groundwater modelling (GPU isn't even a factor there), so please pardon my ignorance.
 
I would say get an Nvidia card for the potential of Cuda, considering that he'll be using CS5 and may want to try out Cuda plugins for some of those apps in the future. But I would also try to get the most vram you can on a card, such as this 550 ti or this 460. Professional applications do still benefit from having workstation cards, but I don't believe it's quite as important as it used to be. I'm also going to echo the sentiment from earlier, and suggest getting an i7 and a lot of ram. Having a fast i7 would probably make more difference than a workstation card.
 
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