Professional vs Desktop GPUS

[anarchy187]

Hello everyone, I am building a computer for my girlfriend that uses CS6 mainly for photos and some video editing. I am a gamer only and have not used the professional cards at all. What makes them some much more expensive vs a desktop card? Will a regular gamer card for example GTX 560 ti be fine for CS6? What makes the Pro.series card diffrent?

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[DeathPrincess]

Different drivers and support (with a Quadro you can talk to technical staff, or could). It's the same card with different drivers 99% of the time (with some of them you can flash it to be a Quadro/Geforce model). Quadros tend to be more focused towards DP over SP at the driver level, but that wont make any difference to most media software (Photoshop, Premiere etc.). Quadros used to have niche features like deep color, but normal Geforces have this stuff too, now it's not so niche.

So basically nothing. Other than it sounds more "professional".

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

Sometimes the hardware is different to support certain functions, but rarely does it differ too much from the desktop counterpart. This trend is changing though. You used to be able to flash desktop cards into their workstation counterparts and save huge bucks.

The extra cost is spent on these things:
-Better quality manufacturing. As rare as it is for a desktop card to go belly up, its even less likely with a workstation grade card.
-Rock solid drivers. These things are made to make money, therefore there can be zero rendering mistakes or compatibility issues with the most common productivity software out there.
-Support. If you ever have issues, the company's support them a hell of a lot better than regular desktop cards.

This does come with a couple pitfalls:
-These same cards, although nearly similar hardware as their desktop counterparts, absolutely suck for gaming. Sometimes the hardware is clocked lower than the desktop counterpart for stability reasons to eek out that extra .001% stability. Their bios is aimed at configuring the programmable parts of the GPU to act a certain way for the programs they are intended for. The drivers have zero tweaks for gaming functionality.
-Cost. Businesses out to make money can afford the initial cost of these cards, but cannot afford downtime. Therefore the "perceived value" of the product is much higher than that of desktop cards.


As to which one to buy:
If you make money with your machine and its absolutely critical you have the best performance and compatibility with the latest CAD software, 3D rendering software, image editors, High Performance Computing (HPC) applications, etc., then buy a workstation card.
If you are a casual user, don't bother. Most of the GPU acceleration functions in software are still supported on the desktop cards.

 

[DeathPrincess]

As to which one to buy:
If you make money with your machine and its absolutely critical you have the best performance and compatibility with the latest CAD software, 3D rendering software, image editors, High Performance Computing (HPC) applications, etc., then buy a workstation card.
If you are a casual user, don't bother. Most of the GPU acceleration functions in software are still supported on the desktop cards.

Thats not really true anymore though. You will see absolutely no difference, and lots of software is coded to use "mainstream" stuff like DirectX and very little DP. So there isn't any performance benefit, and it's not like the Geforces spew out errors ever (and it's not like that would matter as the GPU in photoshop is used for handling onscreen stuff, the final renders are all 100% CPU based, same with most video editors, and 3d editors). HPC stuff, computing stuff is different, but thats a different sector than they are talking about.

As it gives no real benefit, there's not any reason to give extra money for nothing.

The different models thing might be one thing, as you can get larger vRAM amount sin profesional cards (up to 6gb) but Photoshop doesn't exactly use a load even for giant 50k x 100k images i've never seen it go above 1gb.

 

[Cube]

Autodesk only offical writes and supports FireGL and quattro cards and Code for themm first so they are less buggy and have less errors they render more precise and have dead on color output.


Do you need this if you area hobby dude no. If you are doing work for a studio for a movie or making a huge ass billboard and need rendering and color to be 100% dead on then yes you do.;

The game GPU do not do stuff that precise in some programs if any.. maya and 3d studio max seem to have more rendering bugs on game level GPUs and if you ask autodesk they say they code for these first and do not support them really but they do work and have few bugs... almost zero really...


Oh and you also need an expensive pro grade monitor to display what the cards are doing cheepo ones are not enough.

besides stuff like that they are also used in medical CAT machines with said pro level monitors and any other thing where you must have accuracy in fact sometimes the speed is lowered sometimes to protect accuracy it gets top bidding the card and drivers will do extra passes to make sure it is correct and that slows it down..

If you do not need this save money and buy the video game level desktop GPU.

 

[x509]

If you do not need this save money and buy the video game level desktop GPU.

OK. Let's say you are doing a lot of Photoshop, and you have the latest CS 6, and you have gone through the Adobe website and you have the list of "approved and tested" consumer cards. Some people say that any GPU is "good enough" for Photoshop, and you don't need to spend the extra $$$ for a high-end gaming GPU. Is this true?

What about "color depth?" Do you get the same for gaming GPUs as with the professonal-type GPUs?

 

[Dan_D]

You don't need anything special for Photoshop. It's basically still a 2D application. The only thing is that it now supports GPU accelration for specific functions. AutoCAD, 3D Studio Max, etc. are different stories but Photoshop doesn't really benefit from a Quadro or a FireGL over a GeForce or Radeon.

 

[il_napoletano]

I would say a nice "desktop" nVidia with 2Gb vRam..and you won't go wrong..

the monitor makes the biggest difference in color...because most GPUs can be calibrated to give the right color

 

[x509]

I would say a nice "desktop" nVidia with 2Gb vRam..and you won't go wrong..

the monitor makes the biggest difference in color...because most GPUs can be calibrated to give the right color

Thanks. Would a nice "desktop" ATI/AMD card w 2 GB also be OK, or is there something about nVidia that makes it preferable for P-shop.

As for the monitor, I'm guessing at some point Apple will release a drop-dead-georgous 24" Retina-based monitor. The "drop dead" part is going to be your reaction when you see the price.

 

[il_napoletano]

Photoshop CS6 can utilize nVidia and AMD...but before that it was only nVidia..so I would say go nVidia since they have had more time to perfect it...as AMD gpus are new to PS...

What's your budget, so I can give you some suggestions?

 

[extide]

I would say go with AMD as GCN provides the best performance in Photoshop. Adobe moved everything to OpenCL now.

Go with like a 7770 or 7850

 

[DarkStar02]

You'll probably be fine with just about anything. I have a really hard time choking my system with an i5, 8gb of ram, and an old GTX 275.

 

[pelo]

The GPGPU in CS6 is only used in some renders and not all. Furthermore, it isn't exactly stellar either.

If you're buying a GPU for CS6, don't bother buying anything specific or powerful as anything will do pretty well. Just buy a gaming GPU and rest assured that whether it's CUDA or openCL, CS6 can help cut down on some render times with either green or red camp.

 

[x509]

Photoshop CS6 can utilize nVidia and AMD...but before that it was only nVidia..so I would say go nVidia since they have had more time to perfect it...as AMD gpus are new to PS...

What's your budget, so I can give you some suggestions?

200 bucks, plus/minus.

Also, I assume that there is no value for Photoshop use for anything like SLI, right?

 

[evilsofa]

TAs for the monitor, I'm guessing at some point Apple will release a drop-dead-georgous 24" Retina-based monitor. The "drop dead" part is going to be your reaction when you see the price.

If Apple releases a 24" monitor with a 7680x4800 resolution, the reaction won't be people dropping dead at the price, it will be

 

[Onemoar]

pretty much the only differce is that workstation cares have
moar outputs for driving a bunch of displays
moar Vram for handling heavy CAD work
the rest is all driver/bios tricks

 

[Cube]

The firmware and low level drivers of the pro cards are not the same as the game class CPU Like I said they do colors and other stuff to protect the accuracy of the image This is why you will never See a game class GPU in a machine use to view xrays or cat scan images and if they do go to another hospital.

and also 3d work they can also have like 12 gb of ram or more on them and they also have Error correcting code (ECC) ram on them because they have to be stable you will not get a game class card with ecc ram.

I use gpu class cards at home then I just check the work and correct it on the Nvida quatro workstation at work.

And like I said unless you have a pro monitor you will not see the what the card is doing anyway

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa301w-bk-sv

You can do photoshop on a game class card if you want it not exaclty high end program anymore unless you need super color Accuracy and Precision..

http://www.techarp.com/article/NVIDIA/Quadro_FX_5800_4800/quadro_01.jpg

 

[DeathPrincess]

If Apple releases a 24" monitor with a 7680x4800 resolution, the reaction won't be people dropping dead at the price, it will be

But first theyll have to convince LG/Samsung to make them for them.

 

[Dan_D]

If Apple releases a 24" monitor with a 7680x4800 resolution, the reaction won't be people dropping dead at the price, it will be

I'll take three please.