Quadro vs. 6800/FireGL vs. X800...?

C

Clank

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Joined
Oct 12, 2004
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Everyone says that the workstation video cards (Quadro/FireGL series) are better than their consumer counterparts but has anyone ever quantified this? How much better? Last summer we lucked out and got 2 Quadro4s sent to us at work, after installing the MAXtreme drivers we were quite disappointed to find that the performance in 3DS MAX increased by maybe 5% over the GeForce 4 Tis we were originally using. Are there any comparisons between the consumer cards and the workstation versions anywhere?
 
For playing game they are NOT better. In applications like 3DS Max they support rendering functions not possible with the consumer cards. But they are by no means "faster". In some cases they are slightly slower.

But you have to use those rendernig functions of those programs to even get the bennifit from them at all.

But what is nice, is the fact that if you need workstation performance graphics like the Quadro or the FireGL you can play games with them as well. They are just as good for that as their consumer parts.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
For playing game they are NOT better. In applications like 3DS Max they support rendering functions not possible with the consumer cards. But they are by no means "faster". In some cases they are slightly slower.

But you have to use those rendernig functions of those programs to even get the bennifit from them at all.

But what is nice, is the fact that if you need workstation performance graphics like the Quadro or the FireGL you can play games with them as well. They are just as good for that as their consumer parts.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I should've clarified that I was referring only to 3-D modeling and the like, and not to game playing. The only "rendering function" that's not on consumer cards is the addition of hardware overlay planes which simply allow you to render GUI elements into a separate buffer (or plane) so that you don't have to redraw the current framebuffer. That's not worth spending $1000 on a video card, so I'll rephrase my original question:

Are there any comparisons between consumer cards and their workstation versions when running 3-D applications?
 
Clank said:
Perhaps I should've clarified that I was referring only to 3-D modeling and the like, and not to game playing. The only "rendering function" that's not on consumer cards is the addition of hardware overlay planes which simply allow you to render GUI elements into a separate buffer (or plane) so that you don't have to redraw the current framebuffer. That's not worth spending $1000 on a video card, so I'll rephrase my original question:

Are there any comparisons between consumer cards and their workstation versions when running 3-D applications?
Click to expand...

Nothing I've seen. However, I've never really noticed a difference. At work we've got alot of Quadro's and I've used 3ds Max at home on my machine and my machines always done it better. At least my old rig did and it was close to the speed of the work machines. So I don't know that it's worth doubling the amount of money for a video card.
 
We tested a Radeon X300 PCI-e on I-DEAS for FEA modeling, since the PC was available. For large FEA meshes, when the user performed a dynamic rotation/movement of the image, the cursor flickers annoyingly for a couple seconds before responding. A workstation PC with comparable graphics would be the FireGL V3100 (essentially same processor), for which one could not expect to see any delay. We also run Nvidia FX500 AGP cards, which perform quite nicely with no lag. Hence, one would conclude the Radeons work poorly for CAD/CAE, and one should order only FIreGL or Quadro cards. Another engineer said he had the ATI Radeon 9800 XT Pro, but it still ran ProE poorly -- further comfirmation. :eek:

In other postings, I keeping hearing the Nvidia non-Quadro cards have better OpenGL than the ATI Radeons. Does anyone know if this implies the Nvidia 6600 or 6800 series would run CAD/CAD apps OK, or still have delays in graphic processing? My assumption is they would still not compare with even the older FX500 for such apps.
 
From what I remember the precision of the Quadro (and other workstation-class cards) is what sets it apart. When rendering it provides more accurate vertex rendering and texture mapping (as opposed to being optimized for speed, where in computer gaming, absolute precision is not critical... in CAD, it's far more important). This is based on what I remember reading in the days of the GeForce2 vs. Quadro2 comparisons (back when a bit of soldering could give you a Quadro2 :D ). If I can find the resource I'll link you.
 
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