GeForce VS Quadro - Bang for Buck? Not that I can see...

GREETINGS GROUP!

I have searched a bit on the subject. I keep seeing that Geforce cards
perform as good or better than the Quadros. If this IS the case then
gimme the what where and how. I had a Quadro FX4500 at my last job (sad
to see it go) I now have the Geforce 7950 GX2. I could immediately see
a difference in performance. It seemed like the Geforce, even though it
had twice the RAM was slower or more flakey. I have since built a home
puter as follows:

SHUTTLE SN27P2
MEM 1Gx2 CRUCIAL
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ AM2
VGA GIGABYTE GEFORCE 7950GX2
x64 WINBLOWS

The thing screems. but the video just isn't there in SWX. I'm seeing
the same if not more flakey things. The FMT doesnt always display, lots
of residue, of course the wiping, etc.

Is 256mb of Quadro better than 1gb of Geforce?
Is there a soft hack for the geforce?
If so, does it even work or help?
Is there any tweaks that can be done to the Geforce to make it perform
better?
Finally, WHY THE &^%#^% ARE QUADROS SO MUCH MORE????

Any tips or just experiences would be awsome! How many have tried
Geforce and went back to Quadros?

CALLING ALL BOBS CALLING ALL BOBS

Thanks Group!

 

the reason quadros are so much more expensive is that you are paying
for the extra manpower that went into the card to make it very robust
and reliable. a quadro card is a workstation card that is usually
purchased by corporations that can get a return on that investment in,
usually, a short time. the company producing the workstation card runs
the card through so much more. if a gamer card has flakiness, it is no
big deal - most gamers are not going to lose money when their machine
is down.

bob z.
ps back like a crack attack

 

* :

The GF7950GX2 does have twice the RAM but it doesn't have twice the
memory of the FX4500. Of course the 7950GX2 has 1GB but this RAM is
divided by the two GPUs so in fact you end up with 512MB overall.

Another thing is that the 7950GX2 is basically two 7900GT glued
together. A Quadro FX4500 is basically a Geforce 7800GTX 512MB (it's a
bit slower than even a Geforce 7800GTX 256MB, though) which is
noticeably faster than a 7900GT. So if your application doesn't make use
fo SLI (which usually are games only) the 7950GX2 will be slower...

Besides that, the 7950GX2 doesn't work correctly in all mainboards.
There is a list somewhere on the Nvidia site which lists compatible
mainboards and BIOS revisions. With other boards this card has serious
compatibility issues..

Sounds either like a driver issue or a compatibility issue to me. I
don't think the Shuttle SN27P2 supports the 7950GX2...

No. First, video memory is one of the least important things. Lots of
people think that 512MB gfx cards are better than 256MB gfx cards which
simply is BS. What decides performance is not the amount of video RAM
but primarily the type of GPU. A Geforce FX5200 with 256MB RAM is much
slower than say a Geforce FX5700 with 128MB RAM. Same is valid for all
other gfx cards.

As to Quadro better than Geforce: the Quadros have a few additional
features like AA lines which the Geforce doesn't have. Technically,
Quadro and Geforce are identical. They even use the exactly same
drivers. If you don't need the Quadro features then a good(!) Geforce
should be more than enough...

SW works fine on Geforce cards, as do most other CAD applications...

There was something called "SoftQuadro"...

In your case probably not...

Yes, probably by putting it in a board that supports the 7950GX2.
Alternatively you can get a good(!) Geforce card like a PNY 7800GTX...

Because there is only one vendor (PNY) who makes them, and because these
cards get certified by a lot of software vendors...

I recently went away from a Quadro FX4500 to a single Geforce 7800GTX
256MB which performs better in most applications and games. I had a SLI
system with two Quadro FX4500 before, but the performance benefit was
nonexistent in most applications...

Benjamin

 

* :

Nope. Quadro cards are not more reliable than Geforce cards. The build
quality of a PNY Quadro and a PNY Geforce is equally high (of course
there are dozens of crap Geforce cards around, too). If a Quadro fails
you also have to send it in and wait for a replacement if you don't
bought it with a workstation from Dell or HP with NBD onsite service.

The only reason Quadros are more expensive is the certification process
and that the market allows for such price levels...

Benjamin

 

There's an additional dimension here that nobody has mentioned. With a
GeForce if you open more than 4 SolidWorks windows (4 documents) at a
time you usually see a drastic slowdown, and the slowdown may not
correct itself when the windows are closed. In fact it probably won't.
You'll probably have to close SolidWorks (if you CAN close it without
crashing) and you may even find that it's better to reboot. This is
from painful experience. I remember there is some terminology that
explains the difference -- buffers that are enabled with the Quadro and
not enabled in the GeForce, or something similar. The difference MIGHT
be bypassed with the SoftQuadro driver hack, given the same processor
with the difference being on the card, but I haven't kept up with the
development of the hack and whether or not the hardware now has the hack
locked out. Recent cards probably can't be hacked, but I don't know
that for certain.

'Sporky'

 

yes true nvidia are closing the soft mod by changing their innards.
no 7 series is modable.
only some 6800 are modable.
The mod enables z buffer use like fx4000.

 

yes true nvidia are closing the soft mod by changing their innards.
no 7 series is modable.
only some 6800 are modable.
The mod enables z buffer use like fx4000.

 

do you use solidworks?

 

check out today's woot - www.woot.com

 

* :

Yes, I do. So what?

Benjamin

 

So what? So what?!?!?! You answered the Original Poster's questions
in a manner that had nothing to do with solidworks. Absolutely
nothing.

This is a solidworks newsgroup and how did any of your answers apply to
solidworks?

Good job at not understanding 'usenet'. Kitchen get too warm? Cook
that noodle a little too long?

I am glad I could help you out with a few of your shortcomings in
regards to America and this newsgroup. Thanks for coming! Come back
anytime!

 

* :

Did you ever _read_ the posting of the OP? Probably not. Otherwise you
probably would have noticed that he asked a hardware question
(difference between Quadro and Geforce) which I answered. Of course I
don't expect that you understand anything about this, especially since
you already showed that your technical understanding is very limited at
best (which wouldn't be a problem if you would just stop attacking
people that know it better than you).

Well, America definitely has some experience in thinking they can rule
the world while at the same time the brain and even the most common
senses are absent. But this is definitely not the place for discussing it...

Benjamin

 

There is a fundamental difference between the two. In the past a
GeForce and Quadro were actually identical chips and yet different by
jumpering. And the difference is this. One is optimized to display huge
numbers of triangles and the other is optimized to display very high
frame rates with texture mapping. Gaming cards must display high frames
with texture mapping. This way, with the textures, the software can
fool the eye into thinking the object on the screen is far more
detailed than it really is (hair, fabric, brick, etc.) with relatively
few triangulations. The triangulations are what must be calculated for
each frame so having fewer of these makes for fast recalculation. And
since games move fast a dropped triangulation here or there will
generally go unnoticed. CAD on the other hand is highly detailed and
needs many more triangulations. Look at an STL preview with fine
settings versus coarse settings. The memory on a graphics card goes
primarily toward texture mapping. So a Quadro doesn't need all the
memory a gaming card does to achieve it's results.It needs to be able
to calculate huge numbers of triangles for detail that on a gaming card
would be handled by texture mapping.

For example, consider shootem up games. In a shootem up game the
buttons and levers on the sides of the weapon would just be a texture
mapping. In a SW model they would be actual 3D features requiring lots
of triangles to represent smoothly.

 

* TOP:

They are identical today, too...

Nope. The difference is decided by a resistor network connected to the
EEPROM that holds the gfx card BIOS...

Right. But the different priorities of "gaming cards" and Quadros are
simply a thing of the driver and not the hardware...

Benjamin

 

* McQ:

Right. But at least western Europe doesn't call itself "gods own
country" and also doesn't invade other countries just for oil. But as I
said this is not the place to discuss this...

Benjamin

 

Benjamin Gawert wrote:

You are too sensitive. Maybe you need to turn the thermostat to a
temperature that suits you a little better.