Point in firepro cards

[reparto]

Apart from tech support what is the point in firepro/quadro cards? I'm pretty sure a consumer gpu array of equivalent processing power is much cheaper, the Firepro W8000 costs almost three times a 290x but the 290x just dwarfs it in price/performance in both single and double precision.

And with the increasing support of OpenCL workstation grade cards are becoming more and more stupid.

[lilrofl]

The Quadro cards were designed specifically for enhancing programs like Auto-CAD. They have firmware which selectively enables features (two sided lighting for example) that are vital to CAD style programs, but not necessary for gaming.

Using firmware in this manner doesn't affect the gaming market, but it makes using cheaper cards for CAD style programs less then ideal.

[reparto]

AutoCAD supports OpenCL as of 2013

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fir ... 65-14.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gef ... 474-3.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The W8000 is about the same price as a Titan (around £1000) but its only half as powerful, infact several generations old nvidia cards are destroying quadro cards and they cost a fraction of the price. I know benchmarks aren't entirely realistic but I doubt a product could totally destroy in benchmarks and then flop in real-time usage.

[bad_brain]

well, one important point in FirePro and Quadro cards is the power consumption. such cards are usually not used in a small business or home environment, so if you have like 50+ workstations running power consumption becomes an important cost factor....and the professional cards use like 1/3 of consumer class desktop cards, if you are using multi-GPU Quadro ones and feed 4 workstations with one card you can reduce it even more accordingly.

[reparto]

Thats not necessarily true, the high end Firepro cards have similar power consumption to the 290X, infact an overclocked 290x doesn't use that much more power than a W9000 (the top Firepro card). My point still stands that workstation graphics cards are overpriced and irrelevant.

Power consumption tests:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fir ... 65-21.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... 50-29.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bad_brain]

and what significance artificial benchmarks used to cause 100% GPU load, which never really happens in RL use, have? none.

have a look at this one instead:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bes ... 93-32.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

compare the average workload values of the Quadro and FirePro with the idle ones of the 290x in the link you provided...

[reparto]

Thats not a bad point but is the increase in efficiency proportional to the decrease in performance? If a 290x uses twice or three times as much power but can perform that many times better then surely it cancels out?

Right now, I have to agree that workstation cards are probably more efficient but I am starting to see people use desktop gpus for workstation stuff.

[bad_brain]

well, here are some CAD benchmarks, the performance of the 290x would definitely not justify the much higher power consumption:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... 50-31.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I would say that's also a proof of what lilrofl mentioned in his post, there are CAD specific features in such cards that increase the performance (else there would be no explanation for the benchmark results), and that justifies the existence of such cards.

the use of desktop cards for CAD is most likely limited to the private- and small business sector, simply because the professional cards are that expensive...I am not justifying the high price of such cards at all, imo it's a rip off, but well, that's how it works with professional products, just have a look at the Adobe products in that sector for example.

[lilrofl]

The main difference in the Quadro cards, as I mentioned, is that they do not have crippled drivers. This allows for feature sets that favor accurate math crunching, rather then gaming applications. Better precision when determining reflections, fluids, shadows, whatever. It's easy to determine better cards for gaming by comparing frame rates and the like; however, when you are discussing content creation the line gets very blurry.

Up to a certain quality I bet the GTX cards work fine for CAD style programs, but as soon as the quality demand puts the project into the realm of CUDA acceleration or drivers that have been partnered with a specific programs design (AutoCAD with Quadro for example), then the Quadro cards will have a substantial advantage over the GTX cards.

The different optimizations for these cards in my opinion make comparisons irrelevant. What Nvidia has done is created three lines of product, GTX, Quadro, and Tesla to serve different graphics needs: gamers, professional graphics developers and researchers, respectively. Furthermore they work to maintain the relevance of each of those categories by removing features from other cards.

As CAD applications change their approach to video card optimization the line of what is the best card for application X will get hazy, but the drivers written for those applications will still be crippled by Nvidia to keep their workstation cards relevant to professionals.