Quadro NVS 420 [Archive] - nV News Forums

cycler

01-13-10, 12:26 AM

I am looking to purchase a new workstation for the office. If this post belongs in the hardware thread please accept my apologies.

One of the key requirements of this workstation is support for at least 6 monitors and a good deal of processing power. It's primary use is to run two or more VM's in VMware workstation that I use to monitor and operate our various data centers. Lots of web, email, browser based apps, office apps and remote desktop; but no heavy things like CAD for example.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=39142&stc=1&d=1263355453

My current setup (above) is 6 17" screens powered by a Q6600 with 3 8400GS/G98/512M (http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product_detail.asp?id=86&sub_id=239) boards (one pcie and two pci). The base OS is Ubuntu 9.10 and the VM's are a variety of versions of Windows including Win7.

This year is my turn for an upgraded machine, and I am thinking of a Dell T3500n system (http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/bsd/Dell_Precision_T3500_Brochure.pdf) with a wx3580 processor (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html) and a pair of Quadro NVS 420's (fits budget). Of interest, the T3500 has two 16x PCIe slots and a 8x slot.

My largest complaint with my current setup has been the responsiveness of the system with regards to graphics. Especially playing video inside a VM.

This post (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=133740) lists all of the problems I experience due to my use of Xinerama across the 6 monitors.

What I guess I need to know is what experiences people have had with the NVS 420 card under Linux. Does having fewer cards and more displays/card decrease the re-draw effects I live with now? Will I be happy with my NVS 420's performance in comparison to what I have now? I think the 420 is still a G98 right?

This isn't a gaming machine, but Win7 even in a VM can be a bit intensive graphically. The T3500 comes with a 500W PS, but a pair of GTX 260 isn't going to happen.

If the NVS 420 isn't a good choice, what other options do I have for more than 4 monitors?

Thanks in advance.

onmikesline

01-22-10, 01:51 PM

get 2 ati 5870 or one 5970, that will do just fine

ViN86

01-25-10, 09:28 PM

I haven't messed with ATI Linux drivers lately, but my past experiences weren't very good.

Those Quadro NVS 420's look pretty solid. The monitor capabilities on those cards are insane with the ability to support 3 2560x1600 monitors. It says the cards require a 350W PSU. Back in the days of the 6-series, those cards required about the same, and people ran SLi setups with 500W PSU's, so you should have enough power.

Another investment I would look into if I were you would be two 30" Dell monitors. Also if you did that, you'd save yourself the trouble of a second Quadro NVS 420 card.

cycler

01-26-10, 11:08 AM

ViN86

01-26-10, 12:24 PM

Thanks for the helpful comments ViN86. Yes, I too have had terrible experiences with ATI and Linux in the past. Besides, I thought this was the nVidia forums...

I've moved this thread (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=144078) over to the Linux threads since I didn't get a great deal of exposure here.

No problem. And yes this is the Nvidia site :lol:

Good idea to post it in the Linux section. That section gets a lot more hits than this one does.

snowmanwithahat

02-19-10, 04:43 PM

2 things worth noting...

Nvidia drivers are far superior to ATI drivers in linux... I'd avoid ATI if you're going to be using Ubuntu all the time.

Graphics within a VM are pretty independant of the videocard. The VM sees a general puprose graphics card, not your specific one.... it's similar to software rendering modes for games before DirectX really took off.... for example I could never ever run a CUDA application inside a VM because it just sees a generic display adapter.

Your performance issues in regards to the virtual machines are pretty much unrelated to your video card. Usually that would be more cpu / memory bound.

Hope this helped...