Quadro v's ATi Radeon

[Stibhaus]

Has anyone had anyone had any experience with using Ati Radeon cards in workstations for 3dsMax etc ? And how do they stack up against the Quadro cards ?
Ive been looking at the new ATi card in Crossfire setup and wondering how they would perform for 3dsmax etc. They seem like a very cost effective alternative.
This link has review of the card used in a single setup
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/asus/EAH2900XT/g1.htm

I dont understand most of this stuff as I'm and architect and I dont do games.
I know theres always a bunch of forum writers who will jump in and say.... "you cant beat a Quadro for 3dmax and rendering applications" ... but what is it about Quadro cards that make them so good for Max ?

Cheers.

[Sazar]

Quadro's face off against AMD's FireGL lineup.

You don't want to use regular GeForce or Radeon cards.

[nekrosoft13]

Radeons are not for workstation, you will need a FireGL for that.

still a good quadro card will beat FireGL.

[RussianHAXOR]

Yeah the new Quadros especially are insane. They kill the FireGLs.

[buffbiff21]

Quadros rule.

[Stibhaus]

Although the question of Radeon v's Quadro is clear in one regard, the question of " why is it so ? " still stands.
I posted this question in the hope that the forum users would have some knowledge worth listening to, however its turned out to be a debate about as useless as Federal government politics.

Does anyone have an answer to the thread ?..... why do Quadro cards perform in a league of there own as far as workstation graphics go ?

[Knot3D]

Look.... I've got a Radeon X1900XTX in my desktop and an 'entry level' Quadro FX 350M in my laptop.

I work in both Cinema4D & Maya. Surprisingly, the little quadro puts up a better Cinebench score than the X1900XTX, thanx to optimized OpenGL support.

....and, the Quadro FX350M is based on a mere Geforce7400 chip. Go figure.

When you, as an architect want per pixel precision, viewport Anti Alias and overall stability ; go Quadro.

[Libertysyclone]

Just as a fun little note, all GeForce chips start their lives as Quadro chip but then are essentially "neutered" removing resistors/transistors/ect so they dont have all the bells and whistles that the quadro's do. Then they are given so different clothes (read:drivers) and shipped off to happy little gamers across the world.

BTW there are mods out there that you can convert your GeForce into a quadro although i DO NOT reccomend it.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c133/libertysyclone/QuadroVsGeforce.jpg

[breathemetal]

So would a the best Quadro out right now be better for gaming than the best 8800gtx?

[jolle]

Quadro's face off against AMD's FireGL lineup.

You don't want to use regular GeForce or Radeon cards.
Well that sortof depends.
Alot of people use Geforce and Radeons on MAX and other tools, its not really that critical until you´re working with VERY demanding scenes, and even then you can still hide alot of stuff to make it easier.
A cheap solution is to softmod, Ive done it a few times with a 9700Pro and later my 6800GT.
Easy process done with a strapdriver installed from Rivatuner and you simply install Quadro drivers (it tricks the driver to read a Quadro DeviceID from the strap driver instead of the hardware afaik)

If your working on lighter stuff like game content creation you generally dont have models with milions of polygons and dont really need a high end workstation card.. unless you plan taking it a spin in Zbrush or Mudbox to get a nice normalmap from a subdivided and scuplted version of the lowpoly, where the polygon limit is pretty much whatever your rig can handle.. And there I know atleast mudbox has features to hide and unload from RAM selected parts of the mesh to speed up working.

But unless your going for a work computer its hard to motivate the high price of Quadros, unless you REALLY need it.

Quadros have in my experience worked well with gaming, FireGL is a bit more finicky it seems.
It all boils down to drivers here, the Geforce drivers have alot of custom per game optimizations and such, more focus on features that is used in gaming.
Quadros have alot of profiles for the pro tools its ment to be used with and generally have lower gaming performance, also some features that are comon in viewport rendering but not in gaming, such as wireframe performance.
Softmodding my 6800GT to a Quadro FX4000 does put a dent in my gaming performance.
Other then drivers they arent very different from Geforce (which is why softmodding works), the boards are made with probably better components for output and stuff like that, but the GPUs are according to some identical, and according to others have some extra hardware features, but essentially they are pretty much the same. The major thing are the drivers afaik.

A comon missconception is that these cards will help rendering, and they dont, its all about viewport rendering performance.
There ARE GPU assisted renderers like Gelato, but generally most default renderers dont use the GPU at all.

[Stibhaus]

Wow ! Finally an NVnews member with input more useful than a screaming football fan. Well done ! My faith in this forum has been restored.

[Knot3D]

Well that sortof depends.
Alot of people use Geforce and Radeons on MAX and other tools, its not really that critical until you´re working with VERY demanding scenes, and even then you can still hide alot of stuff to make it easier.


The thing which Quadro's do very well is usual workflow of having 3D viewports with submenu's on overlay planes ; if i work in Maya and call up the Hypershade menu ; a Quadro will handle this like it should, with a Geforce card this would be slower, or at least, it would take longer to pop up the Hypershade menu. Maya paint FX also has a tendency to drag down a Geforce considerably.

Also, the chances of getting a Max or Maya crash are smaller on a Quadro.