FireGL/Quadro vs. Radeon/GForce

[cefoskey]

What exactly are the differeces between the "professional" cards (especially those with the same chipsets) and the retail gaming cards? Aside from a huge price difference, I cannot really ascertain what the main differences are. My home system is an awesome gaming rig, but unfortunately at work I have to do all my CAD work on an older system. I've convinced my engineering manger to approve a new card for my workstation, but I cant tell if it would actually be worth the extra money for a "professional" card. I use a lot of AutoCAD and IronCAD, plus some 3ds and Unigraphics NX.

"Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my drive?"
P4 3.0 HT, Intel D865GBF, 512MB Crucial PC3200 DDR, WD 36GB Raptor 10,000RPM, BBA Radeon 9600PRO

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The main difference is the driver pack, alot of optimization for OPENGL work. USually they also come with dual DVI instead of VGA+DVI.

Also they are certified, and thereby if your company has to meet certain industry certification standards, a softmoded gaming card or even a straight gaming card, likely won't meet those requirements, despite being essentially the same thing.

For home use though it would be fine, but since you're doing it for work, best to check first.

Hope that helps.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[cefoskey]

If I wanted to, how would I change, say a 9600 Pro to a FireGL 9600? Would I need to flasht he BIOS, or just install the driverpack for the latter? (granted the catalyst driver is a all in one suite)

"Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my drive?"
P4 3.0 HT, Intel D865GBF, 512MB Crucial PC3200 DDR, WD 36GB Raptor 10,000RPM, BBA Radeon 9600PRO

 

[cleeve]

I believe there are hacked drivers you can get that will allow your 9600 PRO to be used as a FireGL.

That's all you have to do... install those drivers, and Voila!

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 340/310)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2750+</b></font color=red> <i>(2400+ @2.2Ghz)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b>

 

[Slava]

<font color=green>The benchmarks confirm that Quadro FX 1100 achieves the best benchmark values within the mid-range category. In addition, NVIDIA has no qualms about offering this product at a low price. Due to the excellent price/performance ratio, the Quadro FX 1100 justifiably earns itself the Editor's Choice. </font color=green>

In case you have not read this, more info is here:

<A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040323/index.html" target="_new">http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040323/index.html</A>



<font color=green>Stingy people end up paying double. One kick-ass rig that will go strong for three years or one half-decent one every year?</font color=green> 😎

 

[cleeve]

The 1100 is good, but the 5700 Ultra will be far cheaper, and will offer identical performance if a hacked driver has been made for it.

If price is a factor, and the driver's out there, this might be a good option.

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 340/310)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2750+</b></font color=red> <i>(2400+ @2.2Ghz)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b>

 

[Zoron]

Have you ever noticed artifacts and / or other errors in the display when playing 3D games? I have... and in the CAD workstation market, this is UNACCEPTABLE. Drivers for these cards have to go through a lot of certification to ensure that what is displayed on the screen is as error-free as possible.

Most of the time, this also means the professional cards aren't clocked as high as the gaming cards. What you're really paying for when you purchase a pro card is the driver certification. Drivers for gaming card don't have to meet any such requirements... therefore less time is spent developing them and as a result, the cards are often cheaper. They'll give you more performance, but a small sacrifice in visual quality and rendering accuracy is paid.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[cleeve]

They'll give you more performance, but a small sacrifice in visual quality and rendering accuracy is paid.

What do you mean by more performance? The professional versions of the drivers will give higher performance in cad/3d applications.
Unless you mean in games, where the commercial drivers will sometimes perform speedier than their professioanl counterparts.

Either way, the graphics processors are the exact same hardware, just rebadged and detected as different so they'll use a different driver.

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 340/310)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2750+</b></font color=red> <i>(2400+ @2.2Ghz)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b>

 

[Slava]

The 1100 is good, but the 5700 Ultra will be far cheaper, and will offer identical performance if a hacked driver has been made for it.

If price is a factor, and the driver's out there, this might be a good option.

That's a big if 😱) I have FX5700U ... mmm ... I am willing to try that driver ... I wonder how to go about finding it though.


<font color=green>Stingy people end up paying double. One kick-ass rig that will go strong for three years or one half-decent one every year?</font color=green> 😎

 

[Zoron]

I meant gaming cards will give you more performance in games that professional cards will.

I agree that the hardware is essentially identical, but you're paying for extra driver development with the pro cards. In games, there is an acceptable margin for error. That margin is much smaller in the world of CAD. Accuracy is more important than raw speed... but that's not to say that speed doesn't count for something in the world of professional 3D.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[cleeve]

OK, we're on the same page.

P.S.: Heres some info on Softquadro: not sure if it works with the 5700 or if you have to wait for a new release, you can read up some stuff here, I suggest you ask around on some Nvidia-specific forums for specifics:

<A HREF="http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/" target="_new">http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/</A>

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 340/310)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2750+</b></font color=red> <i>(2400+ @2.2Ghz)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The Quadro 1100 is not cheap.

It's significantly more expensive than even a FireGLx1-128, let alone a FigreGL Z1 or T2 which are about half it's price.

The best value item would be the Z1 at under $250US (seen them for $199-RETAIL!), and the next cheapest (but not as powerful in some cases) is the T2 @ just under $300US, both blow away the 500 and are reasonable performers. The X1-128 can be found for about $450-499US(retail), whereas the Quadro 1100 is around $650US.

It depends on the application, and in many cases the Quadros will far outperform the FireGLs, but the reverse is true for specific apps. The question is what app and what price point. Money no object, Quadros will be the best performance choice 65+% of the time, but when you bring price into the mix then it changes everything.

<b>Zoron</b>, corruption is NOT unheard of, actually it occurs quite regularly. nV's got notorious AA issues, that are supposedly better with the new NV40 based card (Quadro 4000). And all of the cards show various issues under different applications, 3Dlabs, ATI and nV all have their issues. Here's a few good examples from digit-life;

<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/wc4-7210-vs-qfx3000/index.html" target="_new">Wildcat versus Quadro AA</A>
<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/houdini/houdini-09-2003.html" target="_new">Houdini being rather new caused many issues</A>
<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/profcards/3dlabs-wildcat-vp990pro.html" target="_new">ATI issues with special drivers</A>
And these are just the easy to find ones (heading out of the office, don't have time to grab all of them.

The softmoded drivers have all the same components, as the regular drivers (mainly OGL extensions).

As for the clocking, well as long as they run within specof even the gaming cards, that shouldn't pose a problem, remember alot of the workstation cards while having similar HSF assemblies are as agressive with cooling and power usage.

And really a fater gaming processor running softmoded will do the job better in most cases (as long as memory size is the same).


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[cefoskey]

Well my basic problem was rendering speed. When im doing 3d modeling, for the things Im working with (automotive frames, parts, components), the parts and assemblies get quite complex. Render accuracy isnt nearly as important to me as is the ability to manipulate the object in model space with little or no lag. My productivity suffers if my framerate when panning around a model is 5 fps. So, do you all think that a gaming card would be a more wise decision, based on that fact?

"Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my drive?"
P4 3.0 HT, Intel D865GBF, 512MB Crucial PC3200 DDR, WD 36GB Raptor 10,000RPM, BBA Radeon 9600PRO

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

IF you're looking for price performance, then it's hard to beat a softmoded gaming card. You can get near FX2000/FireGL X1-256 power from a $250 card.

Even a regular FX5900 or R9800 will do ok.

Here's a recently updated review including gaming cards;
<A HREF="http://www.3dchips.net/content/review.php?id=63" target="_new">http://www.3dchips.net/content/review.php?id=63</A>

You'll notice that sometimes the R9700Pro beats the other professional cards (except the X2 which is of equivalent raw power), but sometimes is a lesser performer. Look at the Solidworks results and notice that the Xeon/AMD makes a big diff as to which is most effective, although the strength of nV's OGL extensions shows up there too with the QFX500 showing well for a change. Take a look at what you think you need and this should give you an idea.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK