GPU for the Creative CEO

[Nekrovar]

My company does a lot of graphic designing for products we make. The CEO does not usually do any graphical designing, but uses a pro graphics NEC monitor at 2560x1440, another at 1920x1080 and sometimes presents things on a 70" 1920x1080 TV all from the same machine. We originally put two spare FirePro cards in, but it doesn't seem practical.

I was wondering if anyone knew of a good card that would be good for displaying across all three screens mentioned and be able to render high resolution still images. I feel like having two FirePro are unnecessary, especially that they don't do any actual designing with the machine themselves.

System Specs: Dell Precision T3500, 16GB RAM, HDD, Xeon quad-core

A practical budget for this would be around $400-$500 at most. Any ideas?

 

[basroil]

Just get a Quadro K1200 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G31E0678&cm_re=quadro-_-14-133-588-_-Product) if you want to suck up, though a K620 should be fine too. Both support 3x 4K screens just fine, and all at 10bit per channel

 

[Gingerbread]

You could always get a Quadro K1200, but from what I understand all he needs is to present images, so there won't be much stress on the GPU itself, all you need is the VRAM to support the 3 displays right? In those cases even an r9 380 4gb would do the job, or you could go for the r9 390.

 

[basroil]

You could always get a Quadro K1200, but from what I understand all he needs is to present images, so there won't be much stress on the GPU itself, all you need is the VRAM to support the 3 displays right? In those cases even an r9 380 4gb would do the job, or you could go for the r9 390.

OP stated that they will be connected to an NEC Professional Graphics Desktop Monitor, which means 10bit per channel and higher is a must (newest ones use 14bit programmable LUT). For that you NEED to use a Quadro or FirePro card, especially for OpenGL based software that most graphics are done on.

Not to mention the K1200 is cheaper than the 390 and still has 4GB ram.

 

[RobCrezz]

What Basroil said.

Also, for windows based work you dont need 4gb of vram for 3 screens.

 

[Nekrovar]

So the K1200 would be sufficient for all three displays? The TV and side monitor are 4k alone. The NEC is the one that would be most looked at for color accuracy.

The reason for the two separate cards was that the card in the machine already didn't have enough ports. We did run into a problem with a display port on the one card and thought maybe the machine wasn't configured correctly to use two cards. Now it's just the TV on the one card using HDMI/Display port and the other two (NEC and regular) on the other card (also using display port).

 

[basroil]

So the K1200 would be sufficient for all three displays? The TV and side monitor are 4k alone. The NEC is the one that would be most looked at for color accuracy.

The reason for the two separate cards was that the card in the machine already didn't have enough ports. We did run into a problem with a display port on the one card and thought maybe the machine wasn't configured correctly to use two cards. Now it's just the TV on the one card using HDMI/Display port and the other two (NEC and regular) on the other card (also using display port).

You can use 4 monitors up to 4K each with the K1200, you shouldn't have an issue connecting all on DP (though adapters are included for DVI, HDMI, and VGA

 

[Nekrovar]

I'm reading that PNY is the only manufacturer of the K1200 and it's for SFF only. We are now planning on setting up a newer Dell Precision 5810 with this card. Will the K1200 fit in a mid-full tower? I believe Dell likes to use the BTX form factor for their mobos.

 

[basroil]

I'm reading that PNY is the only manufacturer of the K1200 and it's for SFF only. We are now planning on setting up a newer Dell Precision 5810 with this card. Will the K1200 fit in a mid-full tower? I believe Dell likes to use the BTX form factor for their mobos.

It's NOT SFF only, it's half width only. It will fit in a standard ATX case (BTX uses an ATX case) with the included bracket (read the description and included parts list)

 

[Nekrovar]

I think I will go with that card then. Thanks all!