- Apr 7, 2012
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Quadro vs. GeForce > What’s Best for an AutoCad / Solidworks / Sketchup / Adobe CS Workstation ? > Round 11,349
1.5.13
Mates,
As I moved from 2D to 3D CAD in 2010, buying a used Dell Precision T5400 used 18 months for $500 [Xeon x5460 Quad Core @ 3.16GHz, 4GB RAM (upgraded to 12GB), Quadro FX 580, 1TB Barracuda, Vista Business 64 bit (upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64)] seemed a near no-miss choice, (this computer cost over $8,000 new) but I was unprepared for the complex decision of which graphic card would be best suited for the applications I use > AutoCad 2007, Sketchup -now 8 Pro, SolidWorks 2010 x64, Corel Technical Designer X-5, and Adobe CS4.
Quadros were and are almost universally praised for their 2D CAD capabilities and Autodesk and Solidworks have provided specialized drivers to optimize performance of their software using Quadros. However, it occurred to me that the lesser 3D performance of Quadros as compared to Geforce GTX should be considered as I work then and now more in Sketchup and other 3D applications- and with large files- 80 to 120MB. I am learning Revit, a 3D program with big files and a lot of rendering power needed. The more I learn about rendering, the more I see the need for a very high performance computer- CPU , GPU. Mempry, and disk all have to be great.
Because the graphics performance is so essential to fluent use of the applications I use, it seemed to me, one of the best ways to choose a graphics card is to visit the sites of the applications you intend to use and look into their recommendations for the most demanding version of their applications. Also, nvidia, which makes the chips and drivers for both Geforce and Quadro offers drivers that are “partnered” for specific use- you can get a specific Solidworks x64 2010 driver for example. Autodesk and I think ArchiCad, do this as well with Autodesk having tested cards with subsequent ‘recommendation” and “certification”. When I use the T5400 in AutoCad 2007 with a Geforce GTX 285, I had a periodic message , “This computer has non-certified hardware” or similar error message, no doubt referring to the GTX card. The Autodesk application I think is the most demanding is the Product Design Suite Ultimate, a vast program which includes AutoCad, Mechanical Inventor Pro with simulation, 3ds Max, Mudbox, Electrical, and much more. I’ve read that Mudbox is quite demanding though Autodesk only mentions the need for Open GL support for that application. Maya is another heavy-resource program lots of rendering, lots of polygons. You need 60GB HD space and something over $10,000. For 3D modeling the minimum system is amazingly, a Pentium 4, 3GHz and 4GB RAM, or 8Gb for large assemblies. The recommended cards include ATI Firepros, but mainly Quadros. I was interested to see that Autodesk still recommends the old Quadro FX 580, the 512MB card I now use in my old Dell Optiplex 740 [AMD X2 6000+, 3GHz, 6GB, WD 750GB ] a card which I see on Ebay for as little as $30. The Quadro FX X8XX cards are all there > 1800, 3800, 4800, and 5800 as well as the current 400, 600, 200, and 4000, but no Geforce. In less demanding applicati0ons such as AutoCad 2013- still having a lot of 3D capability- the old series Quadros such as FX 380, 570 ($25 eBay), 580 ($35), 1700, 3700, 3800, and etc. are “certified” or “recommended” . Geforce 2- series GTX 260, 280, 285, 295 are listed, but not in the class.
Useful guides for graphics cards may be found in Wikipedia under “Quadro” and “Comparison of nvidia Geforce”, listing the specifications of those lines of graphics cards. [ See > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units ] [See> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro ] I was struck in the Quadro list by the specs of the FX 5800- 512 -bit high memory bandwidth of 159, 240 shaders, high clock rates, 4GB, and so on, all for only $2,700 or whatever- the 5800 was the top of the Quadros until the 6GB FX 6000- over $3,000. However, there is a note on this listing that the GPU and specification except memory ( the GTX 285 is 1GB, instead of 4) is shared with the Geforce GTX 285 and as I could buy a lightly-used GTX 285 on eBay for $140, that too seemed a no-miss choice. I also then believed that it was possible to soft-mod the GTX 285 into a Quadro 5800, but of course learned later that that trick was by then no longer allowed by nvidia.
After installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit and my applications, I installed the GTX 285 in the T5400 and put the Quadro FX 570 in my previous computer, Dell Dimension 8400 of 2004 (Pentium 4 630 @ 3.0GHZ, 3GB, ATI Radeon 9400, 750GB Seagate, XP Pro 64 -bit), which has among the first 64-bit CPU’s, the hyperthreading Prescott single core which read in Device Manager as two cores.
Then I discovered Passmark Performance Test- and surprise and disappointment. The T5400 with the GTX 285 did well, a rating of 1852 - quite good- but the 2D score was only 300 couled with a very good 3D score as 2208. Strangely, The Dimension 8400- single core, with 1/3 the RAM has an overall mark of 452, but the 2D was 444! and 3D 261. In 2D, the 512MB Quadro FX 580 on a single core CPU was outperforming by nearly 50% the 1GB GTX 285 on a quad core Xeon computer that new cost about $9,000 in 2D!
Given the relatively low 3D score of the FX 570, I learned then that Quadros of that era were indeed 2D specialists, but the much lower 2D score of the GTX on the T5400 was a mystery. To make a long story- 25 hours!- of frustration short, I eventually learned that the Windows 7 Classic and Aero themes I’d tried were killers of 2D performance, at least on this T5400. Turning to the nasty baby blue Windows 7 Basic theme, the 2D score of the T5400 jumped from 300 to 583! - near enough to doubling and the 3D improved from 2208 to 2320. The overall rating of the 5400 also improved from 1852 to 2339. I have never read of anyone else reporting the severe performance penalty of the Win 7 Classic and Aero themes, but there we are. This event made we wonder about all the other discreet performance hogs lurking in all the “helpful” fuzzy bears background program and I’ve become an obsessive Task Manager watcher (right click on the Task Bar) to see what the CPU and memory is up to at any given moment.
As I’ve used the T5400 the last couple of years, I began to be dissatisfied with the performance in Sketchup, which I was using more and more in ever larger files. As the models became large, each time I changed the viewpoint, the wait to regen was frustrating. I use Sketchup too casually- that is not very systematically, not taking full advantage of layers and components, and consequently, waiting to regen a view with shadows on a 100MB model seemed to take forever. I did learn that view regens depend on the amount of geometry that is visible, so I learned to navigate over the model in plan or around the edges and then zoom in to the position I wanted at the very last so that the least amount of 3D trees and other polygon rich objects were visible. It even helps to always save the drawing in a view with little geometry visible. Also, a big performance help is to add trees and any complex imported 3D models at the last minute when everything else is finished and still place them on a layer that can be turned off. For general working, display in monochrome, and definitely, do not turn on shadows until you need to test views for rendering or 2D image export. When navigating, keep the model in constant motion artificially moving it about, or it will “freeze” and begin to fill in all the complex geometries.
Last month (December, 2012), as I was planning a Solidworks assembly of 6,000 parts, I decided to try a higher level Quadro again. Searching the specification charts, I was again immersed in the morass of Quadro precision and specialized application drivers vs. Geforce 3D speed and at much lower cost. Interestingly, the newer Quadros seemed to have changed their emphasis from 2D to 3D performance in accordance with the extreme shift, especially in architectural CAD to 3D applications like Revit. After some research, which showed the FX 4800 (384-bit, 1.5GB, 192 CUDA cores) producing stunningly good results in Solidworks and interestingly, this card was optimizied also for Adobe CS4, I found a relatively low hours one- about 15 months in a Precision T3500- on eBay for $150. The FX 4800 was expensive new- $1,300.
The Quadro 4800 is beautifully made and very large. The Precision has a series of slots corresponding to the PCIe slots and the FX4800 has a rear bracket that supports the card on the back end. The FX 4800 requires 2- 6 pin plugs for it’s 150W, still quite a bit less wattage than the GTX 285 at 204W.
In the Passmark Performance Test, using the Quadro 4800, the overall rating for the T5400 was 1623 with 2D / 3D scores of 512 / 912, this compared to the 583 / 2208 of the T5400 with the Geforce GTX 285 and demonstrating the 3D emphasis of the Geforce. As I’m working on quite small AutoCad 2D, Solidworks, but large Sketchup 3D, I did not notice an improvement in 2D, however, Sketchup did seem to be a bit slower in zooms and pans and when turning on shadows- which may be my imagination as I thought the shadows are a cpu, rather than gpu task. I’ve tried a number of different of drivers for the Quadro 4800, the one specifically for Solidworks 2010 and one for Adobe CS4, for which the FX 4800 was made with a special affinity. I had read that one of the principal advantages of Quadros over Geforce is the general focus on the precision of display, including aggressive anti-aliasing drivers, but even though I tried a specialized Solidworks driver with 32X anti-aliasing- the highest I’d ever seen, for some reason the display in Solidworks and AutoCad was not appreciably better. In fact, an AutoCad 3D truss made of curved sections of round tubing seemed to have some intersection anomalies not present with the GTX. Sketchup has a maximum 4X anti-aliasing setting and even thought the Quadro control panel has a kind of “over-ride application settings”, I thought the Sketchup models looked exactly the same as regards anti-aliasing- that is poor and probably at the 4X application setting. I’m trying various rendering plug-ins for Sketchup and so far, the best came from the free Maxwell plug in. Rendering is entirely CPU based and as compared to the single threaded Sketchup and AutoCad, rendering is one application that can use all the CPU cores. In Task Manager, CPU usage on the quad core T5400 using Sketchup, a mainly single-threaded application as is Inventor and many others is never more than “25%” but using Maxwell- which allows you to set the number of cores to dedicate to rendering, the TM CPU usage is 100%". This is a great feature of rendering programs as you can keep a couple of cores aside such that the rendering can churn away while you work on something else, or put the computer to work on the rendering and go another cup of coffee. I realize I haven’t spent enough time with different drivers and settings, and certainly not enough with big Solidworks assemblies and none with animations- which everyone says makes all the difference, so I’m reserving final judgement on the FX 4800.
The highest rated computer on the current Passmark Benchmark using a Quadro has a rating of 4970 and is called > “Xi M Tower PCIe Workstation” and uses an i7 3960X 6 core on ASUS Sabertooth x79, 16GB RAM, with a Quadro 4000 (2GB) and “LSI MR9240-4i” which is a RAID controller. The 2D/3D scores are > 952 / 1981. Notice that the T5400 with GTX 285 produces 583 / 2320, much lower 2D, but higher 3D. The Memory 2913 and Disk 5056 scores of the “Xi M Tower” are very high as compared to my T5400 of 646 / 956. It’s noteworthy that, overall, the Passmark benchmarks of similar configuration computers seem to rise sometimes dramatically, when they include SSD’s.
Now, for the interesting part > the highest 2D rated Computer on the current Passmark Benchmark uses a Geforce GTX 550Ti, i7 3770K @ 3.5GHz 4 core, 32GB RAM for an overall rating of 4744 and 2D/3D scores of 1087 / 2157. Note that the 3D score is slightly lower than the GTX 285 on the T5400 with a 1623 rating. No 2 highest 2D, has a rating of 4656, this on an i7 2600K @ 3.4, 10GB, a GTX 670, and this time the 2D / 3D is 1053 / 6089. Note the 2D score is similar but the 3D score is substantially higher than the No. 1 GTX 550Ti machine. Perhaps the 1344 CUDA cores as compared to 240 of the GTX 285 affect this?
The Highest Xeon / Quadro 2D score > has a rating of Xeon E3-1270@ 3.5GHz 4 core and, amazingly, a 1GB Quadro 600 , a $150 card, to score 2D / 3D of 818/704. It’s interesting, but if you are using 2D, some of the lower end and older Quadros like the 512MB FX580- $40 on eBay- seem to produce really strong results- in 2D, but like the current Quadro 400 and 600, the 3D score will be low.
The highest 3D rating machine is rated overall at 4523, using an i5 2500K @ 3.3, 4Core, 16GB, and a GTX680 producing a 2D /3D of 855 / 6598. The memory rating is very high > 3008 with a disk score of 1852. No. 2 3D machine is an i5 2600K @ 3.4 , 4Core, 32GB, and again, a GTX 680 for a 2D /3D of 925 / 6346, a slightly better 2D than the No 1 3D configuration. Interestingly, the top two 3D machines use quad core i5's.
The highest rated Computer on the current Passmark Benchmark using a GeForce has a rating of 5622 and uses an i7 990 6 core @ 3.47, 12GB RAM, a GTX 580 and produces 2D / 3D scores of 911/5501. The GTX 580 is interesting as it has a 384-bit memory bus width 512 CUDA cores, and it seems to me, that the computers with high graphics scores seem to favor GPUs with the wider -384 and 512-bit memory bus widths. I find the balance of both a high 2D and 3D in this configuration very attractive. All the GTX 5-series cards seem to make a good 2D / 3D balance. By the way, the GTX 580 takes a lot of power- 244W as compared to the already high 204W of the GTX 285 and 150W of the Quadro 4800 and the GTX 690 requires 300W. A Quadro 600 takes only 40W.
The highest 3D rating using Quadro has an overall of 4523, that on Xeon 2X 2687W @ 3.1GHZ, 8 core, a Quadro K5000 (4GB, PCIe 3.0) 65GB RAM, and producing a 2D / 3D score of 597 / 4134. Interestingly, the 2D is not very impressive for this computer (e.g. the T5400 with GTX 285 produced 583 in 2D) and this probably very expensive machine uses 2X 8 core Xeons (= $3,800 in processors alone!), 65GB of RAM, and a $1,700 Quadro K5000 (4GB) . This may reflect the fact that most CAD applications are single threaded such that the processor clock speed is more critical than the 16 cores. The 3D score though shows how Quadros - and I saw this many times on Passmark scores- that Quadro are shifting to an emphasis on 3D performance. On the other hand, as rendering can use every core, I imagine this computer would be great at that! Note that the single i7 990 Geforce with a GTX 580 surpasses this one in both 2D and 3D. The Disk score of 7023, one of the highest I ever saw, also suggests some kind of enterprise card drive, no doubt a pricey item as well. Was this one perhaps optimized for video editing?
Summary : It’s worth noting the close inter-relationship of CPU, GPU, memory and disk performance and system synergy- good Cad/Graphics solutions will not be found with a hot rod graphics card alone. Most CAD and graphics applications -except rendering- are still mainly single threaded, so CPU clock speed is critical. If you are doing large renderings, use a CPU with the highest clock speed and as many cores as is reasonable. As the current Quadros seem to have begun to shift performance towards 3D, for the best balance of 2D / 3D CAD and graphics performance, it seems to me a recent Geforce using GDDR5 is difficult to beat, and look for the cards with wider memory bus width -384, 448, and 512 bit are better and memory bandwidth helps as well- the Quadro FX 4800 has 78, the GTX 285 is 159, the GTX 580 and 690 both about 192. Note that the 1GB 512-bit GTX 285 (used $100) has a memory bandwidth -not too far off the more modern 4GB- and 256-bit 690 ($1,000). It’s entirely possible that the specialized drivers for applications such as Solidworks may offer the serious large assembly maker advantages in precision and anti-aliasing display, but I have yet to see this for myself. I should also mention that I have had very good luck with used graphics cards, possibly because people seem to experiment and upgrade often, so if you’re on a budget, or want to experiment, ir seems possible to buy used, find the right direction by multiple tries, sell the experiments for at or near the purchase price- making the experiments almost free, and then buy new. This is in accordance with one of my favourite adages, “Measure twice and saw once.”
Thanks for getting this far in such a very long post. I hope this help someone avoid my time-consuming self-torture as regards finding a good CAD / graphics applications graphics card and/or workstation solution.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
____________________________________________________________________________
PS>
Based on Passmark results for overall rating, CPU, 2D, 3D and memory, and disk performance, here’s a quick specification for > “BambiBoom’s Reasonably Priced (well $2,700 @ Newegg) Hot Rod CAD / Graphics Workstation” > which shouldn’t be too shabby for games either >>
> Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K $569.99 > Xeons are fantastically accurate and stable but locked and very expensive. This i7 appears to be a good overclocker and poking around the overclocking world, appears to be very stable at say 4.2 and even reliable at 4.4GHz. See related liquid cooling listing below!
> ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $339.99 - several of the very high Passmark benchmark computers use this particular board
> G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL10Q-32GBZL $179.99 > The ASUS Sabertooth can use 64GB and that’s not a bad idea, especially as RAM is so cheap now. When I had my 1993 IBM 486 ($1,900) running Windows 3.1 over DOS 6 at 50MHz!, 2MBs -that’s MB’s not GB’s- of RAM cost $180! As I’ve become more fluent with 3D, I seem to end up to often running simultaneously AutoCad 2007, Sketchup 8 Pro, Corel Technical Designer X-5, Photoshop CS4 and Mozilla Firefox, and these with everything else going- OS, backup, security, and etc. can add up to about 10GB of my 12. AutoCad, which I use mainly in 2D is not too resource hungry, but Solidworks and Sketchup occasionally take 2GB each, though Sketchup typically runs in about 850K-1.4GB. Some rendering programs I’m test driving appear in Task Manager as using all 4 cores and 2GB. By the way, the old T5400,having a dual CPU server motherboard (sim.Poweredge 2950) can use 192GB RAM (8 x 16GB) !
> EVGA 03G-P3-1594-KR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) Classified 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $499.99 > or about $250-300 as an eBay “experiment” > See text above for the reasons for this choice.
> Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive) $101.99 > For OS and Applications. SSD’s seem to be fast, fast, fast, but based on reading dozens of feedbacks, are also too often quirky to install, unreliable, and short-lived. I don’t trust them! My thought is to use an SSD for OS and programs for speed, but keep all the data safely on enterprise version mechanical drives mirrored in RAID. I'd keep a full system image backup on the mechanical drives at all times, ready to go as well!
> 2x Seagate Constellation ES ST1000NM0001 1TB 7200 RPM SAS 6Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive $299.98 ($149.99 each) > For DATA in RAID mirroring
> LIAN LI PC-V750WX Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case $379.99 > Relatively expensive, but I like very plain, solid cases , roomy, with good cooling/ venting and this one has convenient USB 2 and 3 ports on the front.
> CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply $169.99 > As it’s possible to add another or even two more 240W GPU’s to this configuration, I would strongly consider a 100W PS. The T5400 has an 875W Ps for comparison.
> CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CWCH60) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler $64.99 > This is not a highly researched choice, but mainly a note to try and make like easier for the overclocked 3930K.
> ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM $19.99
Subtotal: $2,626.89
An alternative I considered a used Dell Precision T5500 or T7500- these are coming off lease now since the T1-3-5-7-600 series is current- with 2X of the 3.47 quad core Xeons for about $1,500-1,800, add 32GB DDR3 1333 memory ($150)- (compare to 16GB of DDR2 667 of the T5400 /7400 at $350) and then pop in a 120GB SSD ($120) , used 3GB GTX 580 for another $300, and 2- 1TB Segate Constellations ($300) for about $2,700-2,800, but I’m convinced that the aforementioned idea at $2,700 (plus OS and other bits , so really about $3,000) would be new and noticeably faster- ( X79 chipset, 6GB/s HD instead of 3GB/s, PCIe 3 and USB 3, 1866 instead of 1333 RAM for examples) for not much more money, with the penalty being configuration and compliance sorting time, such that the $200-300 or so difference over the upgraded, used Precision would be more than justified.
1.5.13
Mates,
As I moved from 2D to 3D CAD in 2010, buying a used Dell Precision T5400 used 18 months for $500 [Xeon x5460 Quad Core @ 3.16GHz, 4GB RAM (upgraded to 12GB), Quadro FX 580, 1TB Barracuda, Vista Business 64 bit (upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64)] seemed a near no-miss choice, (this computer cost over $8,000 new) but I was unprepared for the complex decision of which graphic card would be best suited for the applications I use > AutoCad 2007, Sketchup -now 8 Pro, SolidWorks 2010 x64, Corel Technical Designer X-5, and Adobe CS4.
Quadros were and are almost universally praised for their 2D CAD capabilities and Autodesk and Solidworks have provided specialized drivers to optimize performance of their software using Quadros. However, it occurred to me that the lesser 3D performance of Quadros as compared to Geforce GTX should be considered as I work then and now more in Sketchup and other 3D applications- and with large files- 80 to 120MB. I am learning Revit, a 3D program with big files and a lot of rendering power needed. The more I learn about rendering, the more I see the need for a very high performance computer- CPU , GPU. Mempry, and disk all have to be great.
Because the graphics performance is so essential to fluent use of the applications I use, it seemed to me, one of the best ways to choose a graphics card is to visit the sites of the applications you intend to use and look into their recommendations for the most demanding version of their applications. Also, nvidia, which makes the chips and drivers for both Geforce and Quadro offers drivers that are “partnered” for specific use- you can get a specific Solidworks x64 2010 driver for example. Autodesk and I think ArchiCad, do this as well with Autodesk having tested cards with subsequent ‘recommendation” and “certification”. When I use the T5400 in AutoCad 2007 with a Geforce GTX 285, I had a periodic message , “This computer has non-certified hardware” or similar error message, no doubt referring to the GTX card. The Autodesk application I think is the most demanding is the Product Design Suite Ultimate, a vast program which includes AutoCad, Mechanical Inventor Pro with simulation, 3ds Max, Mudbox, Electrical, and much more. I’ve read that Mudbox is quite demanding though Autodesk only mentions the need for Open GL support for that application. Maya is another heavy-resource program lots of rendering, lots of polygons. You need 60GB HD space and something over $10,000. For 3D modeling the minimum system is amazingly, a Pentium 4, 3GHz and 4GB RAM, or 8Gb for large assemblies. The recommended cards include ATI Firepros, but mainly Quadros. I was interested to see that Autodesk still recommends the old Quadro FX 580, the 512MB card I now use in my old Dell Optiplex 740 [AMD X2 6000+, 3GHz, 6GB, WD 750GB ] a card which I see on Ebay for as little as $30. The Quadro FX X8XX cards are all there > 1800, 3800, 4800, and 5800 as well as the current 400, 600, 200, and 4000, but no Geforce. In less demanding applicati0ons such as AutoCad 2013- still having a lot of 3D capability- the old series Quadros such as FX 380, 570 ($25 eBay), 580 ($35), 1700, 3700, 3800, and etc. are “certified” or “recommended” . Geforce 2- series GTX 260, 280, 285, 295 are listed, but not in the class.
Useful guides for graphics cards may be found in Wikipedia under “Quadro” and “Comparison of nvidia Geforce”, listing the specifications of those lines of graphics cards. [ See > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units ] [See> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro ] I was struck in the Quadro list by the specs of the FX 5800- 512 -bit high memory bandwidth of 159, 240 shaders, high clock rates, 4GB, and so on, all for only $2,700 or whatever- the 5800 was the top of the Quadros until the 6GB FX 6000- over $3,000. However, there is a note on this listing that the GPU and specification except memory ( the GTX 285 is 1GB, instead of 4) is shared with the Geforce GTX 285 and as I could buy a lightly-used GTX 285 on eBay for $140, that too seemed a no-miss choice. I also then believed that it was possible to soft-mod the GTX 285 into a Quadro 5800, but of course learned later that that trick was by then no longer allowed by nvidia.
After installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit and my applications, I installed the GTX 285 in the T5400 and put the Quadro FX 570 in my previous computer, Dell Dimension 8400 of 2004 (Pentium 4 630 @ 3.0GHZ, 3GB, ATI Radeon 9400, 750GB Seagate, XP Pro 64 -bit), which has among the first 64-bit CPU’s, the hyperthreading Prescott single core which read in Device Manager as two cores.
Then I discovered Passmark Performance Test- and surprise and disappointment. The T5400 with the GTX 285 did well, a rating of 1852 - quite good- but the 2D score was only 300 couled with a very good 3D score as 2208. Strangely, The Dimension 8400- single core, with 1/3 the RAM has an overall mark of 452, but the 2D was 444! and 3D 261. In 2D, the 512MB Quadro FX 580 on a single core CPU was outperforming by nearly 50% the 1GB GTX 285 on a quad core Xeon computer that new cost about $9,000 in 2D!
Given the relatively low 3D score of the FX 570, I learned then that Quadros of that era were indeed 2D specialists, but the much lower 2D score of the GTX on the T5400 was a mystery. To make a long story- 25 hours!- of frustration short, I eventually learned that the Windows 7 Classic and Aero themes I’d tried were killers of 2D performance, at least on this T5400. Turning to the nasty baby blue Windows 7 Basic theme, the 2D score of the T5400 jumped from 300 to 583! - near enough to doubling and the 3D improved from 2208 to 2320. The overall rating of the 5400 also improved from 1852 to 2339. I have never read of anyone else reporting the severe performance penalty of the Win 7 Classic and Aero themes, but there we are. This event made we wonder about all the other discreet performance hogs lurking in all the “helpful” fuzzy bears background program and I’ve become an obsessive Task Manager watcher (right click on the Task Bar) to see what the CPU and memory is up to at any given moment.
As I’ve used the T5400 the last couple of years, I began to be dissatisfied with the performance in Sketchup, which I was using more and more in ever larger files. As the models became large, each time I changed the viewpoint, the wait to regen was frustrating. I use Sketchup too casually- that is not very systematically, not taking full advantage of layers and components, and consequently, waiting to regen a view with shadows on a 100MB model seemed to take forever. I did learn that view regens depend on the amount of geometry that is visible, so I learned to navigate over the model in plan or around the edges and then zoom in to the position I wanted at the very last so that the least amount of 3D trees and other polygon rich objects were visible. It even helps to always save the drawing in a view with little geometry visible. Also, a big performance help is to add trees and any complex imported 3D models at the last minute when everything else is finished and still place them on a layer that can be turned off. For general working, display in monochrome, and definitely, do not turn on shadows until you need to test views for rendering or 2D image export. When navigating, keep the model in constant motion artificially moving it about, or it will “freeze” and begin to fill in all the complex geometries.
Last month (December, 2012), as I was planning a Solidworks assembly of 6,000 parts, I decided to try a higher level Quadro again. Searching the specification charts, I was again immersed in the morass of Quadro precision and specialized application drivers vs. Geforce 3D speed and at much lower cost. Interestingly, the newer Quadros seemed to have changed their emphasis from 2D to 3D performance in accordance with the extreme shift, especially in architectural CAD to 3D applications like Revit. After some research, which showed the FX 4800 (384-bit, 1.5GB, 192 CUDA cores) producing stunningly good results in Solidworks and interestingly, this card was optimizied also for Adobe CS4, I found a relatively low hours one- about 15 months in a Precision T3500- on eBay for $150. The FX 4800 was expensive new- $1,300.
The Quadro 4800 is beautifully made and very large. The Precision has a series of slots corresponding to the PCIe slots and the FX4800 has a rear bracket that supports the card on the back end. The FX 4800 requires 2- 6 pin plugs for it’s 150W, still quite a bit less wattage than the GTX 285 at 204W.
In the Passmark Performance Test, using the Quadro 4800, the overall rating for the T5400 was 1623 with 2D / 3D scores of 512 / 912, this compared to the 583 / 2208 of the T5400 with the Geforce GTX 285 and demonstrating the 3D emphasis of the Geforce. As I’m working on quite small AutoCad 2D, Solidworks, but large Sketchup 3D, I did not notice an improvement in 2D, however, Sketchup did seem to be a bit slower in zooms and pans and when turning on shadows- which may be my imagination as I thought the shadows are a cpu, rather than gpu task. I’ve tried a number of different of drivers for the Quadro 4800, the one specifically for Solidworks 2010 and one for Adobe CS4, for which the FX 4800 was made with a special affinity. I had read that one of the principal advantages of Quadros over Geforce is the general focus on the precision of display, including aggressive anti-aliasing drivers, but even though I tried a specialized Solidworks driver with 32X anti-aliasing- the highest I’d ever seen, for some reason the display in Solidworks and AutoCad was not appreciably better. In fact, an AutoCad 3D truss made of curved sections of round tubing seemed to have some intersection anomalies not present with the GTX. Sketchup has a maximum 4X anti-aliasing setting and even thought the Quadro control panel has a kind of “over-ride application settings”, I thought the Sketchup models looked exactly the same as regards anti-aliasing- that is poor and probably at the 4X application setting. I’m trying various rendering plug-ins for Sketchup and so far, the best came from the free Maxwell plug in. Rendering is entirely CPU based and as compared to the single threaded Sketchup and AutoCad, rendering is one application that can use all the CPU cores. In Task Manager, CPU usage on the quad core T5400 using Sketchup, a mainly single-threaded application as is Inventor and many others is never more than “25%” but using Maxwell- which allows you to set the number of cores to dedicate to rendering, the TM CPU usage is 100%". This is a great feature of rendering programs as you can keep a couple of cores aside such that the rendering can churn away while you work on something else, or put the computer to work on the rendering and go another cup of coffee. I realize I haven’t spent enough time with different drivers and settings, and certainly not enough with big Solidworks assemblies and none with animations- which everyone says makes all the difference, so I’m reserving final judgement on the FX 4800.
The highest rated computer on the current Passmark Benchmark using a Quadro has a rating of 4970 and is called > “Xi M Tower PCIe Workstation” and uses an i7 3960X 6 core on ASUS Sabertooth x79, 16GB RAM, with a Quadro 4000 (2GB) and “LSI MR9240-4i” which is a RAID controller. The 2D/3D scores are > 952 / 1981. Notice that the T5400 with GTX 285 produces 583 / 2320, much lower 2D, but higher 3D. The Memory 2913 and Disk 5056 scores of the “Xi M Tower” are very high as compared to my T5400 of 646 / 956. It’s noteworthy that, overall, the Passmark benchmarks of similar configuration computers seem to rise sometimes dramatically, when they include SSD’s.
Now, for the interesting part > the highest 2D rated Computer on the current Passmark Benchmark uses a Geforce GTX 550Ti, i7 3770K @ 3.5GHz 4 core, 32GB RAM for an overall rating of 4744 and 2D/3D scores of 1087 / 2157. Note that the 3D score is slightly lower than the GTX 285 on the T5400 with a 1623 rating. No 2 highest 2D, has a rating of 4656, this on an i7 2600K @ 3.4, 10GB, a GTX 670, and this time the 2D / 3D is 1053 / 6089. Note the 2D score is similar but the 3D score is substantially higher than the No. 1 GTX 550Ti machine. Perhaps the 1344 CUDA cores as compared to 240 of the GTX 285 affect this?
The Highest Xeon / Quadro 2D score > has a rating of Xeon E3-1270@ 3.5GHz 4 core and, amazingly, a 1GB Quadro 600 , a $150 card, to score 2D / 3D of 818/704. It’s interesting, but if you are using 2D, some of the lower end and older Quadros like the 512MB FX580- $40 on eBay- seem to produce really strong results- in 2D, but like the current Quadro 400 and 600, the 3D score will be low.
The highest 3D rating machine is rated overall at 4523, using an i5 2500K @ 3.3, 4Core, 16GB, and a GTX680 producing a 2D /3D of 855 / 6598. The memory rating is very high > 3008 with a disk score of 1852. No. 2 3D machine is an i5 2600K @ 3.4 , 4Core, 32GB, and again, a GTX 680 for a 2D /3D of 925 / 6346, a slightly better 2D than the No 1 3D configuration. Interestingly, the top two 3D machines use quad core i5's.
The highest rated Computer on the current Passmark Benchmark using a GeForce has a rating of 5622 and uses an i7 990 6 core @ 3.47, 12GB RAM, a GTX 580 and produces 2D / 3D scores of 911/5501. The GTX 580 is interesting as it has a 384-bit memory bus width 512 CUDA cores, and it seems to me, that the computers with high graphics scores seem to favor GPUs with the wider -384 and 512-bit memory bus widths. I find the balance of both a high 2D and 3D in this configuration very attractive. All the GTX 5-series cards seem to make a good 2D / 3D balance. By the way, the GTX 580 takes a lot of power- 244W as compared to the already high 204W of the GTX 285 and 150W of the Quadro 4800 and the GTX 690 requires 300W. A Quadro 600 takes only 40W.
The highest 3D rating using Quadro has an overall of 4523, that on Xeon 2X 2687W @ 3.1GHZ, 8 core, a Quadro K5000 (4GB, PCIe 3.0) 65GB RAM, and producing a 2D / 3D score of 597 / 4134. Interestingly, the 2D is not very impressive for this computer (e.g. the T5400 with GTX 285 produced 583 in 2D) and this probably very expensive machine uses 2X 8 core Xeons (= $3,800 in processors alone!), 65GB of RAM, and a $1,700 Quadro K5000 (4GB) . This may reflect the fact that most CAD applications are single threaded such that the processor clock speed is more critical than the 16 cores. The 3D score though shows how Quadros - and I saw this many times on Passmark scores- that Quadro are shifting to an emphasis on 3D performance. On the other hand, as rendering can use every core, I imagine this computer would be great at that! Note that the single i7 990 Geforce with a GTX 580 surpasses this one in both 2D and 3D. The Disk score of 7023, one of the highest I ever saw, also suggests some kind of enterprise card drive, no doubt a pricey item as well. Was this one perhaps optimized for video editing?
Summary : It’s worth noting the close inter-relationship of CPU, GPU, memory and disk performance and system synergy- good Cad/Graphics solutions will not be found with a hot rod graphics card alone. Most CAD and graphics applications -except rendering- are still mainly single threaded, so CPU clock speed is critical. If you are doing large renderings, use a CPU with the highest clock speed and as many cores as is reasonable. As the current Quadros seem to have begun to shift performance towards 3D, for the best balance of 2D / 3D CAD and graphics performance, it seems to me a recent Geforce using GDDR5 is difficult to beat, and look for the cards with wider memory bus width -384, 448, and 512 bit are better and memory bandwidth helps as well- the Quadro FX 4800 has 78, the GTX 285 is 159, the GTX 580 and 690 both about 192. Note that the 1GB 512-bit GTX 285 (used $100) has a memory bandwidth -not too far off the more modern 4GB- and 256-bit 690 ($1,000). It’s entirely possible that the specialized drivers for applications such as Solidworks may offer the serious large assembly maker advantages in precision and anti-aliasing display, but I have yet to see this for myself. I should also mention that I have had very good luck with used graphics cards, possibly because people seem to experiment and upgrade often, so if you’re on a budget, or want to experiment, ir seems possible to buy used, find the right direction by multiple tries, sell the experiments for at or near the purchase price- making the experiments almost free, and then buy new. This is in accordance with one of my favourite adages, “Measure twice and saw once.”
Thanks for getting this far in such a very long post. I hope this help someone avoid my time-consuming self-torture as regards finding a good CAD / graphics applications graphics card and/or workstation solution.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
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PS>
Based on Passmark results for overall rating, CPU, 2D, 3D and memory, and disk performance, here’s a quick specification for > “BambiBoom’s Reasonably Priced (well $2,700 @ Newegg) Hot Rod CAD / Graphics Workstation” > which shouldn’t be too shabby for games either >>
> Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K $569.99 > Xeons are fantastically accurate and stable but locked and very expensive. This i7 appears to be a good overclocker and poking around the overclocking world, appears to be very stable at say 4.2 and even reliable at 4.4GHz. See related liquid cooling listing below!
> ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $339.99 - several of the very high Passmark benchmark computers use this particular board
> G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL10Q-32GBZL $179.99 > The ASUS Sabertooth can use 64GB and that’s not a bad idea, especially as RAM is so cheap now. When I had my 1993 IBM 486 ($1,900) running Windows 3.1 over DOS 6 at 50MHz!, 2MBs -that’s MB’s not GB’s- of RAM cost $180! As I’ve become more fluent with 3D, I seem to end up to often running simultaneously AutoCad 2007, Sketchup 8 Pro, Corel Technical Designer X-5, Photoshop CS4 and Mozilla Firefox, and these with everything else going- OS, backup, security, and etc. can add up to about 10GB of my 12. AutoCad, which I use mainly in 2D is not too resource hungry, but Solidworks and Sketchup occasionally take 2GB each, though Sketchup typically runs in about 850K-1.4GB. Some rendering programs I’m test driving appear in Task Manager as using all 4 cores and 2GB. By the way, the old T5400,having a dual CPU server motherboard (sim.Poweredge 2950) can use 192GB RAM (8 x 16GB) !
> EVGA 03G-P3-1594-KR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) Classified 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $499.99 > or about $250-300 as an eBay “experiment” > See text above for the reasons for this choice.
> Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive) $101.99 > For OS and Applications. SSD’s seem to be fast, fast, fast, but based on reading dozens of feedbacks, are also too often quirky to install, unreliable, and short-lived. I don’t trust them! My thought is to use an SSD for OS and programs for speed, but keep all the data safely on enterprise version mechanical drives mirrored in RAID. I'd keep a full system image backup on the mechanical drives at all times, ready to go as well!
> 2x Seagate Constellation ES ST1000NM0001 1TB 7200 RPM SAS 6Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive $299.98 ($149.99 each) > For DATA in RAID mirroring
> LIAN LI PC-V750WX Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case $379.99 > Relatively expensive, but I like very plain, solid cases , roomy, with good cooling/ venting and this one has convenient USB 2 and 3 ports on the front.
> CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply $169.99 > As it’s possible to add another or even two more 240W GPU’s to this configuration, I would strongly consider a 100W PS. The T5400 has an 875W Ps for comparison.
> CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CWCH60) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler $64.99 > This is not a highly researched choice, but mainly a note to try and make like easier for the overclocked 3930K.
> ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM $19.99
Subtotal: $2,626.89
An alternative I considered a used Dell Precision T5500 or T7500- these are coming off lease now since the T1-3-5-7-600 series is current- with 2X of the 3.47 quad core Xeons for about $1,500-1,800, add 32GB DDR3 1333 memory ($150)- (compare to 16GB of DDR2 667 of the T5400 /7400 at $350) and then pop in a 120GB SSD ($120) , used 3GB GTX 580 for another $300, and 2- 1TB Segate Constellations ($300) for about $2,700-2,800, but I’m convinced that the aforementioned idea at $2,700 (plus OS and other bits , so really about $3,000) would be new and noticeably faster- ( X79 chipset, 6GB/s HD instead of 3GB/s, PCIe 3 and USB 3, 1866 instead of 1333 RAM for examples) for not much more money, with the penalty being configuration and compliance sorting time, such that the $200-300 or so difference over the upgraded, used Precision would be more than justified.
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