Quadro vs. GTX 680 or GTX 690 questions

[porchpuppy]

i need help from people familiar with the inner workings of nVidia graphics cards. 

 

As i have been doing my studys into building a computer for my son who will be attending full sail next summer to become a computer animator.

 

i have noticed that gtx 680 and gtx 690 have more cuda cores than the quadro series professional graphics cards.  so my question is this;  if i ran 690's or 680's in an sli set up would they be able to perform as well as the quadro series and, would they be able to handle the adobe cs6 software, and the maya 3d software ????

 

i'm currently studying the cisco essentials manual to help me to learn about computers, and how they work, but thus far it gives me no information on this subject matter.

[El_Capitan]

hornybluecow would give you the best answer. From a color perspective, a Quadro will give you a better range of colors and performance, depending on the card.

 

However, for the price... can you get away with using an enthusiast gaming card as a workstation card?

 

The answer is yes, but is it worth it? If he's going to play games, then definitely yes. If he's not, then probably not.

 

GPGPU, or GPU Compute is something you should look up. NVIDIA's API uses CUDA, while AMD's API uses OpenCL. These days, a lot of programs are switching from CUDA to OpenCL. While the GTX 680/690's have more CUDA cores, the compute levels are less than that of the GTX 570's. Even the HD 7870 has more compute prowess than that of a GTX 680. I believe Maya 3D is starting to switch from utilizing CUDA to OpenCL, so an HD 7970 would be a better than a GTX 680.

 

I'm not an expert on this subject, so that's what I'll leave you with.

[porchpuppy]

he does not play games on the computer, and the only game that he seems to like on the xbox console is halo. 

 

thankyou very much for the input, i will now start researching which amd graphics cards are geared toward doing computer animation.

 

but i do have one question for you;  would it be better to use an amd cpu mother board for the amd graphics cards, or use an intel cpu motherboard,  and would the graphics cards be more effective by putting them in a cross fire configuration ??

[El_Capitan]

but i do have one question for you;  would it be better to use an amd cpu mother board for the amd graphics cards, or use an intel cpu motherboard,  and would the graphics cards be more effective by putting them in a cross fire configuration ??

 

It doesn't matter if you go Intel or AMD based on the type of graphics card you have. For some 3D software, they may not even support more than one GPU, so I'd look into it if you wanted to put two cheaper workstation cards in Crossfire or not.

[ir_cow]

I saw the title quadro and came running

 

If he doesn't play games than you would want to go with a pro card either ATi FireGL or Nvidia Quadro. Personally i'm a Quadro fan, I constantly had maya crash when I was using a FireGL. For a $500 card you want it to work with the programs you are using.

 

A Pro card is ment to make sure your apps don't not crash from driver problems. Which is why usually they are 3 or 4 drivers behind the Consumer gaming ones. They also had parts not disabled in the consumer versions. Nvidia wouldn't tell me if they disable part of the chip or it's completely Bios and or drivers. A few years ago you could softmod a card and get similar performance which would point to the drivers disabling things and the cards aren't different. Now adays it doens't matter who you go with because neither can be softmodded and you will have to sell out the $$$ to get a real card.

 

I could go on forever lol but basically even the lowest end Pro card is on par with the fastest Comsumer card (like GTX 690). It does vary per app, Like adobe Premiere or After Effects doesn't benfit much from a Pro card (but those are video editing apps).  For 3d work, if you can afford a $400-500 card you will get much more out of it than a $500 gaming card.

 

Check out my personal Quadro 2000 review in my sig and if you have any questions I can try to answer them.

 

edit: the Quadro (duno about FireGl) has 30bit support through Display port so if you have a  Dell ColorPremie or HP DreamColor? you can see 1 billion cominations of colors rather than the normal 16.7 millions most of the world has come to know.

 

edit 2: No Sli has no effect on 3d work, if fact you most likely crash things and get poor preformance. You can't SLi Pro cards becuase only HP Z-workstations are supported (complete marketing scheme). The More CUDA cores the better is not the rule anymore. in fact the Kelper (600 series) suck at Cuda work and is less powerfull than a 580 is many CUDA apps. The only Kelper Quadro isn't out yet but it will be the Quadro 5000K and costs $2000. Not worth the money.

 

If you could tell me what apps you will be using it may help to narrow which card you need. because there is not point in spending a $1000 for something you wont be using it portential .

Edited December 14, 2012 by hornybluecow

[porchpuppy]

I saw the title quadro and came running

 

If he doesn't play games than you would want to go with a pro card either ATi FireGL or Nvidia Quadro. Personally i'm a Quadro fan, I constantly had maya crash when I was using a FireGL. For a $500 card you want it to work with the programs you are using.

 

A Pro card is ment to make sure your apps don't not crash from driver problems. Which is why usually they are 3 or 4 drivers behind the Consumer gaming ones. They also had parts not disabled in the consumer versions. Nvidia wouldn't tell me if they disable part of the chip or it's completely Bios and or drivers. A few years ago you could softmod a card and get similar performance which would point to the drivers disabling things and the cards aren't different. Now adays it doens't matter who you go with because neither can be softmodded and you will have to sell out the $$$ to get a real card.

 

I could go on forever lol but basically even the lowest end Pro card is on par with the fastest Comsumer card (like GTX 690). It does vary per app, Like adobe Premiere or After Effects doesn't benfit much from a Pro card (but those are video editing apps).  For 3d work, if you can afford a $400-500 card you will get much more out of it than a $500 gaming card.

 

Check out my personal Quadro 2000 review in my sig and if you have any questions I can try to answer them.

 

edit: the Quadro (duno about FireGl) has 30bit support through Display port so if you have a  Dell ColorPremie or HP DreamColor? you can see 1 billion cominations of colors rather than the normal 16.7 millions most of the world has come to know.

 

edit 2: No Sli has no effect on 3d work, if fact you most likely crash things and get poor preformance. You can't SLi Pro cards becuase only HP Z-workstations are supported (complete marketing scheme). The More CUDA cores the better is not the rule anymore. in fact the Kelper (600 series) suck at Cuda work and is less powerfull than a 580 is many CUDA apps. The only Kelper Quadro isn't out yet but it will be the Quadro 5000K and costs $2000. Not worth the money.

 

If you could tell me what apps you will be using it may help to narrow which card you need. because there is not point in spending a $1000 for something you wont be using it portential .

  you have been really helpful in what you have desribed.  this build will be for my son who will be attending full sail university starting in june 2013 after graduates from high school.  he will be going into the computer animation class.  two of the soft ware programs that i am aware of that he will be learning how utilize are the adobe cs6 master, and the autodesk maya 3d, i am fairly sure that he will also be learning to utilize a high end editing software program but which one i'm not sure.  i also will need to figure out what will be the best ips monitors for what he will be needing.  something else i just remembered he will also be learning how to use the wacom tablet and software

[ir_cow]

I thought fullsail required a MacBook Pro and they provided everything else in the labs. That was in like 2006 when I was looking at that school. I decided against it for cost reasons and back than it was a trade school. Now its considered a bachelors in science. great news for your kid but wasn't a very good option for me at the time.

 

Adobe CS6 collection now uses most ATi cards in OpenCL , before all GPU acelleration was Nvidia only and select cards (still true on the cards selection ). Unless he editing 4k or 8k RED Film he won't see a difference in either card or really the benfit of GPU acelleration (Thats with After Effect or Premiere Pro. I only noticed the GPU when I HDR 190 photos togther in Photoshop. In which it was impossible for me to do it a year before.

 

As for Autodesk Maya, like I said before i'm a Quadro Fan because Maya barely worked when I used a FireGL, and that was 3 years ago but I'm not swtiching back, ATi has always to me personally seem to have very poor drivers in comsumer and pro cards. Once again personal view.

 

if he just starting out he doesn't need anything more than a entry level card like a quadro 600  or 1800 both like $150-200 new. He will not see the benfit of a beefy card unless he doing cloth on fully rigged charaters or a scene with many lights and a poly count in the millions. I don't know what homework they give but I doubt it will be anything that intense unless they are making a movie feature LOTRs , Avtart  or King Kong. having a beefy card does allow you to use iray. which is the built in realtime Ray-tracing. instead of taking 5 minutes to render something out you get to see it instantly.  The downside to that is that you can't use it for the final results and its buggy at best, really just a extra throw away feature. Programs like V-ray is a paid app the does the same thing for production but costs a ton if your not a student and hard to figure out if they arent teaching it.

 

Edit: best monitor Iv found for work (once again not for games , though it works fine for that) is the Dell^TM UltraSharp^TM  U2410 I got one and a 23" that doesnt have PremierColor. I must say even after cailbrating the 23" it doesnt compare to that 24" because the colors are just so much better with 30bit support which dell calls PremierColor (Marketing)

Edited December 14, 2012 by hornybluecow

[kyfire]

On Autodesk's site they have a "Certified Hardware" list   http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?siteID=123112&id=18844534&results=1&stype=system&product_group=19&release=2013&os=8192&manuf=all&opt=1

 

Adobe CS6 Master system requirements can be found here   http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/mastercollection/tech-specs.html

 

Hope this helps.

[porchpuppy]

On Autodesk's site they have a "Certified Hardware" list   http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?siteID=123112&id=18844534&results=1&stype=system&product_group=19&release=2013&os=8192&manuf=all&opt=1

 

Adobe CS6 Master system requirements can be found here   http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/mastercollection/tech-specs.html

 

Hope this helps.

thankyou for the addresses this will help a bunch

[porchpuppy]

I thought fullsail required a MacBook Pro and they provided everything else in the labs. That was in like 2006 when I was looking at that school. I decided against it for cost reasons and back than it was a trade school. Now its considered a bachelors in science. great news for your kid but wasn't a very good option for me at the time.

 

Adobe CS6 collection now uses most ATi cards in OpenCL , before all GPU acelleration was Nvidia only and select cards (still true on the cards selection ). Unless he editing 4k or 8k RED Film he won't see a difference in either card or really the benfit of GPU acelleration (Thats with After Effect or Premiere Pro. I only noticed the GPU when I HDR 190 photos togther in Photoshop. In which it was impossible for me to do it a year before.

 

As for Autodesk Maya, like I said before i'm a Quadro Fan because Maya barely worked when I used a FireGL, and that was 3 years ago but I'm not swtiching back, ATi has always to me personally seem to have very poor drivers in comsumer and pro cards. Once again personal view.

 

if he just starting out he doesn't need anything more than a entry level card like a quadro 600  or 1800 both like $150-200 new. He will not see the benfit of a beefy card unless he doing cloth on fully rigged charaters or a scene with many lights and a poly count in the millions. I don't know what homework they give but I doubt it will be anything that intense unless they are making a movie feature LOTRs , Avtart  or King Kong. having a beefy card does allow you to use iray. which is the built in realtime Ray-tracing. instead of taking 5 minutes to render something out you get to see it instantly.  The downside to that is that you can't use it for the final results and its buggy at best, really just a extra throw away feature. Programs like V-ray is a paid app the does the same thing for production but costs a ton if your not a student and hard to figure out if they arent teaching it.

 

Edit: best monitor Iv found for work (once again not for games , though it works fine for that) is the Dell^TM UltraSharp^TM  U2410 I got one and a 23" that doesnt have PremierColor. I must say even after cailbrating the 23" it doesnt compare to that 24" because the colors are just so much better with 30bit support which dell calls PremierColor (Marketing)

 

 

I thought fullsail required a MacBook Pro and they provided everything else in the labs. That was in like 2006 when I was looking at that school. I decided against it for cost reasons and back than it was a trade school. Now its considered a bachelors in science. great news for your kid but wasn't a very good option for me at the time.

 

Adobe CS6 collection now uses most ATi cards in OpenCL , before all GPU acelleration was Nvidia only and select cards (still true on the cards selection ). Unless he editing 4k or 8k RED Film he won't see a difference in either card or really the benfit of GPU acelleration (Thats with After Effect or Premiere Pro. I only noticed the GPU when I HDR 190 photos togther in Photoshop. In which it was impossible for me to do it a year before.

 

As for Autodesk Maya, like I said before i'm a Quadro Fan because Maya barely worked when I used a FireGL, and that was 3 years ago but I'm not swtiching back, ATi has always to me personally seem to have very poor drivers in comsumer and pro cards. Once again personal view.

 

if he just starting out he doesn't need anything more than a entry level card like a quadro 600  or 1800 both like $150-200 new. He will not see the benfit of a beefy card unless he doing cloth on fully rigged charaters or a scene with many lights and a poly count in the millions. I don't know what homework they give but I doubt it will be anything that intense unless they are making a movie feature LOTRs , Avtart  or King Kong. having a beefy card does allow you to use iray. which is the built in realtime Ray-tracing. instead of taking 5 minutes to render something out you get to see it instantly.  The downside to that is that you can't use it for the final results and its buggy at best, really just a extra throw away feature. Programs like V-ray is a paid app the does the same thing for production but costs a ton if your not a student and hard to figure out if they arent teaching it.

 

Edit: best monitor Iv found for work (once again not for games , though it works fine for that) is the Dell^TM UltraSharp^TM  U2410 I got one and a 23" that doesnt have PremierColor. I must say even after cailbrating the 23" it doesnt compare to that 24" because the colors are just so much better with 30bit support which dell calls PremierColor (Marketing)

 

you're being extremly helpfull, and you are correct about the mac pro laptop that they provide, this build is for my son to utilize for the dreams that he already has.  he is a great artist, a strait a honor student, he has art (drawing) awards from the states of arizona and nebraska, as well as the country of japan.  he has been working on a story line for a animated movie, and so when starts attending full sail he will be in need of this build so that he can accomplish his dream.  i admit that his first few try's will probly look sucky but with time it will improve. he has been drawing cartoons and other animated froms since he was 6 years old.