Workstation Video Card Vs. Gaming Video Cards

[awesomeness1919]

Hey guys I would really appreciate a semi quick but detailed explanation on the differences between these two types of video cards and the pros and cons of each if possible. I am also curious how they work since I have seen some demos showing a workstation card with less CUDA cores and a lower frequency beat a GTX 670 at a lowest cost.

 

I am looking for a graphics card for a Desktop or Laptop that would benefit from 3D modelling on a light to medium scale.

[SAV1OUR]

Hey guys I would really appreciate a semi quick but detailed explanation on the differences between these two types of video cards and the pros and cons of each if possible. I am also curious how they work since I have seen some demos showing a workstation card with less CUDA cores and a lower frequency beat a GTX 670 at a lowest cost.

 

I am looking for a graphics card for a Desktop or Laptop that would benefit from 3D modelling on a light to medium scale.

work station cards: 3d editing and rendering but you cant game on them 

gaming cards: gaming (uder) but their also very good for cuda cores in editing pcs 

[dizmo]

I've looked at gaming benchmarks for workstation cards and they're pretty poor, for the cost of the card.

I believe workstation cards are generally more stable, and are designed to be on for longer periods of time without having any crashing or failure issues.

I'd be interested to see the cards that beat the gtx 670. Do you have a link?

[Flojer0]

There was literally just a post on this earlier today. Read through and you'll find some very good answers.

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/108337-professional-vs-consumer-gpus/

[DoubleY]

Well, I don't think that you can get a workstation grade card in a laptop. But the Quadro K4000 would be a good choice. 

[Sheldon_King]

work station cards: 3d editing and rendering but you cant game on them 

gaming cards: gaming (uder) but their also very good for cuda cores in editing pcs 

(If it is a typo, I apologize)

You can game on a editing card (Firepro/Quadro) perfectly fine. Not as well as the GTX series, but it will run perfectly fine.

[Glenwing]

NVIDIA workstation cards have all their double-precision floating point cores unlocked which is important for 3D work and science applications.  They also have ECC memory, which consumer cards do not have.  The drivers are also built differently, and they are tested and validated much more thoroughly.

[SAV1OUR]

(If it is a typo, I apologize)

You can game on a editing card (Firepro/Quadro) perfectly fine. Not as well as the GTX series, but it will run perfectly fine.

quadros will die if you try and game on them too long so its not worth taking the risk on a $600+ editing card 

[hiyayhi]

Workstation cards are validated for more things and are a higher bin of chip, they will run cooler and are incredibly well looked after in terms of drivers. They will work with just about every program, motherboard, CPU, they are tested profusely and will most likely last longer. They cost more and they perform worse in a gaming situation, much worse.

 

if you are looking to play games as well as do 3D work then you should buy a gaming grade GPU, the downside could be lack of support. Realistically if you wish to do 3D work and game then you should have two cards or two computers. But I understand that that is stupid expensive and it doesn't make any sense if you only do light or little 3D work.

[hiyayhi]

quadros will die if you try and game on them too long so its not worth taking the risk on a $600+ editing card 

I would like to see proof of this. I honestly never seen anyone say that before.

[Sheldon_King]

quadros will die if you try and game on them too long so its not worth taking the risk on a $600+ editing card 

That is BS.  I have ran MW2, MW3 and Black Ops off a FX2500m and it is still running perfectly fine.   There is almost no hardware difference between the 2 cards. Professional cards have 10 bit colour, ECC memory and validated drivers. This means LESS FPS, not No gaming.

[jscho]

A workstation card is specifically engineered to run in a heavy 3D rending and video editing scenario. A Quadro/Firepro card is used to it's maximum potential when used in heavy 3D programs such as high-poly CAD models, high-res animation and 3D editing. You can game on the workstation cards, but the card's BIOS and drivers will not enable the card to render the game as effectively as a GeForce/Radeon gaming card.

A gaming card (GeForce and Radeon) has it's drivers written specifically to enable maximum performance in gaming scenarios. The gaming cards also have the added ability to be used in some light to medium-high workstation scenarios with CUDA and OpenCL with Nvidia and AMD respectively.

Workstation Cards
Pros
- DESTROY in heavy 3D applications
- Excellent for general GPU computing and rendering with hardware acceleration

- 10bit colour in the Quadro cards (don't know about Firepro but I can only assume they do)

Cons
- Are not geared towards games due to drivers and not as effectively utilised.

Gaming Cards
Pros
- GREAT for gaming
- Are very efficient in light to medium rendering

Cons
In heavy GPU 3D rendering and hardware acceleration scenarios, they are not very efficient at that.

[Sheldon_King]

I would like to see proof of this. I honestly never seen anyone say that before.

I would too. It would be interesting to see how anyone will try and sell that. (I know for a fact that it is false, and from personal experience).

[SAV1OUR]

I would like to see proof of this. I honestly never seen anyone say that before.

theres plenty of videos of people playing on quadros and stuff but they heat up allot 80deg+ and with all that heat that their giving off they will degrade quicker thus its not worth the risk 

[SAV1OUR]

That is BS.  I have ran MW2, MW3 and Black Ops off a FX2500m and it is still running perfectly fine.   There is almost no hardware difference between the 2 cards. Professional cards have 10 bit colour, ECC memory and validated drivers. This means LESS FPS, not No gaming.

but the quadros arnt meant for gaming more for 3d rendering and its just not worth running the risk of damaging them by doing it but this is just my opinion though 

[Sheldon_King]

theres plenty of videos of people playing on quadros and stuff but they heat up allot 80deg+ and with all that heat that their giving off they will degrade quicker thus its not worth the risk 

That is your proof they will die in game?  Have you tried playing on a 6970 or 480 reference without jacking the fan speed up? It will hit north of 85 in minutes. So they can't game either? 

[Sheldon_King]

but the quadros arnt meant for gaming more for 3d rendering and its just not worth running the risk of damaging them by doing it but this is just my opinion though 

Being meant for it or not does not mean they will not run it. You can certainly use say 3dmax on a GTX, and you can game on a Quadro. They are not the intended uses for these cards, but they will work just fine (and a lot of time the performance elsewhere, like CAD is more impoertant than the gaming performance, when you only have a single laptop, like I do.)

[SAV1OUR]

That is your proof they will die in game?  Have you tried playing on a 6970 or 480 reference without jacking the fan speed up? It will hit north of 85 in minutes. So they can't game either? 

im not saying that when they heat up their all doomed. but quadros are a expensive editing professional level card that isnt intended for being used in gaming but why would you get a quadro for gaming when you can get a good gaming gpu for the same price and not run the risk of destroying it because its intended for heating up so much under loads from games  

[awesomeness1919]

For the person who asked for the link of the video i saw

 

 

THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE BLAZING FAST REPLIES

[Sheldon_King]

im not saying that when they heat up their all doomed. but quadros are a expensive editing professional level card that isnt intended for being used in gaming but why would you get a quadro for gaming when you can get a good gaming gpu for the same price and not run the risk of destroying it because its intended for heating up so much under loads from games  

There are a couple of reasons for that. You can't get 10 bit colour outside of Quadros (and I assume firepro, but have never tried on HD series). You don't get ECC memory on GTX or HD****/R7/R9. You don't get certified drivers on GTX series cards.  If you make a living off the laptop, a lot of times you will just end up gaming on the Quadro instead of buying a separate GTX based one (besides, the performance is not that far behind in some cases. MW2 and MW3 run single player maxxed out at 1200p perfectly fine (as in it never stuttered a single time) on a FX2500m. While I do not have a 7900m GTX to test against, it would probably not be more than 10FPS away.)

 

The temps, I would be willing to bet on the desktop series that if you run the fans outside the stock profile, it would run even with reference GTX series cards. I don't have one to try though, but I would be willing to test one in game if I had one.

 

EDIT: Spelling.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Sheldon_King

[paulsterio]

theres plenty of videos of people playing on quadros and stuff but they heat up allot 80deg+ and with all that heat that their giving off they will degrade quicker thus its not worth the risk 

 

80 degrees is hardly hot though.