Deciding on best workstation GPU

[da na]

Which workstation GPU should I buy - the Radeon Pro W6600 ($700), the Quadro RTX 4000 ($900), the Quadro P5000 ($1100) or the Radeon Pro W5700 ($1200)?

P5000 has the most memory (16gb vs 8gb of all the others) but is older, more power consumption. W5700 and P5000 do not have ray tracing support which I don't need right now but likely will in the future.

The W6600 is seeming like the best value here - is there a reason to go for the RTX 4000 or shell out even more for one of the other options? (Raw performance in Tflops and rendering is similar between all 4.)

 

[BondiBlue]

That's a lot of money for a GPU. Is there a specific reason (other than the fact that you like them) that you want a Quadro/Radeon Pro card in the first place?

 

Side note: if you want to compare the performance difference for your specific workload between the P5000 and the RTX 4000, just spin up a couple Paperspace VMs. You can pay hourly for both of them, so you'd be able to do a bit of testing without buying the card. 

[da na]

6 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

That's a lot of money for a GPU. Is there a specific reason (other than the fact that you like them) that you want a Quadro/Radeon Pro card in the first place?

 

Side note: if you want to compare the performance difference for your specific workload between the P5000 and the RTX 4000, just spin up a couple Paperspace VMs. You can pay hourly for both of them, so you'd be able to do a bit of testing without buying the card. 

Good to know about the VMs. I'll look at the rates and consider that. 

 

I want a workstation card because of the blower fan (for my weird case) and CAD software side optimizations. I prefer pro drivers to gaming drivers in terms of features, bloat amount and general feel. Don't have to worry about which partner board to get because it's one, made and tested by the manufacturer. 

 

Edit: I'd expect to recoup $300 or so from selling my 980 SC. And all the Pro cards are actually in stock at MSRP because they target a niche market. I feel spending $400-500 on a card I'll have for heck probably 6 more years is reasonable. 

[BondiBlue]

18 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Good to know about the VMs. I'll look at the rates and consider that. 

The RTX 4000 VM is $0.56/hr and the P5000 VM is $0.78/hr. IIRC you don't even need to pay for the full month of storage (usually it's a set price/month for storage + hourly usage) if you deactivate the machine. I wish they had Radeon Pro offerings, but they're Nvidia only ATM. 

 

21 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Edit: I'd expect to recoup $300 or so from selling my 980 SC. And all the Pro cards are actually in stock at MSRP because they target a niche market. I feel spending $400-500 on a card I'll have for heck probably 6 more years is reasonable. 

In that case it could definitely make more sense.