Workstation + Consumer card in same PC?

[bimmerman]

Hi all,

 

I made a thread a few weeks ago regarding what consumer grade cards would work well in professional engineering applications, with the consensus being mixed. I then saw the whole room watercooling video that showed one of the LTT group's PC running both consumer grade cards (2x Titan) and a single Quadro in the same PC, which got me thinking.

 

How realistic is a setup like this? My PC is used primarily for 3d modeling and analysis (Solidworks, Ansys), simulation (matlab/Simulink), and occasional casual gaming (tomb raider, dragon age). Would a mix of consumer cards and workstation cards be easy to set up? Would it work well for my multi-use case? What drawbacks are there? Alternatively, how effective at DirectX games are the workstation cards?

 

I need a machine that can render OpenGL well (Solidworks suite will not render without a workstation card), accelerate SW modeling graphics, can be used in computationally intensive simulations, and if I can, occasionally game on.

 

TL;DR: Current rig is i7-950, ATi HD 5870, 24GB ram. I'd like to improve the graphics and computational performance without changing CPU/mobo/ram, to be used in OpenGL and DirectX programs, and am very curious about the pros/cons/how-tos of mixing consumer and workstation cards in the same PC. Gaming performance is nice, but if workstation cards provide around 5870 levels of performance I'd be happy.

[Kherm]

If you happened to upgrade to a Tesla, Quadro, Titan, etc. you would have to upgrade your CPU because it would be a bottleneck

[Flyguygamer]

Connect 1 monitor to the quadro and the other to the gtx, game on the gtx monitor, anything that needs the quadro is on the quadro monitor.

[bimmerman]

If you happened to upgrade to a Tesla, Quadro, Titan, etc. you would have to upgrade your CPU because it would be a bottleneck

Maybe, maybe not. Can you quantify the % less performance vs a newer i7? Remember, I'm looking to get stable OpenGL CAD modeling and rendering work done as well as GPU processing. I am currently running near 100% on the CPU (across all 8 threads) because Solidworks bypasses consumer GPUs entirely (as in, it forces software rendering and disables all hardware rendering), so from my standpoint anything is an improvement. The upper end can bottleneck all it wants, that would be a good problem to have.

 

Connect 1 monitor to the quadro and the other to the gtx, game on the gtx monitor, anything that needs the quadro is on the quadro monitor.

 

Wouldn't that cause driver issues to crop up? How would you solve any that do?

Thanks guys, please keep the ideas and pros/cons coming. If anyone doesn't know about the workstation+consumer setup, but can speak to whether (and what) workstation cards can play games like Tomb Raider/Dragon Age Inquisition at framerates better than an old HD5870, that is also extremely good information.

[Kherm]

Connect 1 monitor to the quadro and the other to the gtx, game on the gtx monitor, anything that needs the quadro is on the quadro monitor.

Or, if you'd like to game on 2 or Edit on 2, connect the Quadro to both via DP, and connect the GTX to both via DVI

[Flyguygamer]

Maybe, maybe not. Can you quantify the % less performance vs a newer i7? Remember, I'm looking to get stable OpenGL CAD modeling and rendering work done as well as GPU processing. I am currently running near 100% on the CPU (across all 8 threads) because Solidworks bypasses consumer GPUs entirely (as in, it forces software rendering and disables all hardware rendering), so from my standpoint anything is an improvement. The upper end can bottleneck all it wants, that would be a good problem to have.

 

 

Wouldn't that cause driver issues to crop up? How would you solve any that do?

Thanks guys, please keep the ideas and pros/cons coming. If anyone doesn't know about the workstation+consumer setup, but can speak to whether (and what) workstation cards can play games like Tomb Raider/Dragon Age Inquisition at framerates better than an old HD5870, that is also extremely good information.

You would have to chose between them for different tasks.

[bimmerman]

Or, if you'd like to game on 2 or Edit on 2, connect the Quadro to both via DP, and connect the GTX to both via DVI

 

 

You would have to chose between them for different tasks.

 

So the only way to do it is to install/reinstall drivers constantly? That's...a huge pain. Is that how the LTT guy in the watercooling video is running 2x Titans + Quadro?

[Flyguygamer]

So the only way to do it is to install/reinstall drivers constantly? That's...a huge pain. Is that how the LTT guy in the watercooling video is running 2x Titans + Quadro?

 

Doesn't game, the titans are there for the cuda cores only, the monitors are on the qudro and the render horsepower is on the titans with no drivers.

[WoodenMarker]

I wouldn't bother doing any serious gaming with WS cards. 

 

If you happened to upgrade to a Tesla, Quadro, Titan, etc. you would have to upgrade your CPU because it would be a bottleneck

Not necessarily. Bottlenecking can happen depending on the usage and bottlenecks that could occur for gaming often don't translate to usages outside of gaming--especially when it comes to content creation where resources are much better optimized than games. 

Wouldn't that cause driver issues to crop up? How would you solve any that do?

Thanks guys, please keep the ideas and pros/cons coming. If anyone doesn't know about the workstation+consumer setup, but can speak to whether (and what) workstation cards can play games like Tomb Raider/Dragon Age Inquisition at framerates better than an old HD5870, that is also extremely good information.

There shouldn't be issues. Different graphics cards should be able to work independently just fine in a system. 

 

Due to the differently optimized drivers, WS cards will often fall quite behind their consumer card equivalents for gaming: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-6.html

It shouldn't be too hard to get a WS card that games better than a 5870 though.

So the only way to do it is to install/reinstall drivers constantly? That's...a huge pain. Is that how the LTT guy in the watercooling video is running 2x Titans + Quadro?

No need to reinstall drivers. Just install drivers for the cards you have and let them run independently.

 

If you can use a Titan or a consumer grade card for what you're doing, then do that. If that's not possible, look into what WS options are within your budget and see if they perform well enough for what you're doing including gaming. 

[han_han08]

5870 is good for compute softwares?

 

I play games most of the time, but there are instances I have to do work at home and I have learned Tekla Structures are well suited for green team cards (Nvidia). I have to say bye2 to red team cards because of this..

 

didn't linus make a video about a gaming card plus a dedicated physX card?

 

thanks to the poster as this is interesting for me as well

[bimmerman]

I wouldn't bother doing any serious gaming with WS cards. 

 

Not necessarily. Bottlenecking can happen depending on the usage and bottlenecks that could occur for gaming often don't translate to usages outside of gaming--especially when it comes to content creation where resources are much better optimized than games. 

There shouldn't be issues. Different graphics cards should be able to work independently just fine in a system. 

 

Due to the differently optimized drivers, WS cards will often fall quite behind their consumer card equivalents for gaming: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-6.html

It shouldn't be too hard to get a WS card that games better than a 5870 though.

No need to reinstall drivers. Just install drivers for the cards you have and let them run independently.

 

If you can use a Titan or a consumer grade card for what you're doing, then do that. If that's not possible, look into what WS options are within your budget and see if they perform well enough for what you're doing including gaming. 

 

Thank you, that is very helpful. I see if anyone's done rendering/modeling on a titan-grade card, but most likely will get the WS card and accept it won't game that well.

 

Thanks!

 

[NeverNotExhausted]

I wouldn't bother doing any serious gaming with WS cards. 

 

Not necessarily. Bottlenecking can happen depending on the usage and bottlenecks that could occur for gaming often don't translate to usages outside of gaming--especially when it comes to content creation where resources are much better optimized than games. 

There shouldn't be issues. Different graphics cards should be able to work independently just fine in a system. 

 

Due to the differently optimized drivers, WS cards will often fall quite behind their consumer card equivalents for gaming: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425-6.html

It shouldn't be too hard to get a WS card that games better than a 5870 though.

No need to reinstall drivers. Just install drivers for the cards you have and let them run independently.

 

If you can use a Titan or a consumer grade card for what you're doing, then do that. If that's not possible, look into what WS options are within your budget and see if they perform well enough for what you're doing including gaming. 

 

You seem to be pretty knowledgeable on the topic so I'ma ask a kinda related question to OP's here.

 

I'm looking at running a 290 or 290x in tandem with a low end quadro in order to get 10 bit colour output, Good OpenCL performance out of the 290/290x and good gaming performance. Would I be able to do OpenCL processing on my 290x while still getting 10 bit colour output from the Quadro card I'm looking at getting? The Quadro would essentially not do any actual computing, just output the 10 bit colour spectrum while the consumer gpu did the rendering work. Would this at all be feasible or even reasonable?

 

Sorry to be a bother, but I've been researching this topic for a few days now and haven't found any reliable answer.

[WoodenMarker]

You seem to be pretty knowledgeable on the topic so I'ma ask a kinda related question to OP's here.

I'm looking at running a 290 or 290x in tandem with a low end quadro in order to get 10 bit colour output, Good OpenCL performance out of the 290/290x and good gaming performance. Would I be able to do OpenCL processing on my 290x while still getting 10 bit colour output from the Quadro card I'm looking at getting? The Quadro would essentially not do any actual computing, just output the 10 bit colour spectrum while the consumer gpu did the rendering work. Would this at all be feasible or even reasonable?

Sorry to be a bother, but I've been researching this topic for a few days now and haven't found any reliable answer.

Yes, that's fine.

BTW, this would be one of those times where making a new thread would be more appropriate than necroing one from last year.

[NeverNotExhausted]

Yes, that's fine.

BTW, this would be one of those times where making a new thread would be more appropriate than necroing one from last year.

 

Yeah I tried making a thread without any success. Sorry to be a nuisance but this was the only place I have really had any success at finding an answer at all.

 

Many thanks