CUDA & GTX GPU at the same time

[benjaminjjarvis]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm currently in the process of getting some specs together for a video editing/gaming pc. Some of the videos on Lunus's channel feature a GTX and a Quadro GPU running in the same machine. I was hoping that someone could possibly explain to me why this is more beneficial than just running two GTX cards in SLI or how the GTX and the Quadro cards work together.

 

Thanks,

 

Ben

 

EDIT: I meant Quadro cards.

[Enderman]

all nvidia GPUs have CUDA cores...

[WoodenMarker]

Cuda is just the name give to the cores in Nvidia gpus. Some videos feature Quadros which are workstation graphics cards that can support 10-bit color along with other features that aren't available on consumer cards that may be important to content creation.

[benjaminjjarvis]

Sorry I spoke wrong, I meant Quadro GPU.

[Johannes_Lazor]

Sorry I spoke wrong, I meant Quadro GPU.

It is beneficial when using applications that make use of dual precision floating points, The Quadro cards are Superior over the GTX cards in that case, Exept for the Titan Z which is in a way both a GTX and Quadro card.

[Zulkkis]

Double precision floating points.

 

Regardless, Quadros tend to be more expensive for the performance they offer. They do support a more broad feature set, such as 3D Vision in OpenGL (no idea why nVidia doesn't allow all cards by default though tbh), ECC Ram, 10-bit color support. Everything rather specific and the drivers are optimized for software that is used professionally.

 

GTX cards are branded as gaming cards but they have better performance in everything but double precision, save for Titan. Titan lacks the ECC Ram that quadros have, making it unsuitable for some tasks that would use double precision.

 

Let's say you have a cheap Quadro card to support 10-bit colors for your display, then GTX cards for the actual performance. To be honest the needs for Quadro cards are so specific that unless you very specifically know what you're doing and the software you're using is specifically supported, I wouldn't be using them. They're oftentimes worse than the GTX alternative.

 

Running two GTX cards would deter you from using features that Quadros offer, but for the times you need performance that isn't Double Precision, the best bang for the buck are the GTX cards.

[WoodenMarker]

Regardless, Quadros tend to be more expensive for the performance they offer. They do support a more broad feature set, such as 3D Vision in OpenGL (no idea why nVidia doesn't allow all cards by default though tbh)

It's one of the many things Nvidia does to make Quadros seem more appealing.