GTX or Quadro?

[ShadowRunner]

I'm interested in making a pc build that will allow me to edit videos, animate, model, and play some games.

 

I've been told that Quadro cards are workstations and are said to be geared specifically for the first 3 options, while the GTX supports gaming the best.

 

 

However I've also been told that it won't matter and a GTX, specifically the GTX 980, will allow me to run games and content creation software smoothly. Can anyone help me out with this? This along with choosing the correct CPU has been preventing me from actually creating my build for quite some time due to the fear of buying the wrong parts.

 

EDIT: Also, I'm still a student and haven't gone any where near "professional" at this point concerning content creation. However I do plan on getting into a bit more advanced things in the future...however if this PC could multi-tasks it would be great. The build I wish to make is budgeted to 3k including monitors.

[gollum99]

Well depends on your budget, 980 is a great option since games wont run too well on a quadro. For the cpu get a 4790k  or if youve got more budget something x99 like a 5930k

[Raudi_]

Right between the 980 and Titan X there is a 4 second difference at the minimum with render stuff out with CUDA in adobe. So your choice with your money.

[Sheldon_King]

 since games wont run too well on a quadro.

That is a flat out LIE. See here: http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Can-you-game-on-an-NVIDIA-Quadro-GPU-604/ 

 

That said, the 980 will be faster for the money in everything he wants to do than an equally priced quadro.

[Laputacake]

I think low end Quadros are glorified GTX cards with just a few special features and higher binned and lower power consumption. The Titan series is basically a workstation gaming graphics card. However a a GTX graphics card would be perfectly capable of all the tasks you wish to perform. As Gollum said if you have a large budget pairing it with a X99 CPU would also help with the tasks. If not, and you do not wish to overclock then a Xeon 1230 V3 or Xeon 1231 V3 would also be a good choice.

[gollum99]

That is a flat out LIE. See here: http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Can-you-game-on-an-NVIDIA-Quadro-GPU-604/ 

 

That said, the 980 will be faster for the money in everything he wants to do than an equally priced quadro.

Quote from that article: Quadro 5200 is about 5% slower than a 770 and looking at what hes aiming for with his build a 970 just seems the right choise since its got plenty of power for all the tasks he mentioned + its more bang for the buck

[zlolslavez]

[Sheldon_King]

Quote from that article: Quadro 5200 is about 5% slower than a 770 and looking at what hes aiming for with his build a 970 just seems the right choise since its got plenty of power for all the tasks he mentioned + its more bang for the buck

not the point. He specifically said that quadros will not game well. THat 5% is almost certainly the clockspeed difference.  Quadros will game, and that has nothing to do with the OPs usecase. If he needed the certified drivers and 10/12/14 bit support, it would make more sense to game on a quadro than to render 8 bit on a geforce.

[Casperian]

I'm running 780 Ti's for those purposes. You should be good with GTX unless you are doing high end stuff. The biggest example of the quadro being a beast is in 3DS, it's optimizations are very solid but then, if it's maxing out at 30FPS, I'd rather have a 780 Ti that stay above 30 at all times (Bar when I did a manual retopo. Never Again...)

[Casperian]

not the point. He specifically said that quadros will not game well. THat 5% is almost certainly the clockspeed difference.  Quadros will game, and that has nothing to do with the OPs usecase. If he needed the certified drivers and 10/12/14 bit support, it would make more sense to game on a quadro than to render 8 bit on a geforce.

Quadros have the added benefit of not having geforce driver. So many games that are released ship broken, NVidia and AMD have driver teams dedicated to creating workarounds in the drivers. For example, they might need to force the driver to run a different shader for better performance.

 

The Quadros don't get those patchs until a lot later because Quadro drivers are validated and are the most stable releases.

 

EDIT: That said, if you spend your entire rendering, etc. The Guadro's are guaranteed for 24/7 operation, Geforce are not.

[Sheldon_King]

Quadros have the added benefit of not having geforce driver. So many games that are released ship broken, NVidia and AMD have driver teams dedicated to creating workarounds in the drivers. For example, they might need to force the driver to run a different shader for better performance.

 

The Quadros don't get those patchs until a lot later because Quadro drivers are validated and are the most stable releases.

I take it you have never used a Quadro or Firepro peronally, have you?

 

What you are saying was true 5 years ago. Right now, the Quadro and Geforce drivers are only 1 release behind each other (number is the same, but reading the release nots shows the difference). Gaming on Quadro (something I do regularly) works fine, and rarely is the driver any trouble unless you play on release day with a AAA game.

[Casperian]

I take it you have never used a Quadro or Firepro peronally, have you?

 

What you are saying was true 5 years ago. Right now, the Quadro and Geforce drivers are only 1 release behind each other (number is the same, but reading the release nots shows the difference). Gaming on Quadro (something I do regularly) works fine, and rarely is the driver any trouble unless you play on release day with a AAA game.

I haven't used one a while, but I use a Tesla a lot (I don't roll those drivers often). Didn't notice that Quadros were one release behind.

 

And I was talking about release day games. It's better to know potential drawbacks and not care than to not know and get annoyed.

 

EDIT: To be honest, you've convinced me to pick up a Quadro next year. Well, seems like the one drawback doesn't exist.

[techguru]

whats more important to you

gaming or editing

[ShadowRunner]

whats more important to you

gaming or editing

 

 

Well, I do have a console and I'm not looking to be a professional gamer or anything. So content production would definitely be the higher priority. 

 

EDIT: But I do have a budget of 3k including monitors. Not to mention I'm not a professional at content creation, i'm still just a student.

[Sheldon_King]

Well, I do have a console and I'm not looking to be a professional gamer or anything. So content production would definitely be the higher priority. 

In your video work, are you using 10(+) bit images, or just standard 8 bit (game footage, etc)? If not Geforce will give you more performance per $$. If you will be using greater than 8 bit files, the quadro/firepro is your ONLY option.

 

I haven't used one a while, but I use a Tesla a lot (I don't roll those drivers often). Didn't notice that Quadros were one release behind.

 

And I was talking about release day games. It's better to know potential drawbacks and not care than to not know and get annoyed.

Well, you do realize that release day will have issues no matter the card you use. Difference is Geforce will get the fix first.

 

I personally would always use a quadro over geforce, even with the gaming drawbacks, but I NEED certified drivers and 14 bit support for my work (which is video editing).

[Casperian]

Well, you do realize that release day will have issues no matter the card you use. Difference is Geforce will get the fix first.

 

I personally would always use a quadro over geforce, even with the gaming drawbacks, but I NEED certified drivers and 14 bit support for my work (which is video editing).

That's what I meant by the drawbacks, quadro users get to wait longer although with quadros only one release behind, it's almost an non-issue. Put it this way, I still really like professional grade cards. I'd have one but being a student is overpowered, that and NZ hasn't low end quadros until recently (I think I could only find k5200 and k6000 when I was shopping)

 

Well, I do have a console and I'm not looking to be a professional gamer or anything. So content production would definitely be the higher priority. 

 

EDIT: But I do have a budget of 3k including monitors. Not to mention I'm not a professional at content creation, i'm still just a student.

I'm also a student, the geforce cards are doing well for me. Depending on what exactly you are doing, you shouldn't need 10bit color yet. Personally I'd save money and get a geforce card (Unless you can get a low end quadro. In which case, if gaming performance doesn't matter, get it) and invest in a beastly CPU. A CPU is very helpful for rendering and I'm noticing my CPU more than a non-professional GPU. 

[Sheldon_King]

That's what I meant by the drawbacks, quadro users get to wait longer although with quadros only one release behind, it's almost an non-issue. Put it this way, I still really like professional grade cards. I'd have one but being a student is overpowered, that and NZ hasn't low end quadros until recently (I think I could only find k5200 and k6000 when I was shopping)

The "drawbacks" are almost always better than not having the better suited card. That said, I can not comment on your nation not having lower end quadros, but I would assume you could get one from either Amazon or Nvidia driectly. If not, then ger a Dell, Lenovo (IBM), or HP workstation, and you will be able to use any quadro you select. Also Thinkmate sells GPUs, and ships international (as does puget, but iirc they only sell systems).

[Casperian]

The "drawbacks" are almost always better than not having the better suited card. That said, I can not comment on your nation not having lower end quadros, but I would assume you could get one from either Amazon or Nvidia driectly. If not, then ger a Dell, Lenovo (IBM), or HP workstation, and you will be able to use any quadro you select. Also Thinkmate sells GPUs, and ships international (as does puget, but iirc they only sell systems).

Yeah but the import duty is painful. Yeah, on a $500 4000 Quadro, it would be almost 30% of the purchase cost in Duty and that not including freight cost (Which is also taxable). I'm travelling back to the UK at Christmas to see family so I might get one then if I have any money left from buying a monitor.

[ShadowRunner]

In your video work, are you using 10(+) bit images, or just standard 8 bit (game footage, etc)? If not Geforce will give you more performance per $$. If you will be using greater than 8 bit files, the quadro/firepro is your ONLY option.

 

 

So a Geforce card compared to a Quadro/Firepro will have no way of handling anything above 8 bit files?

[Sheldon_King]

So a Geforce card compared to a Quadro/Firepro will have no way of handling anything above 8 bit files?

Geforce is limited to 8 bit (and below). If you need more, you have to get a Quadro.

 

AMD cards, I have herd tell  that HD and R series can run 10 bit, but I have no way to confirm (as my 14 bit panel is on my laptop (dreamcolor panel)).

[ShadowRunner]

Geforce is limited to 8 bit (and below). If you need more, you have to get a Quadro.

 

AMD cards, I have herd tell  that HD and R series can run 10 bit, but I have no way to confirm (as my 14 bit panel is on my laptop (dreamcolor panel)).

 

I see. Do you mind telling/showing me how I can find out whether a GPU supports 8/10/12/etc. bit?  

[Sheldon_King]

I see. Do you mind telling/showing me how I can find out whether a GPU supports 8/10/12/etc. bit?  

I myself do not know how to find that information for every card. I do know that Nvidia supports it on the entire Quadro line, see here for info: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3011/~/10-bit-per-color-support-on-nvidia-geforce-gpus 

 

Amd seems to be supported on at least the R9 series consumer card, as seen here (not my video, only chosen for its showing of 10 bit functioning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-MXyvD3iRA.