Ge forcing cad!

[Balaji]

How well does gtx 1060 handle solidworks under heavy designing

Relatively priced quadro m1200 has 4gigs whereas 1060 has 6gigs 

Is 4gb sufficient for very large assemblies or is it better to opt 6gb?

Thanks in advance 

Please reply

[ShadySocks]

The quadro is designed specifically for workstation use, while the 1060 is for gaming. Check out these benchmarks: 

https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/shareyourscore.htm

[ARikozuM]

I'd go with the 1060 unless you need the FP double-precision. 

[ShadySocks]

It looks like the 1060 is faster?

[ShadySocks]

However, the benchmarks vary greatly even with the same processor????

[ShadySocks]

?????????????

[The Sloth]

 what job? i would suggest the gtx 1060, it's overall better also the VRAM will be at your disposal if you need it. 

[ShadySocks]

The quadro is 2.5 years old now. I think the 1060 is just better.

[ARikozuM]

Just now, ShadySocks said:

?????????????

You'll always have variations in time. You might be looking at outliers in the dataset.

[Guest]

Just now, ShadySocks said:

It looks like the 1060 is faster?

 

Just now, ShadySocks said:

?????????????

 

Just now, ShadySocks said:

However, the benchmarks vary greatly even with the same processor????

where are these results from?? and what are those numbers?

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, deXxterlab97 said:

where are these results from?? and what are those numbers?

Benchmark times for Solidworks. Lower is better. 

[scottyseng]

17 minutes ago, Balaji said:

-snip-

The other thing to note is that with Solid works, some features are disabled if you don't have a Quadro / Firepro. I haven't used the software myself, but I do believe transparency is disabled with a non certified card.

[ARikozuM]

@nerdslayer1 Can you confirm the above? I only use Autodesk for CAD.

[scottyseng]

6 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

-snip-

Yeah, I only use Autodesk stuff myself too...I just remember reading online that Solidworks was one of the picky software programs with workstation GPUs.

 

Also correct answer from this post here:

 

[The Sloth]

 

Just now, ARikozuM said:

@nerdslayer1 Can you confirm the above? I only use Autodesk for CAD.

yup, sadly that's a new industry thing, people have found ways to work around it, for an average consumer( i am assuming OP), if OP can use the extra features i would suggest a Quadro. 

 

i asked OP what specifically the task is, for most people a GTX card will be more than enough but if something serious needs to be done a Quadro will be needed.

[ARikozuM]

9 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

yup, sadly that's a new industry thing, people have found ways to work around it, for an average consumer( i am assuming OP), if OP can use the extra features i would suggest a Quadro. 

Note to self: Stick with Autodesk.

[bimmerman]

[regarding transparency being disabled-- this is incorrect and not the case with SW 2017 or any prior version as far as I have seen on non-workstation hardware.]

 

Solidworks will run on gamer hardware, with some caveats. There really isn't any benefit to be had from a 'faster' card though-- for years I have used an intel iGPU and it's good enough for most things. FPS is not a factor in CAD-- what matters more is the stability of the driver, stability of the hardware, consistency of geometry display, and to a much much lesser degree, the rendering horsepower. The vast majority of CAD professionals I know use mid to low-tier Quadro/Firepros, quite frequently those found in mobile workstations. Having used those and much fancier ones I can guarantee that there is very little perceptible difference in performance beyond the mid tier cards (this doesn't apply to people doing crazy photorealistic rendering jobs).

 

Case in point-- my current work laptop, a Precision M5520, has a Quadro M1200 (I think, it's the 4GB one) as well as a Solidworks-certified (!!) iGPU in the mobile Xeon processor. This means that I get good performance when plugged in to wall power and using the Quadro, which is woefully underpowered by gaming standards, but I can unplug from the wall without drastic loss in performance since the iGPU is certified for use in CAD. Yes, the FPS goes way down. No, that isn't important.

 

Where Solidworks benefits from the Quadros and Firepros is in rendering accuracy and in the photorealism plugins (Real View). Every time I use non-workstation hardware with any degree of part or assembly complexity I get geometry errors, intersecting vertices, transparent/hollow areas, none of which are actually on the part I modeled. On top of that, without a Quadro or Firepro you are forced into software rendering-- this is most obvious since you can't use Realview or Photowerks, but it is a large part of why the graphical glitches crop up. The real crux of the matter is the GPU drivers, not the brand. Solidworks really wants to see certified drivers to enable features and perform at its best; this is why cards like the Titan and Radeon Pro are not as effective as cheap Quadros or Firepros. Or the aforementioned mobile Xeon iGPU.

 

My advice, having made my living using Solidworks for 10+ years-- buy a Quadro or Firepro, forget the Gaming grade cards. A Firepro does edge out a Quadro depending on how much stock you put in the benchmarks....but I don't notice a difference now that I have mobile versions of both at my disposal (two differently specced Dell Precisions, a firepro M4800 and quadro 5520).

 

If you're a college student though, use the CAD workstation computers on campus and buy whatever you want for your home rig-- no sense duplicating what you have access to for free.

I will also say my Firepro powered M4800 played Bioshock Infinite pretty well, so...gaming's not ruled out with these cards either.

[scottyseng]

12 minutes ago, bimmerman said:

-snip-

Ah, well, I guess I was wrong on that. Weird, I remember long ago there was some feature of Solidworks that got disabled without a workstation GPU. Maybe it was hardware accelerated x-ray view...it was quite some time ago so I don't remember it well.

 

Yeah, I remember dealing with issues in Revit (graphical ones) back when I was doing blueprinting for my dad with a Radeon 4850. I then bought a FirePro V7900 used and it worked great. It also handles high poly 3D models quite well, even today compared to my 1070.

 

Thanks for the information though. I think AMD is rebranding FirePro as Radeon Pro (at least from what I've read in other forum topics about it...I kind of hope they keep the FirePro name though).

[bimmerman]

18 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Ah, well, I guess I was wrong on that. Weird, I remember long ago there was some feature of Solidworks that got disabled without a workstation GPU. Maybe it was hardware accelerated x-ray view...it was quite some time ago so I don't remember it well.

 

Yeah, I remember dealing with issues in Revit (graphical ones) back when I was doing blueprinting for my dad with a Radeon 4850. I then bought a FirePro V7900 used and it worked great. It also handles high poly 3D models quite well, even today compared to my 1070.

 

Thanks for the information though. I think AMD is rebranding FirePro as Radeon Pro (at least from what I've read in other forum topics about it...I kind of hope they keep the FirePro name though).

I think you mean RealView-- that's the only regular feature that I'm aware of that's outright disabled without the certified hardware/driver combination. It's the material appearance and lighting effects during normal modeling. Fancier things like photorealistic rendering are also disabled, but those aren't as immediately apparent. You can definitely do transparent/xray as well as hidden lines/wireframe/shaded/shaded+edges with any GPU. The hidden lines visible wireframe view is what I've found to be the hardest on the GPU, and the little iGPUs choke doing that.

 

I think you're right that Radeon Pro is becoming what FirePros were....my concern is that the last couple Radeon Pro Duo cards don't have certified drivers for Solidworks to the best of my knowledge. Hopefully that'll change!

 

The workstation cards are really good value when bought used-- they don't become obsolete nearly as quickly (at least for CAD) as the gaming cards and are designed to run forever on low power with low noise/thermals. 

[scottyseng]

Just now, bimmerman said:

-snip-

Yeah, I think it was realview now that I think about it with your description.

 

I was also a bit confused as to why the Radeon Pros didn't have Solidworks drivers either. Since the Radeon Pro is supposed to replace the FirePro, I thought it would carry all of the FirePro certifications.

 

I think I'll probably pick up a used Maxwell Quadro some day if I get better at 3D modeling. You can definitely tell when my 1070 is choking with high tessellation. The entire 3DS Max UI starts to lag bad. I mostly just plan to use gaming cards as cheap rendering slaves for vray.

 

It's great to get input from a experienced user in the Solidworks field though.