DO YOU NEED PRO GRAPHICS?
All but one of the manufacturers sent us laptops with consumer graphics rather than pro chips – so should you upgrade?
Many of the old distinctions between mobile workstation laptops and their mainstream equivalents are eroding. You’re now far less likely to find a Xeon Mobile processor than a standard Core i7 or i9 CPU, and while you might enjoy additional security or maintenance features, the basic hardware will be much the same. Yet there’s still one pro-grade component that many still recommend: a professional GPU.
What makes them special, and do you really need one?
The answer is complex. Both
Nvidia and AMD continue to roll out and support a pro graphics line. In Nvidia’s case, it bears the Quadro branding, whereas AMD uses Radeon Pro. There are both desktop and mobile variants, and the desktop cards are manufactured by Nvidia or AMD rather than third parties, as is the case with most mainstream GPUs.
However, while the GPUs are branded differently, they use identical architecture to consumer GPUs. Nvidia’s latest Quadro GPUs are based on TU104, TU106, TU116 and TU117 architectures, as are its consumergrade GeForce GPUs, yet the desktop cards that feature them can cost more than double the price of the GeForce equivalent. Where a vanilla 8GB RTX 2080 Super graphics card might come in at around £700, the equivalent Quadro RTX 5000 costs a cool £2,099. It’s a similar story with AMD, where the Radeon Pro WX9100 costs over £1,500 despite using the same 4,096stream Vega core tech as the old RX Vega 64 – a GPU long overpowered by AMD’s more recent RDNA 2 cards.
There’s no question that buying a consumer-grade card means you’re getting more bang for your buck, and while we don’t know how much Nvidia and AMD charge laptop makers for pro parts there are guaranteed to be price implications.
Take Nvidia’s Quadro T1000 mobile GPU. This is based on the same TU117 architecture as the GTX 1650 but offers fewer CUDA cores (768 to the 1650’s 1024) and has a lower 1,455MHz maximum clock rate (the 1650 can reach 1,560MHz). While laptops featuring Core i7 CPUs with GTX 1650 graphics can be found for under £1,000, you’ll struggle to find a workstation laptop with a T1000 in it for less than £2,000.
Nor do the issues disappear once you reach the giddy heights of RTX GPUs. The Quadro RTX 4000 mobile
GPU is based on the same TU104 die as the GeForce RTX 2080 mobile GPU, but has fewer shaders (2,560 to 2,944) and a lower maximum clock speed (1,560MHz to 1,590MHz). Despite this, you’re unlikely to find one in a laptop costing less than £2,200.
Support and optimisation
So does anything justify the extra cost of pro GPUs? Well, there are differences. First, the pro variants often support more memory. Where the RTX 2080 Super desktop GPU stops at 8GB, Quadro RTX 5000 cards typically ship with 16GB. Desktop cards are often manufactured to a higher spec for reliability, and also supported by a long-term warranty, and may have more security or management features, such as the ability to disable the USB-C port.
But the real difference comes down to two things: driver optimisations and independent software vendor (ISV) support. Where GeForce drivers are optimised primarily for games, with frequent updates to cover new titles, Quadro drivers are optimised for creative and workstation apps and for more specific rendering tasks. They’re designed to accelerate processes such as wireframe rendering or double-sided polygon rendering, which are unimportant within most mainstream applications but crucial within some 3D graphics and CAD applications.
Meanwhile, Nvidia and AMD work with the leading CAD, engineering, scientific and 3D software vendors, including Autodesk, Siemens, Dassault and PTC, to certify that their Quadro and Radeon Pro GPUs are compatible with those applications. As part of the process, there may be further optimisations. As a result, you can be confident that a high-end application such as Dassault’s SolidWorks will run efficiently and reliably on a Quadro processor, where it may not on the mainstream RTX. In some cases, performance will be higher, even if the GPU is theoretically weaker.
Does ISV certification matter? Certainly when your business relies on specific applications, but less so if you’re working in mainstream image-editing, video-editing or 3D applications. In these scenarios, we’d say stick with the consumer GPU and get more performance for your money or save yourself some cash.
Nvidia seems to understand this, having released special RTX Studio drivers for its mainstream GPUs designed to accelerate performance and work more reliably in creative applications. Many of the laptops this month came preinstalled with these drivers or will support them, and it’s worth using them if you’re mainly interested in pro design.
“There’s no question that buying a consumer-grade graphics card means you are getting more bang for your buck”