Consumer vs pro cards
James Morris asks: Are workstation graphics cards worth the extra cost over their consumer-grade equivalent?
Do you really need to pay for pro graphics cards or will consumer cards do?
We are frequently asked by readers whether the considerably greater cost of professional workstation graphics accelerators over their consumer equivalents was worthwhile. The Nvidia Quadro M4000, for example, has 1,664 CUDA cores, which is the same number as the Nvidia Geforce GTX 970, although the latter has 4GB of GDDR5 compared to the M4000’s 8GB, and the 4GB is divided into an unusual 3.5GB + 0.5GB configuration with the smaller portion of frame buffer
There are some valid support-related reasons for the price differential, and this starts with manufacturing quality
running quite a bit more slowly. But the Quadro M4000 will set you back around £650 plus VAT, whilst a standard Geforce GTX 970 is just a tad over £200. That would seem like a ridiculous difference – more than three times the price. So we thought we would investigate the issue and give you a definitive answer.
To begin with there are some valid support-related reasons for the price differential, and this starts with manufacturing quality. Due to the latter, the workstation products do come with longer standard warranties – three years instead of two (or even one), often with the option to extend to five. Another factor is software support (which we look at in more detail in The Vendor’s Perspective boxout). Consumer-grade graphics cards manufacturers do not give any guarantee that their cards will work with any particular professional software title. Conversely, the makers of professional 3D content creation applications only test using professional-grade graphics cards, and will only certify specific driver versions with specific versions of their software, and specific operating systems. This in turn means that, in theory at least, the hardware vendor will be able to provide technical support and bug fixes that ensure you get your chosen application working as it should. They probably would not provide support for hardware/driver/ software combinations that aren’t on their lists of compatibility.
It’s also worth noting that, whilst you can find fairly close parallels between some models in the consumer and professional ranges, there is actually now increasing differentiation in features across the two lines. For example, Nvidia’s Quadro K2200 is most closely paralleled by the Geforce 750 Ti, since both offer 640 CUDA cores and use the GM107 GPU from the Maxwell generation. But whilst the Quadro version includes 4GB
of GDDR5 memory, the Geforce has a maximum of 2GB, although the basic Geforce 750, with 512 CUDA cores, is similar to the Quadro K1200, and does have 4GB versions, whilst the K1200 comes with 4GB as standard.
As you go up the range, this differentiation becomes more pronounced. The Geforce GTX 980 offers 2,048 CUDA cores with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, the Geforce GTX 980 Ti has 2,816 CUDA cores and 6GB of GDDR5 memory, and the Geforce GTX Titan X boasts 12GB of GDDR5 with 3,072 CUDA cores. There’s no Quadro equivalent to the GTX 980 Ti, but the vanilla 980 parallels the Quadro M5000 in CUDA cores, whilst the GTX Titan X equals the M6000. All these consumer-grade cards are expensive, with the Titan X costing well over £800 inc
VAT, although this is about half the price of the M5000, and the M6000 is eye-wateringly close to £4,000, inc VAT.
Turning to AMD’S Firepro range, the W8100 was (until the Quadro M4000 was launched) the best value professional graphics card with 8GB of frame buffer, and the W7100 offered this for even less, although its performance isn’t so competitive. The W8100 boasts 2,560 stream processors, equivalent to the Radeon R9 390. AMD’S top-end Radeon R9 Nano and Fury X both sport 4,096 stream processors, with the just-
Texture memory is far more important in pro cards than it is in consumer-grade ones, so they tend to have more of it...
released Fury X2 integrating two Fury GPUS on one board. There is actually no parallel to these in the Firepro range, with the top W9100 only offering 2,816 stream processors. However, this boasts a whopping 16GB of GDDR5 memory, more than any current card on the market, either consumer or professional. AMD also has a new GPU generation called Polaris due in the first half of 2016, although as yet there has been no announcement when this will filter down to the professional range.
Summing this up, texture memory is far more important in professional cards than it is in consumer-grade ones. So they tend to have more of it, and this is an expensive inclusion which does go some way to explaining the price difference, particularly as this may also be Error- Correcting Code (ECC) memory. The Nvidia Quadro M5000 and M6000 use
ECC memory, as do the AMD Firepro W8100 and W9100. But beyond this, manufacturers often talk about how driver optimisation will have a very tangible effect on performance and stability with professional 3D applications. This is perhaps the most contentious claim, so we thought we would put it to the test (see Performance Tests boxout). The results aren’t a complete whitewash, but they are conclusive.
In the end, it’s the performance results that really tell the story about why a professional card is your best choice for professional applications. Yes, you can achieve comparable or even better performance with a consumergrade graphics card costing half the price in some applications. But some key software will be slower, and possibly catastrophically so. In a professional environment, you need to be certain that you can get the work done without any hitches, and you also need to know you can get technical support if things aren’t working as they should. In our tests, the Nvidia Quadro M4000 provides reliable performance across the board, even if it’s not always the fastest, whereas the Geforce GTX 970 is much more erratic. In other words, although you could save money by using a consumer-grade card, it could end up costing you more in the long run.
Read our card reviews in issue 198, www.bit.ly/3dworld-app