Can someone explain the difference between Quadro/GeForce?

[brad82]

Pretty much what the title says, whats the difference between the two products, and why would I use either/or?

Thanks guys

 

[Shayper]

Quadro is business orientated, they are for serious number crunching, and don't have a video output. Geforce cards have video output, and are better suited to playing games

 

[nxr]

Quadro is business orientated, they are for serious number crunching, and don't have a video output. Geforce cards have video output, and are better suited to playing games

You're thinking of Tesla, not Quadro.

Quadro is the workstation graphics card.

Basically, if you don't know why you need a Quadro, then you probably don't need a Quadro.

The hardware is slightly different, tweaked for better quality & reliability. And the drivers will be optimized towards correctness, rather than out and out speed (a rendering error doesn't really matter in Generic Shooter 3, but may be a serious problem if you're designing jet engines). And some extra features and application optimizations are enabled on the Quadros. You'll also get better support (both hardware and software).

You'll generally buy Quadro if a GPU failure wil result in a large loss of money for your business. This reduction in risk easily offsets the high purchase cost.

 

[Shayper]

Bugger, you are right

 

[brad82]

Am I right in thinking there are some Quadro cards that are designed to support upwards of 2 screens simultaneously without the addition of a second card?

EDIT: Answered my own question: Yes there is, the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 450 will support 4 monitors at resolutions of up to 1920 x 1200@60Hz, however for a card priced at around £300, I cant see performance being very good.

 

[Ingleberry]

The main thing is stability rather than absolute frame rates which is what you need for workstation doing publishing, photo work, cad/cam, design, engineering ect

These cards i use the term loosely unlock software features re-directing usual cpu work onto gpu when i can do it much faster, such software is Adobe and Dassault are most common software to do this (many others do as well)

If your planning on gaming then its far better value buying geforce card instead.

Yes they all support 2 screens some older versions could run up to 6 screens independent having different image on each or long continuous desktop or same image on all.

 

[iviv]

As I understand it, you don't want to be gaming on the Quadro cards. They are usually far more expensive than their 'equivalent' gaming card, while offering less performance due to the hardware being optimised for rendering and so on, rather than throwing out as many frames as possible. Like said earlier, with gaming the accuracy isn't mega important. Of course, you don't want mistakes because people wouldn't buy the card, but equally when you're running at 60+fps you aren't going to notice minor errors.
But when you#re doing massively stressful rendering, you need 100% accuracy.

Basically, if you don't know why you need a Quadro, then you probably don't need a Quadro.

This.

Edit: Have a read of this: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_geforce.html

 

[marc1024]

i seen a system with 2 of these running, it was a home made server set up for autocad and heavy fluid simulations. I asked if it could play minecraft and funnily enough it could barely get 15fps when the cards where bought for £450 each. I dont know the exact card but it had a quadro cooler on them, looks sick !

 

[brad82]

Thanks for the help guys - Ill save up for that GeForce 590 then!