Hello,
Some people suggested me to get a gaming card such as the GTX590 instead of the Quadro 4000 or 5000. The reason is that "It's my understanding that since Inventor moved away from OpenGL to DirectX, workstation cards aren't really a necessity like they used to be."
Is this true? Given a choice, which of the above cards would you chooce?
Correct, we run professional cards but there is no need these days. Go for value for money and get a top end gaming card such as the GTX590.
We used to run Quadro cards, but have now switched to fast "gaming" cards. Either the Nvidia or AMD cards work fine. We have gone with the EVGA cards, if you register their product within the set period, their warranties are quite long. If someone is willing to stand behind their product for a long period of time, you would guess their build quality is good along with used components.
Google search for graphic card ratings, there are a number of sites that test the card.
Make sure that your workstations support the gaming cards. We have found that our Lenovo workstations won't utilize the gaming cards.
@Anonymous wrote:Make sure that your workstations support the gaming cards. We have found that our Lenovo workstations won't utilize the gaming cards.
huh? why.. never heard/seen that before.
We tried putting a GeForce GTX580 into one of our Lenovo D20 Workstations and the bios had a fit.
Contacted Lenovo and were told that the D20s were not compatible with the gaming cards, only with the Nvidia Quadro cards.
We tried the same test on another D20 with an AMD Radeon 6870 card and had the same results.
First I've heard of such a thing either. ???
Not sure what mpatchus is referring to, but I've got a GTX 560Ti in an HP Z600, and there's not sufficient power taps available-- the Z600 power supply has only one 6-pin PCI power connector, and only one available Molex 12 V peripheral power connector. The 560Ti needs two 6-pin power connectors (one of which can be supplied by two Molex connectors).
The 560Ti works, but it doesn't have all the power available that it needs, on a workstation with a 600W power supply!
what psu has it got tho? Only reason I can think for any pc to be "incompatible" with a gpu (assuming it's the correct slot on the motherboard).
googling "Lenovo D20 geforce" gives the link below - shows that gaming cards do work on the system, so can only imagine the problem was the psu-demands of the higher-end gaming cards.
Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey
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I was beginning to wonder about gaming cards. Good to know.
First question would be, do they still work OK with AutoCAD?
Second question, is the new hot CAD system going to be a good gaming computer instead of a "workstation?"
(NOTE: If trains stop at train stations, what happens at a workstation?)
yup - now Inventor is programmed with DirectX in mind instead of OpenGL a great place to start is with a good gaming pc. It's all pretty similar (apart from the garish case-designs you seem to get with gaming pcs) - fast gpu, ssd boot drive, quick i5 or i7 cpu, fast ram, a decent motherboard and a good psu to handle it all.
It's a very clever and great move of Autodesk to move from expensive specialized graphics cards to cheaper gaming cards, meaning a far cheaper pc is needed, but it's very rarely touted - whether it's a desire to not annoy the graphics-cards vendors by no longer needing to to push their higher-cost workstation cards or just that professional businesses may not be happy buying a pc with "gaming" in the title...
As for AutoCAD - honestly couldn't say for a like-for-life comparison due to moving from AutoCAD and MDT ages ago, but when I need to use it I've not had any problems (with a gaming card), which isn't a surprise as it's also DirectX now too... I think some AutoCAD hardware ppl still push the workstation cards, but whether it's a real need or just tradition, not sure - the cynic in me thinks that anyone with any hand in the hardware market will always "suggest" the workstation cards as there must be more profit with them compared to the massive market of gaming cards, with their prices constantly going down trying to undercut each other.
just spotted this post about it from this year: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-2012/OpenGL-or-Direct3D/td-p/3294455
Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey
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What'sthe PSU have to do with it! I have GTX590's in my office machine and my home machine. They require four above-board power connectors to supply power to the card. The GTX590 is basically two GPU's on a single card. It takes more power for the graphics card than the four SSD drives in RAID0.
It's interesting though that Autodesk neither recommends nor certifies any gaming-type cards on their hardware web site: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112
I'm not saying I don't believe they'd work, just noting the information. You'd think they'd be more in support of it on their recommendations if they're going to bake the support into the software.
Autodesk has quite doing hardware certifications for Inventor. As long as the drivers are Microsoft Certified, is all they are concerned about now.
@Anonymous wrote:What'sthe PSU have to do with it!
If the system is built assuming a low-powered gpu (low-mid quadro) then it might only have something like a 350W psu, so slap in a GTX590 which probably really needs a 600W psu and you're going to have problems...
Bill:
read this for info about DirectX:
We got a load of info out of Autodesk when they were proposing the change from OpenGL years ago but since then they seem very limited with suggestions for supported cards.
at the end of the day, if the drivers are WHQL certified then they "should" work with Inventor, within the DirectX environment. Obviously, if you use any other software which is OpenGL (SolidWorks) then there could be a desire for a more OpenGL-friendly gpu...
Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey
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What most people do not consider is maintaining the operation of your hardware. What happens if your card breaks and you need to get a replacement fast?
Under normal conditions you have to send your card back to the manufacturer and they try to repair the card and eventually you´ll get it back after 4 weeks.
So you start stacking up video cards for this?
What happens if there is a driver bug which makes working with your application (Inventor in this case) impossible?
With Quadro´s or FIreGL´s the drivers will be fixed after a short time cause they are certified workstation cards and they have to be fixed for these applications.
With Gaming cards it´s the other way around, if there is a bug with a game they will fix it in a short period probably.
Fixing driver issues for gaming cards in use with CAD applications not so much.
If you have a dell or HP workstation they will replace your hardware in like 2 days if something goes wrong.
What suits your business best is your own choice, if you have a lot of time and there are no deadlines a gaming card prolly works fine.
But I wouldn´t recommend it for a company that needs to rely on their workforce to be operable.
All the best
there's no denying that the after-sales service is probably better with a workstation card than a gaming card - personally have never had a problem serious enough to bother going through the process (or trivial enough to be happy to be without a machine for a couple days)... If it's a driver issue then roll back - but with DirectX as long as the drivers are WHQL certified then they should work fine - certainly have better reliability with drivers now we're on DirectX than I did with OpenGL (on both workstation and gaming cards). If the issue is hardware-related and the graphics card needs to be replaced then we generally don't have the time to leave a pc non-productive for 2 days (1 day of problems and the 2nd day to receive a replacement) - we can obtain a replacement card from a local pc component vendor then it's fixed within the same day...
There's been recent "gaming v workstation" topics on here (which also became Nvidia v ATI) that show gaming cards are quicker than workstation within Inventor. So, it could be argued that they're more productive and make better sense for ROI calculations. If you're concerned about warranty replacement times then factor in the cost of a 2nd gaming card after say a year and I'm sure it'll still work out cheaper than the expensive workstation cards.
But, I'm also happy to question statements that workstation cards are more reliable than gaming cards - how on earth do hardware vendors justify that? The number of youngsters playing games or leaving their pcs downloading whatever 24/7 - how many of these machines that are never switched off are running gaming cards? If companies like EVGA are offering 3 year warranties on gaming cards, knowing they're possibly going to be overclocked and left running for very long periods - how are these gaming cards a reliability concern?
sure, at the end of the day, everything will die at some point in time, so it's arguable that the most productive card is desirable for most businesses 😉
Sam M.
Inventor and Showcase monkey
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I use a quadro 2000 card wih xeon 3.4 GHz, and checked the GPU usage with GPU-Z and it never went abouve 20...
when I rotating huge assy, or panning idw..strange...