Quadro VS Geforce -- What's the truth?

[RobH2]

I've spent about 10 hours reading all I can find on GPU cards, Quadro, GeForce, RTX, etc. It gets very opinionated and confusing. 

There seems to be some "corporate" misinformation so that more Quadro cards are sold to professionals at a better profit margin. There are some vague references to Quadro cards having built-in features that are critical to 100% functionality in Max for modeling, rendering and viewport performance. However, I can't find any specific info that states what that is. 

What's your experience and feeling? I'm mainly asking pros, pros in large studios or users who do high-end work or entertainment work.  I use a Quadro K5200 that is fine but does not support real-time raytracing as well as the newer cards. I don't really want to buy a $6000 Quadro card. 

The specs of the GeForce RTX 2080 ti are very attractive. I could run two RTX 2080 (non-ti) cards for about the same price as one ti and get more VRAM.  

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: If I buy a GeForce RTX card, what "WON'T" work properly in Max? That's what I can't figure out from all of my reading. 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

To be honest, this is a never-ending discussion . You won't find a definitive answer to this question.

I think the main difference between Quadro and GeForce is that Quadro drivers are optimized and updated for CAD software and GeForce are optimized and updated for games.

If you buy a GeForce and find a problem with the CAD that is related to the graphic drivers, you won't get a driver update for this specific problem. But, if you have a Quadro, you can "expect" an update from Nvidia.

If i was a millionaire, i would probably buy the best Quadro. Until then, i'll stick with a good GeForce and i am happy with it.

[RobH2]

Eric, thanks for the input. You nailed it, it's debated like crazy and I can't find a definitive answer for sure. And what you mention about CAD compliance and updates is all I could find, re: "should a problem arise, there may not be a fix coming if you have a GeForce card."

It sounds as if you've had no problems with GeForce cards nor have you noticed that some feature isn't working. Is that fair to assume?

What I can't find anything about is, assuming no big problem or bug is occurring, what "won't" function in Max if you don't have a Quadro card? 

[Anonymous]

At work, i have a Quadro and at home an equivalent GeForce (equivalent on memory, memory bandwidth and CUDA Core).

Can't see a big difference except that at home i have some limitations when using realistic viewports. Some light effects won't work on my GeForce (only in the viewport), but TBH, my GeForce is a little bit old.

[RobH2]

Thanks for that. I can live with a small nuisance item that won't work in a viewport, as long as it renders. I'm starting to lean towards GeForce. I'll wait for a few more responses in case someone has a strong case for Quadro and some compelling feature that GeForce fails with. So far I can't find a good reason to NOT use GeForce except for a few specific items related to SolidWorks, which I don't use. 

[DarrenP]

if you plan to do 24/7 gpu rendering a quadro would probably be best instead of a geforce card

[RobH2]

Hi Darren, I don't plan to do any GPU rendering but do a lot of IPR or interactive GPU previewing as I tweak. 

I do 3D 24/365 professionally but am a one-man shop. I don't have unlimited budgets like large studios so I'm looking to maximize viewport and GPU interaction while I'm building a scene, previewing as it were. I use render farms to render. I won't be using a GPU to render any final files. 

So I think that still the GeForce RTX cards may be worth considering. Thanks for your input. 

[RobH2]

To sort of wrap this up I've ordered an NVidia RTX 2080 Ti card.

I spoke with a few more friends who use Max to do network television, high-end, 3d work and they said they stopped using Quadro cards 5-years ago and have never been disappointed with the decision to use GeForce cards.

So I'm going for it. I'll report back here with an update in a few weeks. 

[RobH2 · Accepted solution]

Results: RTX 2080 Ti 

I purchased my first GeForce card to use with Max having been using only Quadro cards for many decades. I've always been a little disappointed with the Quadro card's benchmarks when I compared my machine to others that indicated they were used for 3d work. To be fair, I never bought any Quadro cards that cost over $3000 so I wasn't using the top-of-the-line Quadro offering. But I didn't use the least expensive ones also. 

I'm running the RTX 2080 Ti on Max 2019. You can see other specs on my machine in my signature. So far, I have not found anything that is problematic. Everything looks good and works well. Vertices and edges look sharp, are easy to select and zooming in is working better. I used to always get a very irritating viewport clipping with my Quadro cards. In a Perspective viewport I'd go to zoom in on a vertex and 3/4 of the way there the viewport would clip and I would not be able to approach the vertex. Max's 'Viewport Clipping' was not enabled. It would just clip. Sometimes I could change the FOV of the viewport and eventually get there but it took a few minutes. Just not a good situation. That seems to have gone away. 

I expect that some oddity will raise its head at some point. Should that happen, I'll post back here and mention it. But, for now, I'm very, very pleased with the purchase. 

[RobH2]

Just reporting back that it's now been a few weeks and I have passed a couple of projects through using this card. I have had zero issues. I'm very, very pleased with the decision to try it. And as a bonus, Battlefield V runs like a banshee and looks mind-blowing with it cranked to 'Extreme' on the texture and raytrace settings. 

I don't play a lot of games but this one came with the card. I can't say how the Quadro might have displayed the game but I'm sure there's no way it could do what the RTX does for the new generation of real-time raytraced games that are appearing. So if you do a lot of Max and also do a lot of Gaming, I think this card would serve you very, very well. 

[dgorsman]

Quadro GPUs weren't really designed with CAD in mind.  Originally CAD software used OpenGL for graphics as that was the only system capable of pushing those kinds of numbers.  The gaming cards of the day only had limited support for OpenGL, and there were a few custom drivers made available for specific programs.  Then along comes popular gaming, and the introduction of DirectX as a standard for *all* GPUs.  So there is not only equal or better performing hardware but also no need for "performance" drivers.

There are still some uses for Quadro and other pro GPUs.  They are capable of double-precision math, which can be important for programs that use them as compute devices e.g. stress analysis, or mesh reconstruction.  That's why you see them specifying the pro GPUs rather than the cheaper desktop ones.  You don't need that for rendering or on-screen display, so for 3DSMAX and similar, not necessary. 

[RobH2]

Yes, thanks for that. You reiterated my findings from my research before trying this GeForce card. I've always used Quadro cards and to be honest, have always been a bit disappointed by their performance VS their price. As I mentioned earlier, I don't do any "true" CAD per se nor do I do any analysis. If one does, they might be better off staying with the Quadro line of cards. But for what a large percentage of we visualizers do, we never use the features that we are paying a lot of money to have.

In 25-years of using Max, I doubt I've ever touched a need for double-precision math and I believe I read that Max can't even do double-precision calculations and is one reason it has trouble with meshes that are a long way from the origin. So my experiment here is to see what happens if I don't use a Quadro card. So far, I'm not having any regrets. Should I get into a project where I find that it's not cutting it, I can throw my trusty Quadro K5200 back in and off I go. But I can take the $1000 I saved and buy some new 4K monitors, which is exactly what I did. 

I've received a number of comments (not necessarily all in this particular thread) that suggest I'm doing something unprofessional (FYI, I've made 100% of my living that past 25-years with Max) and or amateurish by not using Pro level Quadro or the like cards. I prefer to turn that around and pose that we should find the best tools for the specific jobs we do, and that there is no shame in not using the "certified" products. Let's be honest, we aren't talking about a lot of money. If the tool fails, just buy a new one. The next job will pay for it right?

I appreciate your input. Thank you...

[Anonymous]

Out of curiosity... Have you tried the Creator drivers for your Geforce? I have this feeling that they have made at least my Photoshop a bit better on my 1060. Smudging and other such tools do not "lag" as much.

[RobH2]

I am in fact using the Creator drivers. They seem to be working well and also well on the few games that I do play now and then. I too have noticed that Photoshop is a bit more snappy with GPU related things. 

[jfjacques]

There is no debate.

Buy a Quadro, never a GTX for 3ds. Forget about specs. Just look at what your computer is up to while you use it via the task manager. When using 3ds max, you will notice your computer idles with a GTX and takes full advantage of the card if it's a Quadro.  Max out your viewport with polys and then access the Quadro, the difference in fps should be obvious as long as you are swapping similar gen cards.

I do wonder about RTX cards.  I haven't tested them in practice, and so I have to stick to what I understand of their design; which is that they are somewhat similar to the Quadros in many ways that would be helpful for 3ds. They may provide more bang for buck in the end. 

I do have to comment on your system though.

Contrary to what the current trend may be, using a XEON for 3ds is not effective, and not too mention a massive expense, even with engineered samples. Yes renders will be faster with 1000+ cores, but working in max will be painful. You're much better off overclocking a latest gen i7 or an i9, when that becomes a little more feasible. Most operations in the max ****pile are single thread (F%^$% you autodesk), so clockspeed matters more than anything else. Again, just open your task manager and have a look. Also, doing interactive renders, or any render with ecc ram will take twice as much time to parse geometry unless you have twice the ram speed somehow. (Though you do get to have more ram with a xeon, which could mean less use of the ssd if ever the scenes get large. But that also means spending a ridiculous amount of money on ram.)   

[RobH2]

@jfjacques 

Thanks for your perspective. Correct, what you say is accurate about Xeons. However, when I built the machine I was using several programs that were fully multi-threaded and took advantage of all 40 cores. I still use them a bit. The machine was not built specifically to accommodate Max's inability to multi-thread for most things. Agreed, thanks Autodesk. The next machine I build will most likely be an i7, i9 or even a Threadripper should Max not become multi-threaded. The ram costs are not ridiculous and I rarely hit the ceiling of my 64GB ram. I'm never hitting the SSD and paging out. Whether or not ECC ram does interactive rendering slower or not will need to be explored. But, in all the benchmark tests I do (PcMark, Performance Test, VRay Bench, Cinebench) I'm getting scores in very high percentiles. No benchmarking I've done has led me to say, crap, "what's the bottleneck now?" I'm very pleased with my machine's performance. 

As to your Quadro comments, I have to respectfully disagree with you and say "yes" it is a tremendous debate.  If you think there is no debate, you haven't read enough yet. It's absolutely hotly debated.

Having used Quadro cards since they first came out, I think over a decade ago, I am completely satisfied with the RTX 2080 Ti card. I did literally dozens of hours of research and talked to numerous Max users, many in large studios who do network broadcast work that is similar to Toy Story with huge scenes and lots of characters in hyper-real environments. They abandoned the Quadro over 5-years ago and never looked back. 

I too am finding that it's a fantastic card and have no regrets now have had it for several months. I've been using Max for over 25-years and use it every day. So I'm not uninformed. This very alive debate will continue for years to come, much like the Mac VS PC debate still rolls along. 

It all comes down to personal preference. But when it comes time to cast my ballot, the RTX 2080 Ti will get my vote. You can look at all the technical specifications about throughput, ecc speed, Flops, etc, and it still comes down to anecdotal evidence. Mine says that the non-Quadro cards are not to be offhandedly ignored. They are a powerful alternative to use in 3d production. 

[jfjacques]

I agree, it's still hotly debated.  From personal use, none of my gtx cards seemed to work that much when running a heavy 3ds viewport or when rendering.

Note that I am using a cpu based renderer, so perhaps GTX cards would be useful on the render side if the renderer was primarily gpu.  Thing is the quadro's seem to be doing some heavy lifting in either case. 

I will have to try the rtx cards.  If the rtx 2080 beats the the k5200, then kudos, the later can be twice the price.  Why do you think this is happening? Also is it not possible to use both at the same time? 

Bottom line, though irrelevant to the above,  3ds max needs to multi-thread. 

[RobH2]

I have no idea why Quadro is twice as expensive. They do have double precision arithmetic calculations.  I did read some conspiracy theory that having that feature couldn't alone justify the price and speculated that it was a ploy to make a lot of profit from cards they could market to professionals. Admittedly, there is more compatibility testing and more frequent driver updates, but, twice the cost? Who knows?

I've had no buyers remorse so far from ditching Quadro and trying RTX Geforce, and i have some huge files that use 10's of millions of Forest Pack libraries. I can't find anything to sway me away from this new line of RTX 2080 Ti cards. However, I'll be honest with everyone, should I find a major problem or issue, I'll report back here. 

And yes Autodesk, please make Max multi-threaded, please, please....!!!...lol....  

[jfjacques]

One thing I keep wondering about is if its possible to use both a quadro and a non-quadro card at the same time. I know I can use 2 quadro's yet even then it's not clear what either is doing exactly. Still the ability to switch to an RTX card would be more attractive if it could double on top of an existing quadro. 

The single-thread thing is awful. Revit works the same. Competing software multi-threads, works like a dream in  comparison.

[RobH2]

I believe that I read that I can "in fact" use both cards. I can't tie them
together obviously, but I believe I could use the K5200 for my monitors and
the RTX for GPU work. I don't have a power supply with two GPU power leads
though. I'm not sure it would be good to split the existing one. My PS is
850 watts so I think powerful enough. I may do more research on that.