NVIDIA has launched a new workstation graphics card: the Quadro 400. The Quadro 400 can be seen as the pro version of the GeForce GT 420. Like the GT 420, the Quadro 400 packs 48-CUDA-core Fermi GPU (a GTX 580 has 512 CUDA cores…), embarks 512MB of DDR3 64-bit memory and has a TDP of 32W.
NVIDIA, on the Quadro 400 page, claims that:
Quadro 400 provides up to 5x performance gains over high-end consumer gaming cards and up to 10x improvement over integrated graphics processors in industry leading CAD/CAM applications*.
*5x performance gain based on Pro/Engineer score in the SPEC Viewperf 11 compared to NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580 on a standard industry workstation (Core i7 965 3.2GHz, X58 motherboard, 6GB RAM, Win7-64, 265.81 drivers).
Okay, I know that Quadro drivers are optimized for some CAD applications but I was far from thinking that a 48-core PRO GPU can beat a 512-core gaming GPU like that…
The Quadro 400 is priced at US $169.
NVIDIA has a dedicated team that develop professional drivers, so the driver are completely independent from the consumer ones and they can make huge optimizations.
Is this Quadro graphics cards are good for gaming? I am using 4670 right now and I wanna upgrade. I am a game developer primarily working with UDK.
@iamcreasy: interesting question. Quadro 400 drivers have optimized modules for professional 3D applications like autocad but for gaming I think Quadro driver is the same than for gaming cards. In this case, the Quadro 400 will have the performance of a GeForce GT 420 which is not really designed for gaming.
@JeGX So, if I am looking for some next gen graphics card, Quadro is nowhere near? What do you suggest? I am sick of Radeon. They always has some issues here and there, which are very very annoying. Their catalyst sucks!
Recent GForce card has heat issues (previous video posted here).
I am very confused which one to choose.
Some of my friends has bought 58xx and there said they are happy with it. But they are gamers not game developers.
As a game developer I suggest you to have a GeForce and a Radeon to be sure you game run on both platforms. For the GeForce, my current choice would be the GTX 560 Ti like this one. A GTX 460 is also fine. For Radeon, my choice would go towards the HD 6870. Now if you want only one card, the GTX 560 Ti (without power limiter like the ASUS model) or GTX 460 (cheaper!) is your card!
Hope that helps.
the Geforce instruction paths are artificially limiting the performance of several techniques in opengl, it seems nvidia is choosing to only optimise CAD required instructions for CAD cards.
The title of this page could also read:
“NVIDIA Quadro 400 Launched, GTX 580 crippled so much that it got 5 times slower in CAD apps”
Really, why is a GTX260 faster than a GTX580 in almost any CAD app ?
It’s not so much “artificially limiting” as it is optimizing. Game cards are optimized for frame rate. CAD cards are optimized for precision. CAD software recognizes game cards and doesn’t offload as much calculation to them because the CAD software has precision requirements that the card can’t guarantee. CAD cards also go though much more rigorous per-unit testing, hence the higher price tag.
I have NVDIA GT540M, still, sometimes my cad got errors notifications… but its still good.. I wonder if this version is better than mine?