▷ Nvidia quadro 【all the information】?

Nvidia is the largest manufacturer of graphics cards in the world, in its catalog we can find the GeForce, Quadro and tesla. In this article we are going to focus on the Nvidia Quadro, which are for sale in retail stores just like the GeForce.

Index of contents

What is Nvidia Quadro

Quadro is Nvidia's brand for its graphics cards designed for workstations, running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), and digital content creation (DCC) applications.

The GPU chips in Quadro brand graphics cards are identical to those used in GeForce brand graphics cards. The final products, i.e. the graphics card, differ substantially in the provided graphics device drivers and the professional support available for the software. Quadro's line of GPU cards emerged in an effort to market segmentation by Nvidia. By introducing Quadro, Nvidia was able to charge a premium for essentially the same graphics hardware in the professional markets and direct resources to adequately serve the needs of those markets.

To differentiate its offerings, Nvidia used driver software and firmware to selectively enable vital features for the workstation market segments; for example, high-performance smoothing lines and double-sided lighting were reserved for the Quadro product. Additionally, improved support was implemented through a certified driver program. These features were of little value in the gaming markets where Nvidia's products were already sold, but prevented high-end customers from using the less expensive GeForce products. There are parallels between the market segmentation used to sell the Quadro product line to the workstation (DCC) markets and the Tesla product line to the engineering and HPC markets.

In a resolution of a patent infringement lawsuit between SGI and Nvidia, SGI acquired the rights to accelerate Nvidia graphics chips that were shipped under the VPro product label. These designs were completely separate from SGI Odyssey-based VPro products, which were initially sold on their IRIX workstations using a completely different bus. SGI's Nvidia-based VPro line included VPro V3 (Geforce 256), VPro VR3 (Quadro), VPro V7 (Quadro2 MXR), and VPro VR7 (Quadro2 Pro).

Key differences between GeForce and Quadro

Another one of the frequently asked questions that users ask when mounting a PC or a workstation, is the best option, if a graphics card from the Geforce series or one from the Quadro series. Which GPU is the best value? And what option is the most suitable for the use that will be given? Let's take a look at some of the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of Geforce and Quadro.

Advantages of GeForce cards

Faster Clock Speeds: GeForce cards generally offer faster GPU clock speeds in the 10-20% range. For example, the Geforce GTX 1070 features a turbo clock speed of 1683 MHz, while the more expensive Quadro P2000 reaches 1470MHz. This speed equates to better overall performance for the same price for Nvidia Quadro series graphics cards.

We recommend reading our post about Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Review in Spanish

Versatility and value: Faster clock speeds, along with more CUDA and VRAM cores for the same price, make Geforce cards best suited for most users. If you are thinking of purchasing a graphics card with the best cost / performance ratio, GeForce has the advantage over Quadro.

Multi-monitor support: For businesses, gaming enthusiasts, or extreme multitaskers looking to use 3, 4, or 8 monitors, Geforce cards provide the best choice. GeForce GTX 10 and higher series cards support 4 monitors each natively, and can be easily paired with a second card to duplicate monitor support. Most Quadro cards except those in the highest range will peak on two displays, which will require adapters and splitters to accommodate more monitors.

This makes Nvidia GeForce cards the best choice for gaming, general computing, daily transactions with multi-monitor support, unprofessional CAD, and amateur video.

Advantages of Nvidia Quadro cards

Specific Processing Tasks - Quadro cards are designed for very specific processing tasks such as CAD design and professional video processing. For example, the double-sided rendering of polygons common with many CAD programs like AutoCAD makes Quadro the clear choice for this type of job, beating GeForce by a significant margin.

Extreme Power: GeForce has robust options like the GTX 1080Ti, but for the most extreme performance, a Quadro simply has no equal. For example, the Quadro P6000 has an impressive 24 GB of GDDR5X VRAM memory and 3840 CUDA cores, which offer no less than 12 TFlops of power, and that's on a single card. No GeForce card comes close to these numbers. That type of power has a very high cost, but if the budget is large, Quadro is the undisputed king in this regard. Additionally, Quadro cards can also be paired with Tesla cards, allowing simultaneous display and processing, exponentially improving performance.

Dual-precision calculations: For complex double-precision calculations such as those found in scientific and arithmetic calculations, Quadro significantly outperforms the GeForce equivalent. This is a very specific use case, but if it's yours, you'll understand the importance.

Durability / Warranty: Something similar happens to Intel Xeon processors, Nvidia Quadro cards are generally designed to offer maximum durability and longevity, and withstand the rigors of everyday use better than consumer-oriented GeForce. As a result, Quadro cards offer a longer and more robust warranty on average.

All of these features make Nvidia Quadro cards the best choice for certain scientific and data calculations, professional CAD rendering, professional-grade video production, and 3D content creation. Designed, created and tested by Nvidia, Quadro desktop products are the number 1 choice for millions of creative and technical users. Equipped with the world's most powerful GPUs, large memory capacities, 8K display outputs, advanced features to drive real-time photorealistic rendering, augmented AI workflows, virtual reality environments, and more, Quadro is designed to accelerate a variety of professional workflows. Optimized and stable drivers, ISV certifications with more than 100 applications and professional tools for IT management, are just some of Quadro's benefits.

Current Nvidia Quadro cards

The new Nvidia Quadro RTX series is based on the advanced Turing microarchitecture, manufactured at 12nm, which features ray tracing or raytracing in real time. This is accelerated by using new RT cores, which are designed to process quadruples and spherical hierarchies, and speed up collision testing with individual triangles. Ray tracing performed by RT cores can be used to produce reflections, refractions, and shadows, replacing traditional raster techniques such as cube maps and depth maps. However, instead of replacing rasterization entirely, the information gathered from the ray tracing can be used to augment shading with much more photorealistic information, especially when it comes to off-camera action.

We recommend reading our post on What is rasterization and what is its difference with Ray Tracing

Tensor cores further accelerate ray tracing, and are used to fill in the blanks in a partially rendered image, a technique known as de-noising. The Tensor core performs the result of deep learning on supercomputers to code how to, for example, increase the resolution of images. In the main use of the tension core, a problem to be solved in a supercomputer is analyzed, where the results are shown with the example, and the supercomputer determines a method to be used to achieve those results, which is then carried out with the tension core of the consumer. RTX is also the name of the development platform introduced for the Quadro RTX series. RTX leverages Microsoft's DXR, OptiX, and Vulkan to access ray tracing.

The following table summarizes the most important features of Nvidia Quadro RTX graphics cards

Quadro GPU

Launching

Nucleus

Core frequency

Memory frequency

Memory Size

Memory type

Bandwidth

3-pin stereo connector

CoresCUDA

CUDA Compute Cap- bility

Medium precision

Simple precision

Double precision

DirectX

Open GL

Open CL

Vulkan

TDP

Video outputs

GeForce equivalent

Units

MHz

MHz

MB

GB / s

Watt

Quadro RTX 5000

2018-08-13

TU104GL

1350

1750

16384 (32768 with NVLink)

256-bit GDDR6

448

And it is

3072

7.5

12.0 (12_1)

4.6

1.2

1.1

200

4x DP 1.4, Virtual Link

GeForce RTX 2080

Quadro RTX 6000

2018-08-13

TU102GL

1335

1500

24576 (49152 with NVLink)

384-bit GDDR6

576

And it is

4608

7.5

12.0 (12_1)

4.6

1.2

1.1

250

4x DP 1.4, Virtual Link

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Quadro RTX 8000

2018-08-13

TU102GL

1350

1750

49152 (98304 with NVLink)

384-bit GDDR6

672

And it is

4608

7.5

12.0 (12_1)

4.6

1.2

1.1

250

4x DP 1.4, Virtual Link

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Is a Quadro or Nvidia RTX right for me?

Once seen the characteristics of the Quadro and GeForce cards, the question arises as to which one to buy for our new PC. Ultimately, the choice of one or the other card is something that depends on your specific use case. For a tight budget, a GeForce will almost always be better just for value and versatility. But if you're looking for all the rendering performance for CAD and video specifically, Quadro is probably the way to go.

This ends our article on Nvidia Quadro, we hope it has been very useful for you. You can share it on social networks so that it can help more users who need it.