Differences Between Geforce and Quadro Graphics Cards

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geforce vs quadro specs spreadsheet

I am building a computer specifically for use with Autodesk and Adobe Creative Cloud applications. Above is a link to a spreadsheet I have started, comparing nvidia geforce and quadro cards. There is an obvious and drastic difference here in specs. The Quadro cards are significantly more power efficient, but also only have a small fraction of the amount of CUDA cores. I also can not find any information on the clock speeds of the quadro cards.

Is it true that a Quadro card with a small fraction of the CUDA cores of a similarly priced Geforce card performs significantly better in 3D and video rendering applications? And why is this?

If it is all thanks to API's and drivers, can't we get these drivers and install them alongside Geforce cards for even better performance, considering on the surface the specs of a Geforce card seem to be significantly more impressive.

Thus far the best and most thorough information I have found on this subject has been at: - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10532978/difference-between-nvidia-quadro-and-geforce-cards#= - http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nvidia.com%2Fobject%2Fquadro_geforce.html&rct=j&q=geforce%20vs%20quadro&ei=p5DhTMPdGISs8AaXr_ED&usg=AFQjCNESkCnpBGLD_XkAyUuFJ4Ky6W-D_g&cad=rja

Matthew Jendrasiak

Posted 2016-12-29T09:28:59.183

Reputation: 25

Answers

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Your sheet doesn't make sense. You selected Quadro cards (from what I can see) that go back to as far as 2010 with the newest ones from around 2013. Your GTX cards are from 2013/2014.

There are entire generations of architectures between those cards. If you want to compare the specs you would have to take cards from the same generation and class to get an idea about the difference in specs.

In addition you will have to consider the kind of work they do the most. Other quests like "Difference between nVidia Quadro and Geforce cards?" have more information on this. Essentially they're meant to render different things and those things depend on the kind of application.

As for simply using the drive that is not (easily) possible. There are blocks put in place by Nvidia. This article about the different approach (making your Quadro handle like a GeForce) has some more information about that: Quadro Driver Tweak (How To Make Your Quadro A GeForce Driver Side)

Further more (from what I know) you get extended support for the Quadro drivers even on the vendor side of certain software products - if you use them in tandem with the correct hardware.

Seth

Posted 2016-12-29T09:28:59.183

Reputation: 7 657

Yes they are different ages and use different architectures and technology which only makes the difference weirder.

The Quadro cards are all older architectures, older technology, significantly less, and I think slower, cores. Yet according to most reports they outperform the vast majority of other cards in specific applications.

From your answer and answers from others elsewhere, I'm gleaning that in this case, performance can not be judged as a simple comparison between cuda cores and clock speeds. That complicates things but it brings me a step closer to the most educated decision. – Matthew Jendrasiak – 2016-12-30T06:08:15.983

I'm not really sure about the performance of current GeForce cards against old Quadro cards. But if you look at the current generation Quadro cards might have even MORE Cuda cores than GeForce cards (1080 = 2560, P6000 = 3840, M6000 = 3072, Titan X = 3584). But you're right that you have to look at more than raw performance. As the linked resources indicate there are benefits in higher precision computing, ecc memory, warranty and support. In addition the alternate BIOS might offer more ways to optimize etc. etc. – Seth – 2016-12-30T06:53:01.560