Quadro vs Geforce in terms of AutoCAD performance?

[jitindhillon]

Hi,

My dad, who is a heavy user of AutoCAD, is looking to buy a new graphics card for his machine. Currently his computer only has the onboard GPU integrated in the motherboard, and he has been complaining about the slow performance in AutoCAD.

So naturally he asked me to look for a new budget card, but I'm not quite sure about what are the advantages of Quadro cards. I was looking at the Quadro 400, and GeForce GTS 450 as candidates for his machine. Naturally, as a gamer, I would assume that the GTS 450 is better, as the specifications are much higher, with double the amount of CUDA cores. However, the Quadro is more expensive and boasts GPU acceleration for AutoCAD, but has half the cores, so there has to be something that I'm missing here.

He's also looking for dual monitor support, which is clear on the GTS 450, but I am unsure about the Quadro.

If anyone could help me make a more informed decision, it would be greatly appreciated. What would you recommend getting? The Quadro or GeForce?

Thanks!
Jitin

[Jack_O'neill]

I have a Geforce in my cad machine. It's an older one now, but I never have any problems with it.

[ReMark]

I too used a Geforce card in a previous home system and it performed adequately. I have a Quadro 4000 in my work computer and it is a very nice card but it is somewhat expensive. If budget is a problem then go with the GeForce.

[ScribbleJ]

I too used a Geforce card in a previous home system and it performed adequately. I have a Quadro 4000 in my work computer and it is a very nice card but it is somewhat expensive. If budget is a problem then go with the GeForce.

I agree with ReMark. I have a Geforce at home and the Quadro at work and I do not see any difference. However there is a 'but' to this. Quadro's drivers are specifically designed with graphics design in mind whereas Geforce cards are not. Check out Tom's Hardware article about this here <<<(Click that word right there).

[BlackBox]

I use an AMD Radeon (home - MacBook Pro & VMWare/BootCamp), and a Nvidia Quadro 3000M (work - Dell Precision M6600), without issue.

[StykFacE]

No need for a high-priced Quadro unless you have an exact need for it. Use the Autodesk Certified Hardware tool here:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...12&id=16391880

Go by that and find a gaming card in the $60 to $100+ range and you'll be just fine. If you have a higher budget then obviously get better and faster.

[Gmhall]

I tend to agree with the non need for a high end card as I built up a high end workstation with a Quadro 4000 and my cad performance in 3d modeling is not much better than my old 32bit computer with a small $75 FireGL card.

[f700es]

I also agree. Quadro FX 580 on a dual core Xeon at work and a GeForce GT430 on a quad core AthlonII at home. Acad is just about the same on both in terms of smoothness in it's use and performance. SketchUp tends to be a bit smoother on the GF unit. I imagine that shaded display on the Quadro would be a bit better than the GF but probably not by much.

Edit: My Quadro has support for 3 monitors. My GF has DVI, VGA and HDMI. I would look to see that whatever card you get has DX11 and OpenGL 4.0 support. These are emerging technologies that you might as well be ready for.

[cjsilen]

Hi guys, I believe that there are some areas that should be explained in a little more detail. I am a Heavy CAD user and know the reasons why one is better than the other. When you do regular 2D CAD it doesn't matter much which one you use for it will not make a lot of difference. When you are working onbig 3D files, that is when the quadro will give you the advantage. Quadro's are optimized for 3D solids and to give an example, a 40 megabyte 3D drawing can take up to 10 minutes or more to regen with a cheap gaming card as opposed to less than a minute with a quadro. That will basically sum it up.

[StykFacE]

Those statistics doesn't sound right to me. Also, it seems Autodesk is leaning more towards Direct3D drivers instead of OpenGL drivers. The new 2013 versions of Revit and AutoCAD are even taking advantage of Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP) which is a newer development of D3D. It seems OpenGL have been sitting idle for a long time now while Microsoft has really been revamping their drivers. In a lot of cases, gaming cards are out performing workstations by a good margin. I know f700 found some good articles not too long ago that showed statistical evidence for this.