Workstation + Gaming Card Setup?

[therock003]

Simple question, can i have a combination of let's say a quadro and a gtx or a radeon and a fire pro on the same board?

 

[mamw93]

No. Only Quadro and NVidia card cause you'll need SLI. Put the Quadro card in the x16 lane and the graphics card in the other, (if they both run x8 in SLI it doesn't matter then.)

 

[therock003]

Radeon and Fire Pro can't run on crossfire then?(They're both ATI of course).

But is it certain that i can combine a quadro and a geforce via SLI?

 

[evongugg]

I wouldn't mix workstation cards and gaming cards. Their drivers are different.
I doubt they would do SLI.
A gaming card can give you the performance of a workstation card.

Workstation Graphics Cards and their Mainstream Equivalents

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/quadro-fx-4800,2258.html

 

[WR2]

I wouldn't mix workstation cards and gaming cards. Their drivers are different.

+1
They're VERY different.

 

[therock003]

Are they equivalement in terms of specs you mean? Cause they couldnt possibly have the same effects on a graphics application. Otherwise there would be no need to spend all that money and get a quadro 5600 or 5800 card.

BTW is it possible to flash a GTX card and make it a quadro 5800?

Think is i need a graphic card that can deal with CAD applications as well as high end games at full res.

 

[evongugg]

There's little difference between the graphics processors you find in workstation graphics cards versus what you'll find in consumer graphics cards for gaming, especially in the high-end segment. The major differences that separate these two hardware categories come from their drivers and the level of technical support offered.

 

[therock003]

Well yes quadro and fire pro are optimized to handle opengl while geforce and radeon are optimized for D3D.

Question is can you achieve same performance with gaming Cards in CAD application and rendering software or is the difference sky-high?

Also i really need to know if there's a way to flash quadro firmware into the geforce.

 

[WR2]

Question is can you achieve same performance with gaming Cards in CAD application and rendering software or is the difference sky-high?

There is really a very substantial difference in performance.
You can look at some of the performance differences here :
THG: Performance Gaming Vs. Workstation: GeForce GTX 280 And Quadro FX 4800

 

[therock003]

Well yes but these are benchmarks with gaming card at it's original drivers, not tweaked with the workstation driver.

I would really like to see how a gaming card flashed with workstation bios performs in rendering applications and benchmarks.

 

[WR2]

Have you found any benchmarks like that?

 

[therock003]

Nope that's what i'm hoping to find, but i dont think anyone will go into any trouble to flash bios and post benchmarks.

 

[johnnyz88]

There is really a very substantial difference in performance.
You can look at some of the performance differences here :
THG: Performance Gaming Vs. Workstation: GeForce GTX 280 And Quadro FX 4800

Ok, so avoid using gaming cards in workstation apps...

Question:
Is it possible to run the graphics cards separately i.e. workstation card on one monitor and the gaming card on another. I want to be able to run CAD apps like Pro/engineer Wildfire 3.0 and Catia v5, whilst being able to play games with mid-range to high-end graphics smoothly.

If so, I'm thinking of a Quadro FX 570 (not sure exactly, but something just able enough to run the CAD programs - I do not want to spend a substantial price). For the gaming side, a GeForce 9800GT - at least. Also, can I build this up from a workstation setup bought from a vendor and install the GeForce 9800GT later?

 

[nednarb]

Were you able to get both cards running well? I am thinking of the same solution.

 

[kicoverz]

Yeah , I am curious too, it would be great if you could tell us what happened with your set-up! Did the Idea work?
I wanted to use the gaming card for rendering because it speeds the process exponentially while leaving the workstation card for the modeling and openGL apps

 

[themsabhi]

I too stuck in the same situation right now, any update?

 

[Harv33]

If you are going to be using the PC as a workstation and gaming machine then you should pick a more gaming oriented graphics card. The CUDA performance of the new Maxwell cards is pretty excellent. If you want a gaming/workstation card the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC... is what I would go with. This is assuming that the programs you use are going to take advantage of CUDA processing.

 

[themsabhi]

If you are going to be using the PC as a workstation and gaming machine then you should pick a more gaming oriented graphics card. The CUDA performance of the new Maxwell cards is pretty excellent. If you want a gaming/workstation card the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC... is what I would go with. This is assuming that the programs you use are going to take advantage of CUDA processing.

Hi, thanks for ur reply.
I'm planning to build a new pc, So I haven't figured out the motherboard yet, for the Graphics
I'm planning to buy AMD FirePro W5100 & AMD Radeon R9 285.
So If I buy a monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort Inputs and connect the Firepro with DP & Radeon with HDMI, & I can change the input in monitor, Will this setup workout ?
So while using 3D softwares I can use Firepro & while playing games I can use Radeon.
Power consumptions are not an issue.
I use 3d softwares (solidworks, zbrush, modo, sketchup, keyshot, maxwell, etc...) & equally play games.

 

[Harv33]

If you are going to be using the PC as a workstation and gaming machine then you should pick a more gaming oriented graphics card. The CUDA performance of the new Maxwell cards is pretty excellent. If you want a gaming/workstation card the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC... is what I would go with. This is assuming that the programs you use are going to take advantage of CUDA processing.

Hi, thanks for ur reply.
I'm planning to build a new pc, So I haven't figured out the motherboard yet, for the Graphics
I'm planning to buy AMD FirePro W5100 & AMD Radeon R9 285.
So If I buy a monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort Inputs and connect the Firepro with DP & Radeon with HDMI, & I can change the input in monitor, Will this setup workout ?
So while using 3D softwares I can use Firepro & while playing games I can use Radeon.
Power consumptions are not an issue.
I use 3d softwares (solidworks, zbrush, modo, sketchup, keyshot, maxwell, etc...) & equally play games.

The problem with this is that you are going to likely run into driver issues since each card uses different drivers if you are running both on the same OS installation. You may want to look into dual booting or just building two separate rigs.

 

[themsabhi]

If you are going to be using the PC as a workstation and gaming machine then you should pick a more gaming oriented graphics card. The CUDA performance of the new Maxwell cards is pretty excellent. If you want a gaming/workstation card the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX http://www.amazon.com/Asus-STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC... is what I would go with. This is assuming that the programs you use are going to take advantage of CUDA processing.

Hi, thanks for ur reply.
I'm planning to build a new pc, So I haven't figured out the motherboard yet, for the Graphics
I'm planning to buy AMD FirePro W5100 & AMD Radeon R9 285.
So If I buy a monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort Inputs and connect the Firepro with DP & Radeon with HDMI, & I can change the input in monitor, Will this setup workout ?
So while using 3D softwares I can use Firepro & while playing games I can use Radeon.
Power consumptions are not an issue.
I use 3d softwares (solidworks, zbrush, modo, sketchup, keyshot, maxwell, etc...) & equally play games.

The problem with this is that you are going to likely run into driver issues since each card uses different drivers if you are running both on the same OS installation. You may want to look into dual booting or just building two separate rigs.

But I noticed people saying that there is no issues with installing two different display drivers in windows 7,8,8.1
& yes dual booting is a good alternative. anyone tried it ?