Workstation vs gaming cards - difference(s)?

[ulillillia]

Besides the higher costs that workstation video cards have, like Nvidia's Quaddro series, what are workstation cards used for and what's different about them than regular gaming cards (like the GeForce 590) that causes them to be so much more expensive? Why would someone spend $2000 on a video card when there's other cards available for 20% that cost that are probably just as effective for playing games with?

 

[MagicPants]

Work station cards support a few extra features in modeling packing and the like. It's almost like a hardware dongle. Most of them don't really do anything differently and the differences are almost all in the driver.

I've heard that nVidia makes most of its money in workstation cards, because the margins are so much better.

Just like workstation CPUs, they tend to be worse for gaming than regular parts.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... in the Past, it was the BIO's installed on the Cards that were the difference... allowing certain features tuned to certain Software... and Display options.

 

[ulillillia]

Still, what's so special about them that makes them have $2000 type price tags? If they're not good for gaming, then what are they good for? What special features do workstation cards have that standard gaming cards don't? Do note that I have zero experience with workstation computers....

 

[CoolBOBob1]

They are much better at doing work, they weren't designed with games in mind. They are much better for graphics applications such as modeling and rendering. For example Maya, which is used to make 3d animation and visual effects They also get much better driver and tech support.

Hardware wise they are pretty much the same as their desktop brothers.

 

[mouse24]

i think its mostly with high IO opperations and tasks where you might need 4g of ram and excessive amounts of CUDA cores (3d modeling, high end video encoding with gpu accel support, autocad, etc)

dang, bob beat me to it

 

[ulillillia]

Best answer selected by ulillillia.