Video card: nVidia Quadro 4000 or GeForce 780?

argus1000

I'm in the process of ordering a new workstation, but I'm still not sure about which video card to choose. Generally, the Quadro is more expensive and specifically built for workstations, but it has only 800 CUDA cores while the GeForce 780 has 2300 CUDA cores. Is that important when you are using Carrara? I may be using Octane in the future.

DustRider

I haven't used Carrara with a Quadro in about 4-5 years. IMHO, the extra cost of a quadro card for Carrara really isn't worth it. For software like 3DS Max, where the developers have Quadro specific instuction sets to improve the speed and performance of the interactive viewport compared to the "consumer" grade cards, a quadro may well be worth the extra cash. But for DS, Poser, and Carrara, there is very little advatage with the pro cards ( keep in mind that these applications are not designed for the high end 3D market).

IMHO, if your seriously interested in using Octane, or any other GPU renderer, then the 780 with as much vram as you can get would be your best option. The 780 will probably perform just as well (maybe better) as a Quadro for interactice display in Carrara's viewport (Carrara does't use the GPU for anything other than the interactive on screen display), and the 780 will be much better for GPU rendering.

Steve K

dustrider said:

... IMHO, the extra cost of a quadro card for Carrara really isn't worth it. ...

I've never used a Quadro card, but I think this is probably correct based on a limited amount of research for my newest machine earlier this year. It's got a nice nVidia card, same as my earlier machines for running Carrara, seems to run good.

argus1000

Thanks, guys. I found a rare nVidia GeForce GTX at Newegg with 6 GB Vram that use PCI 3.0 Express. This card is HUGE. Takes two slots and 11.3 inches long. Its $100 less expensive than most other cards that have only 3 GB Vram. I'm not sure why.