Resolve for Windows - GTX vs Quadro

[mcKayj]

Anybody care to weigh in on the pros and cons of using a high-powered consumer GTX instead of a Quadro for Resolve? More specifically, how would a GTX590 stack up against a Quadro 6000?

[Sven Seynaeve]

I was just looking and doing some research how to build a system for it. I know in the config docs, they propose supermicro chassis and mb. (I'm a happy supermicro user, for my current WS),

just thinking whether going with a simplified asus 2011 mb, then you have 6x pci-e x16, so maby
quadro 6000
gtx580
gtx 580
gtx 580

redrocket
decklink card,



eventually with cubix or pci-e cabel extensions,


Would like to know , whether it's better to spent the money on rockets , cpu-power (eventually with a 4way supermicro which can hold 4x xeon e7 decacores), or even 8way which can hold 8x xeon e7 decas????

the cubix gpu-xpander is not too pricey, so I assume it's better taking one as well...

[Sven Seynaeve]

Being able to build such a system, I ask myself , whether how to compare Assimilate Scratch and Nucoda filmmaster to it power- and speedwise????

also would like to know whether it's possible to do proper and fast s3d grading with resolve and windows machine?

[Sven Seynaeve]

would there even be benefits , if gtx 590 are used instead of the 580???

[jake blackstone]

Being able to build such a system, I ask myself , whether how to compare Assimilate Scratch and Nucoda filmmaster to it power- and speedwise????

Only Resolve supports multiple GPUs, so comparing it to Scratch and FilmMaster is impractical. But because of a genius caching scheme on Nucoda products, multiple GPU support is not that important nor is it really necessary.

[jake blackstone]

Anybody care to weigh in on the pros and cons of using a high-powered consumer GTX instead of a Quadro for Resolve? More specifically, how would a GTX590 stack up against a Quadro 6000?

If you do a little search on this site, you'd see, that GTX 480 blows Quadro 6000 away. Figure GTX 590 at least twice as fast as GTX 480. Your mileage may vary.

[Sven Seynaeve]

thx for the hint with nucoda how it works,

would like to have more practical information how al these systems work compared to eachother, but it seems hard to find such info, rather then contacting the companies themselve and have a commercial talk that always explains their product is better

[Gunleik Groven]

(...), rather then contacting the companies themselve and have a commercial talk that always explains their product is better

But it is!

[Doug Shannon]

Look for Mike Most's blog, it's called Postworld. He did a couple of good posts covering the difference between all the main players.

[Dave P]

QUadro and GTX cards are very close cousins under their fan shrouds. The only measurable differences are in Double Precision Float performance and overall RAM amounts. The Quadro cards use same GPU, it is just allowed to have higher DPF abilities somehow. You can see this number in the CUDA-Z performance window. I have never found an OSX app where this truly makes a big difference. I would be thrilled if someone from BMD came and said it did.

In the informal testing that I did with Jake Blackstone, we were unable to find Quadro cards any faster in Resolve using NR. The Quadro 5000 & 6000 use GF100 cores like the GTX470/480 cards and they are both specced below the GTX cards. The Quadro 6000 has 6 Gigs of VRAM, but CUDA-Z only sees 4 GB and OSX & GLView only see 2GB. The OS just isn't ready for 6GB. OpenCl could see all 6GB but that was only place.

Sascha Haber did some testing with Resolve which seemed to equate Resolve performance with the Single Precision Float number associated with these cards. A Quadro 4000 is around 700-800 in SPF, while a 5000 or 6000 do right around 1050-1100. A GTX470 does just slightly better. A GTX480 always scores above 1300 here. I will chuck a GTX285 in and see what it does here if anyone wants that number. I seem to recall that is is around the Q4000's score here, so perhaps this isn't the whole picture.
In any case, the GTX480 left even the $2,000+ Quadro 6000 for DEAD. (Jake posted test results at The Cow) Unless Resolve for Windows uses DPF, I can't imagine that the situation there will be any different.

If anyone else in Hollywood wants to do some more extensive testing, I can offer up a Quadro 6000, Tesla C2050, GTX470, GTX480 and a GTX285 (in 1 and 2 GB flavors). These cards work in OSX and Windows. I will also soon have an OSX ROM on a GTX460 2 Win, which has 2 @ GTX460s on one board and could in theory be both a GPU and a GUI card. Sadly, it requires far more power than a Mac Pro could provide, but could be used with external power or in an enclosure.

The simple answer is that GTX cards offer far more "Bang for the Buck", at least in my limited experience.