Don't forget that when you see guys doing "massive multi million poly count" work, they will most definitely have 32 (Bare min), 64 and +++ RAM!!! Just to open the model and allow a GPU to work.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

The QUADRO will give you drivers which can be profiled (Even for specific apps)

If you are not using that, or have them in concert with Xeons and ECC RAM, then for what?

I7's = GTX
Xeons = QUADRO

Thanks BurrMan.

So... If I understand correctly, you're saying that a Quadro workstation must have a XEON processor
and that i7 (Kaby Lake) is not a good choice.

This could be a serious problem...XEON workstations are too much expensive...

I'm still confused.

There are so many different tech articles around...

I know that a Pascal GTX 1080 TI is a monster and it has much more cuda cores compared to P4000
but I'm also searching a professional card that can give a very good performance with CAD software (like Rhino 3D).

I'm not a gamer.

The problem is that I don't know how these software will run on a NON-Quadro card like GTX 1080 :

Photoshop CC, Rhino 3D, Thea Render and Octane, Moi, Fusion 360.

If GTX 1080 Ti will run that kind of software wihout any problem at faster than Quadro P4000 I will certailny be very happy to get it :)
(what about this ? http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/one but with 32 Gb)

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions.

I stay tuned!

- Marco (mkdm)

Hey Marco,
""""""""""you're saying that a Quadro workstation must have a XEON processor""""""""""

No. But no need to put a V8 into a Datsun 300Z......

""""""""""and that i7 (Kaby Lake) is not a good choice.""""""""""""

I7's are very powerful processors. Nothing wrong with them.

What I'm saying is the 2 sets go together. Opposites kindof cancel out the reason for choosing the More expensive, or the less expensive one...

What I'm saying is, if you don't build a "real workstation", which is basically xeon/quadro/ECC based (Very expensive), then trying to mix any of those components into the other hardware, is wasted money.

"MOST" applications wont really care what Card you are running. Rhino wont be any better on a GTX Titan, or a Quadro 6000...

The "Better" comes in 2 places.

An app that was written to take advantage of 1 architecture over the other. Lumion is an example. There programming specifically targets GTX card capabilities. (I think 3dcoat does this too)

The other area is "massive computation/background services". xeon/quadro,ecc hands down.

I think most of the fancy new "real time render" etc, falls into the GTX category....

Again my opinion was:

1. Power and stability = xeon/quadro mix
2. Lightning fast = i7 GTX mix

3. gtx and xeon, or quadro and i7 = bad mix...

And off course, the only one of those that have anything to do with MoI, in my opinion, will be the workstation class xeon and ECC Ram. It will crunch until the cows come home.


""""""""""""""The problem is that I don't know how these software will run on a NON-Quadro card like GTX 1080 : Photoshop CC, Rhino 3D, Thea Render and Octane, Moi, Fusion 360."""""""""""""""""""""

The only one of those that would care, would be Fusion. The CNC calcs.... FEA.... etc. But it WOULD run fine on a gtx also.

I mean.... "What do you plan to do with Fusion?" Multi million dollar plastic injection molds? or just some modeling....

Hi BurrMan.

Thank you very much for your detailed reply!

You are very helpful :)

As I said I'm not in hurry and I will continue to search a very good possible configuration (compatible with my budget).

Your words are really helpful and clear :

@You : "Again my opinion was:
1. Power and stability = xeon/quadro mix
2. Lightning fast = i7 GTX mix
3. gtx and xeon, or quadro and i7 = bad mix..."

Thanks a lot.

The fact is that, as I said in my previous posts, I currently own a very stable and reliable Quadro K3100M,
that, although it is not comparable with modern cards in terms of computing power, it crunches all kind of software
that is in my current pipeline, both OpenGL and DirectX (2D and 3D)

My only fear is that a "GTX 1080 TI" will lack in reliability.

That is, if I can translate in "poor" words :

1) Sporadic rendering errors in rendering software (Thea Render, Octane, Istant Light...)
2) Incompatibility issues
3) Hardware components more "fragile" compared to a Quadro.

But i'm totally not and expert of these things...and I have also to consider that modern Quadro cards are TOO MUCH expensive..

Anyway...I take your suggestions very seriously!

Thanks again.

I'm in the exact same boat Marco....

I really want a new titan box with a trillion bytes of ram, but i'm worried the same way. I have been working on a xeon/quadro box for years. But i suffer in the newer technologies now....

If i got a new gtx system, i still have the old one, but dont really want to go back to a split system, with some things on one and some things on the other. I like having everything on one now, so i compromise.

For me, the workstation is still cutting the mustard. But i dont work in a vfx shop, etc...

Another thing to consider is when nvidia comes out with the new "oden, 32 gb card", it will be 1k upgrade, vs the new "quadro 7000" which will be $4,000....

(Fictionary video cards, but ringing true)

Thanks a lot BurrMan for sharing your point of view.

You're right : we are in the same boat!

In the meantime I'm doing a web search here and there trying to figure out what kind of
hardware configuration I should assemble to get a very reliable and powerful PC under 3000 (max 3500) Eur.

What really matters to me is to know if my current software pipeline will be FULLY supported
by the new hardware and with (I expect) great performance.

As I said, I'm absolutely not a gamer and computer gfx is not my main job, although often I have to produce some piece of
computer gfx (2D and 3D) to use with the software I write or to create some presentation or concept.

Regarding 3D gfx, my works are only relative to visual renderings and not printing or manufacturing or engineering calculation.

So, in short, all I ask to the new machine is to run very very fast and without compatibility issues for this scenario :

1) 2D work in Photoshop CC, Paint Storm Studio and Corel Painter :
All these software have powerful brush engines that leverages on modern gfx cards.
But I can't still figure out HOW, for example, Photoshop CC run on a GTX 1080 Ti. I have found nothing interesting in the web...

2) Will GTX 1080 Ti run Thea Render, Octane, Rhino 3D, 3D-Coat at blazing sped without rendering errors ?

3) Speaking about i7....I have not still understood which one will be better to couple to a GTX 1080 Ti :
i7-7700k for the fastest cpu clock speed per core, or a 6 core 6850K but with lower clock speed per core.

Also, just to consider all the possibilities...I've found an Italian vendor that has in its catalog this PC Tower :
Workstation Computer Wks669 INTEL i7 7700K SKYLAKE 32GB DDR4 SSD 500GB HD 2TB NVIDIA QUADRO P4000 8GB WIFI
All for € 2.598,00.

So again a Quadro ?
P4000 has "only" 8Gb and "only" 1792 cuda, but it's for sure more reliable than GTX...or not ?
PC with a P5000 costs a fortune.....

Oh...What a headache !!

Anyway, thanks again for your help :)

P.S.

Maybe Chipp Walters uses for his daily job a GTX 1080 and could give me his point of view...

See you.

@Burr:we are in the same boat
Wow!...after years of following you here,finally a phrase i can cleary understand :)
We use to say the same here !

Marco you can also consider the brand new AMD Ryzen cpu:8 cores-16 threads
https://www.tomshw.it/test-ryzen-7-1800x-nuovo-processore-punta-amd-83750
Same power but half price

Mauro,
Better than a sharp stick in the eye! A rolling stone gathers no moss. Here's to mud in your eye!

Can i say that again?

I'm not very good at explaining. A tutor i am not. But i always forget that there are "other parts of the world" here... seems like 1 happy community!

I'll try harder... to not be a skifozo :o

Hi Mauro!

Thanks for your suggestions, but I think I prefer to remain with Intel.
I don't know AMD cpu and I prefer to avoid unpleasant surprises...

Anyway, I think that for the time being I will go for a configuration like this :

CPU : i7-7700k
Mother board : MSI - Z270 Gaming M7 DDR4 M.2 SOCKET 1151 (or similar)
RAM : Corsaire 32GB Kit Vengeance Led DDR4-3000
SSD : SAMSUNG - 500GB 960 EVO SSD NVMe M.2
MSI - GTX 1080 Ti Armor 11GB

But...I will continue to search around the web to get better knowledge on how that kind of hardware
could work with my gfx software pipeline (2d/ 3D both DirectX and OpenGL)

Thanks again for help.

Hi Michael and everyone.

First of all I wish to thank you Michael because you allowed me to "use" this forum to talk about a topic not closely related to Moi.
Thanks again.

And I want also to thank all the other guys who has taken part in this discussion.
Thanks to all.

I have come to a decision.

During the last few nights I've read so many tech articles and watched so many youtube channel and asked so many
3d/cad forum, that I can say with absolute certainty that I'm still too poorly prepared to chose a new hardware configuration
that should be a very valid one in relation to what I currently do with my computer.
That is : software developing for my job, and 2d/3D gfx for hobby and some sporadic 2d/3d content creation to support my developing activity.

A serious and professional choice of a brand new pc/workstation actually involves too many technical aspects
for which I'm not properly prepared.

1) What kind of motherboard ?
2) What kind of cpu : semi-workstation processors (i7 extreme edition 6-8 cores) or consumer top range (i7-7700K)
3) What kind of dd4 ram
4) Above all...what kind of GPU : Affortable Quadro P4000 8gb (very reliable and capable to run ALL software, also very specific CAD),
or the acclaimed and so powerful GTX 1080 Ti or Titan X ?

One thing I realized : it's so easy to be mesmerized by pure numbers (cuda, mhz, refresh rate, Ghz, t-flops, fps, etc...)

Numbers (often) say nothing.

What rally matters for me is :

1) What's your main activity that you want to do with your computer ?
2) Real-life performance : for example, how a brand new i7-7700K with fast dd4 ram and fast ssd will improve the almost daily
and heavy compilation of java code with Android Studio, compared to what I can actually achieve with my (old but) reliable Clevo Laptop with 32Gb of 1600 Mhz and i7-4790K ?
3) How Cad and 2d Painting software (Photoshop CC and others) and 3D-Coat will run on a GTX graphics card compared to a Quadro P4000
in terms not only of speed but also robustness and issue-free compatibility problems ?

I still haven't found nothing really helpful about all that questions.

In conclusion, I think that always : HASTE MAKES WASTE !!

So...I decided to take my time and not to change my computer at least until I will get much more specific information.

Thanks again to all and...I will wait for the upcoming V4 beta of Moi that certailnly will work like a charm on my laptop with Quadro K3100M.

Have a nice day.

- Marco (mkdm)

It's the problem when you have a consequent budget! Difficult is the choice! :)
Small is beautiful! :D

Hi Marco,

for supplementary information you can see the Octane FAQ as well:

https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/faqs/

there is written:

OctaneRender requires a CUDA enabled NVIDIA video card. An up to date list can be found here ( https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus ).

OctaneRender can run on most CUDA enabled consumer video cards, instead of only on high-end Quadro cards that most other solutions and middleware require, but it is specifically optimized to run on Kepler (GTX 6xx, GTX 7xx, GTX Titan), Fermi (GTX 4xx, GTX 5xx) and Maxwell GPUs.

Kepler GPUs allow a higher texture limit (256 compared to 128 on Fermi) and are more power efficient and silent than Fermi cards. GPUs from the GeForce line are usually higher clocked and render faster than the more expensive Quadro and Tesla GPUs.

The GeForce GTX 780 and GTX Titan currently offer the best performance to price ratio, but any recent high end NVIDIA card will offer great rendering performance with Octane.

As Octane does not use the CPU for rendering, an expensive multi-core CPU is not required. However, a fast multi-core CPU will significantly improve the scene loading speed.

... this link ( https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/results.php?sort_by=avg&filter=gtx%20750&singleGPU=1 ) can be useful for you too.

Ciao
Mik

Hi Mik!

Thank you very much for your reply and your very helpful suggestions. Much appreciated!

@You : "...The GeForce GTX 780 and GTX Titan currently offer the best performance to price ratio..."

Thanks for the precise info.

See you.

Hi Marco
Notes the Octane FAQ is outdated... now compilation switch to CUDA 8 and "Pascal" cards are supported (better to buy a GTX1080 than old GTX780 !)
;^D

Hi ycarry.

Thanks a lot for the info.

Hi Marco,

ycarry is right FAQ is not "fresh", but I wanted to advice you only that it isn't necessary to use Quadro cards for rendering especially by Octane.

here is some info regarding GTX 1080 (and other cards) from Octane users https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=56108

Mik

Thanks a lot Mik for the advice :)

What a headache !!!

I can't do it anymore :)

I've read so many tech articles in the last two weeks...

Cuda, GFlops, Fp16,Fp32,Fp64, TFlops, ECC Ram vs Non-Ecc, Quadro Kepler, Quadro Maxwell, Titan Black, Pascal....

So many!

It'a a jungle :)

After read all that stuff I've come to realize something :

1) NVIDIA after Fermi cards has decided to render ineffective all FP64 (double precision) performance of ALL it's cards,
both Quadro and GeForce!
In fact even the powerful Pascal Quadro P6000 equipped with the GP104 processor line and the Gtx 1080 Ti equipped with the GP102 (same family)
have FP64 performance fixed to 1/32 of FP32.

2) The "old" Gtx Titan Black from 2104 is equipped with the GK110-430-B1 and has a FP64 performance varying from 1/24 to 1/3 of FP32 !!!

But...whit that said....I didn't find any place or person who can give me this simple information :

Considering that I don't need the GPU to process massive scientific calculation (FP64) but only for visualization, 3d modelling, 3d rendering and
2d Gpu Painting, can I get rid of FP64 performance and go for a ultra powerful FP32 (11 TFplos) Gtx Nvidia 1080 Ti ?

No one has still told me...

I think I should go for a Gtx 1080 Ti and get Rid of Pascal Quadro because they use the same chip with the almost same FP64 performance.

Only, it seams that without a Quadro card I will loose 10-bit display output and ECC memory.

As I said...it's a Jungle!

Have a nice day to everyone.

- Marco (mkdm)

<<<<Considering that I don't need the GPU to process massive scientific calculation (FP64) but only for visualization, 3d modelling, 3d rendering and
2d Gpu Painting, can I get rid of FP64 performance and go for a ultra powerful FP32 (11 TFplos) Gtx Nvidia 1080 Ti ?>>>>

Answer : YES! Go Marco Go!
(or wait for the next GTX1090TiXNewUltraMega++ )
\:^P

Thanks a lot yacrry!!

Just some minutes before reading your reply I have decided to go for a Gtx 1080 Ti,
but custom, not Founders Edition, because custom cards are better cooled.

Thanks a lot.

I hope I can finalize soon my purchase...

Have a nice day.