Are there disadvantages to using NVIDIA RTX cards for rendering with the Rhino renderer (as opposed to Quadro)?
thanks,
Thomas
Yes. The main disadvantage is for shareholders who lose out on selling Quadro/A series cards at vastly inflated prices for the same (or worse!) GPU.
But the “gaming” class consumer cards usually are far better value for money. I think the usual advantage for Quadro is developing and support. Sometimes it’s a license requirement that you cannot use gaming GPUs for certain things. For example, Autodesk does not certify RTX cards I think, but does certify professional cards for all three GPU vendors. You may get a raised eyebrow if you have serious problems with RTX in some renderers that are not “qualified” for use. The same goes for a few software providers who sell big-money subscriptions.
If you are just rendering, and you are happy with the VRAM, then the gaming/consumer cards don’t tend lose out at all, and can often be faster.
Rhino/McNeel has no such policy of professional-only cards.
No. GPU rendering is all about CUDA core counts and quantity of VRAM, not the obscure OpenGl curve drawing features specific to the “workstation” cards, which isn’t even a market Nvidia care about anymore.
The other reason to specify Quadros was to not have to deal with the wide range of hardware that ordinary people in offices actually use, “this is what we tested it on so if you have trouble on something else you can pound sand.”
Most helpful. Thank you. I was stuck on Quadro when I was still using Solidworks. Since I can no longer justify the exorbitant cost of that platform, I’m probably going to go with the beefiest RTX card(s) I can afford on my next machine.
Thomas
As I just replied to David above: “Most helpful. Thank you. I was stuck on Quadro when I was still using Solidworks. Since I can no longer justify the exorbitant cost of that platform, I’m probably going to go with the beefiest RTX card(s) I can afford on my next machine.”
Thomas
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