Nvidia Quadros in SLI

[Thee Awbade™]

So I'm helping someone out with a custom computer build that will be primarily used for 5 axis toolpathing and surfacing using masterCAM. 

 

I've always had good experiences with the Nvidia Quadro line, however after looking at their website and prices I realized I might be able to get better performance/dollar by running 2 in SLI. I know the Quadros are capable of handling SLI, but is MasterCAM Configured to utilize the SLI Function and work properly?  

 

Any advice on the subject is appreciated. 

 

(I've build multiple SLI Set-ups before for gaming etc, so I know how to run and ensure that part works. Just want to make sure that isn't a lost cause in this case because MasterCAM can't even utilize it.)

[Guest]

Mastercam does not support SLI

[Jayson Kramer]

I did try this in the past with two quadro 4600 cards. I did not find Mastercam at the time to take advantage of it. so no increase in performance.
I now wonder if the new version of MC 2017 may do something with it.
You might try sending this question off to [email protected]

[Thee Awbade™]

Well that's a bit disappointing then. Glad I asked, better than just assuming it would take advantage of what is becoming a more and more common occurrence.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

If your budget doesn't allow for a good Quadro card and you won't be using the computer for Solidworks you will probably be better off with a high end GeForce card.  Mastercam plays well with them.

[Allan]

While Mastercam is not specifically written to use SLI, as some games are.

The requirements of Games is quite different; many frames per second each frame requiring rendering.

My experience has been that 2 Geforce cards in SLI outperform one in Mastercam.

The areas where you will notice speed improvements is verify, shading and dynamic rotations.

 

The application does not need to be written to specifically support SLI the Geforce driver takes care of it.

Check out this article @ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

 

 

Allan

[Thee Awbade™]

I'm a little hesitant to use a gaming card for this PC. I know at home, with a similar build to what I'm getting them but an OC 980Ti instead of a Quatro M4000, I have a hard time regening the big molds they do

[Allan]

Regening or shading (rendering)?

 

The regening speed is purely CPU.

 

If you have (2) 980Ti GPU's https://www.pny.com/gtx-980ti-6144mb-gddr5-pcie-3-0?sku=VCGGTX980T6XPB-CG

 

I guarantee that it will outperform (1) https://www.pny.com/nvidia-quadro-m4000?sku=VCQM4000-PB

 

Looking at the specs I would say the 980Ti GPU will outperform drastically the Quatro M4000 as is.

 

 

 

 

256bit VS 384bit for the memory interface

 

192Gb/s VS 336.5Gb/s for the memory bandwidth

 

IMHO you are paying a premium for the name.

 

They claim that the hardware is better and the drivers are specific for cad, but I have yet to see poor performance from these higher end Geforce gaming cards.

 

YMMV

 

Allan

[Thee Awbade™]

Yeah, I'm curious now. I was always under the impression that Regenerating dirty Ops was a joint CPU/GPU effort in MasterCAM. And that's where the CUDA cores of the Quadro series shined over CUDAless Gaming cards.

 

If that's the case as you're saying, I may just put the 980Ti in then, I know for processing power they will be fine as I'm planning on putting a 6700k i7, doing a simple overclock and using a closed-loop water-cooler for it

[mkd]

quadros are seriously overrated for MC.

Gaming cards blow their doors off.

 

flamesuit on

[jeff]

quadros are seriously overrated for MC.

Gaming cards blow their doors off.

 

flamesuit on

I'm sure the low end ones are, but I can't speak for the uber expensive Quadros as I've never used one.

All I know is that I've always used a gaming card and have had zero issues. Right now I have the GTX 980.

[Thee Awbade™]

I'm sure the low end ones are, but I can't speak for the uber expensive Quadros as I've never used one.

All I know is that I've always used a gaming card and have had zero issues. Right now I have the GTX 980.

 

Well in the case of everyone here's experience, I think I'll go with a 980Ti for this build then, it's cheaper and maybe I'll get the chance to do a full watercooler build, since I know you can buy watercooler blocks for 980Ti's without having to engineer one up.