What's the latest on Graphics Cards?

[MJuric]

For years SW was a "Certified Graphics card only" software. I have not looked for a while but that seems to have faded. A couple questions.

1) Is the previous line between "Professional" graphics cards and "Gaming cards" disappearing or gone all together?
2) If yes is the concept of "Certified Graphics card" a thing of the past or is DS still certifying certain cards?
3) If no how does one discern the difference between a "Professional" graphics card and a "gaming" graphics card?
4) Finally even if there are different classes of cards are the advantages between the two getting to the point that in function and performance there is little to no difference. I know in the past that lines like Quadro had some functions available that had to be manually unlock on "Gaming" cards etc.

I'm looking at some pretty old hardware we have here and want to make the suggestion of replacing it and of course "graphics card" choice is always part of that. We have historically gone all Quadro, just wondering if that is no longer necessary.

[JSculley]

https://www.solidworks.com/support/hard ... ification/

Quadro cards, RTX cards and Radeon cards make up the lion's share of certified cards.

Step away from those and you increase the chance of your VAR blaming every problem on 'unsupported hardware'.

[Frederick_Law]

1) It never was much different.
Low end Pro card (1000, 2000) are mostly multiple display options (TV wall). Nothing about performance.

2) "Certified" means someone ran some test and say it works.
Problem is that "someone" need to get the new card and run the test. Also when new driver are released.
We've seen that "someone" never go around to do the test. Hence a outdated "Certified" list.

Basically a blaming game.
We didn't "Certified" it, your problem for using it.

Think car "Certified" gas from Shell. If you use anything else, warranty voided.

3) Really not much in hardware. Pro card get a few more test. Still up to software to test before card release.
nVidia Pro (Studio) driver has slower update cycle. Game driver update with every new game.

4) I say no different.
I've hard and soft mod a GeForce to Quadro FX. The GeForce slow down after 5 windows is opened in CAD.
Old Quadro was faster with drawing.
I don't see that problem in current gaming card.

CAD use line graphics to display polygon edges. Also need high precision.
Game don't show edges. Everything covered with texture.
It was the reason Quadro was faster because hardware and BIOS was optimized to run line and edges.
Again, don't see that problem now.


CAD still running below 4k resolution mostly. You won't have problem using 4k anyway because graphic card are way beyond 4k.
Game antialiasing is up to 16x - 16 4k display. So it has all the power to show lots of models.
Check GPU load when you got a slow down. Most likely GPU not doing anything.

Everyday modeling don't need Quadro.
Get highend Quadro if you do rendering all day long.

CAD need to dump calculation to GPU, like games using GPU for physic.

Personal Rant:
1080 TV had majorly slowed down display development.
I was using 1600x1200 CRT before 1080 was a thing. Then 1080 wipe out higher resolution for 10 years.
Video card was struggling at 1200 even on 2D.
Now they don't even rate 2D capacity.

[Frederick_Law]

Examples:
Last job, Solidworks:
At work, Ryzen 7, GTX1070 on 1080 monitor.
At home, i7-4600, Intel 4400 Graphic on 4k TV.
Not much different in performance even with FEA.

Inventor, since it reprogrammed to DirectX, Direct3D, anything runs.

Huge patterns are slow to recal in CAD but has no problem to display afterward.

[tinkerman]

...
CAD use line graphics to display polygon edges. Also need high precision.
Game don't show edges. Everything covered with texture.
It was the reason Quadro was faster because hardware and BIOS was optimized to run line and edges.
Again, don't see that problem now.
...

What is (if there is such a thing) the "spec" on an Nvidia GPU that would indicate the level or performance of "high precision" and/or "accuracy" that were supposedly guaranteed with the "Quadro"/"professional" line?

How is this performance tested these days?

My main interest is in being able to view the object at hand from shifting angles quickly, and occasional simulation, but not much need in rendering. I'm wondering if an Nvidia RTX 3500 Ada GPU for a laptop with a recent(gen.13) i9 or i7 CPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD would suffice for professional design/simulation use. Also what would be a viable alternative to the Nvidia RTX 3500 Ada GPU?

[Uncle_Hairball]

I have an RTX A3000 in my laptop. I run all manner of large models and assemblies, as well as some simulations, but little rendering. Simulation doesn't seem to use the GPU and when I monitor GPU usage for modeling, the needle hardly moves, so next time, I will select a less expensive graphics card like an RTX 2000 ada.

[KennyG]

Y@tinkerman You do have to be careful with NVIDIA now as the pro GPU models and the consumer GPU models from NVIDIA are all called "RTX". The key difference is that the Pro models are branded "NVIDIA RTX", and each model are typically given a whole thousands name such as "2000", "3000", "4000", but some as you have stated are "3500". The consumer line is branded "GeForce RTX", and the models usually have a mixed number like "4070", "4090", etc...

As @Uncle_Hairball stated, the A3000 has worked well for us, and I believe we have a few 3500's as well that work fine. I think at the end of the day, it's all about polygon count with the parts and how massive assemblies get along with displaying textures on parts. If your parts are relatively simple faceted parts and you don't routinely display textures, you don't need a higher-end GPU. If you are on the extreme end of that, then you may need something more... The A3000 seems to be a good all-around GPU that covers 95% of use cases.

[Frederick_Law]

What is (if there is such a thing) the "spec" on an Nvidia GPU that would indicate the level or performance of "high precision" and/or "accuracy" that were supposedly guaranteed with the "Quadro"/"professional" line?

I don't think they ever "guarantee" performance.
Quadro use high bits floating points (128 or 256, not sure). Don't know how much that matter.
Don't know how many bits CAD use for graphic.

Performance is based on core counts.

I don't think GPU is bottle neck in CAD. Most likely CPU is.