Will Quadro K5200 suitable for Cycles GPU rendering

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1

Hi All,

I am asking on behalf on a client. Because of compatibilty concerns with CAD programs, my client will like to use Blender/Cycles with Quadro K5200 card… instead of GTX cards.

Before a purchase is to be made, I will like to ask if this particular card is suitable for Cycles rendering.

Currently, they use a Quadro 2000, which is very slow for GPU render. I guess this is due to the low CUDA core count (192).

Are there known compatible issues of Cycles with Quadro cards?

Thanks in advance:)

2

Hi, no compability issues with Cycles but …
The K5200 use the same Kepler core as the GTX 780, down clocked and with lower memory bandwidth for 24/7 usage.
Hard to say how much slower the K5200 is but it would be still a fast card for Cycles with huge 8 GB VRAM.
Best solution for me is keep the Quadro 2000 for display and add a second card for Cycles, may you have to upgrade power supply but save 1500$.
(Another advantage of two cards is smooth work during render)
If you work on very big scenes you have no choice anyway, actual cards have only 4 GB VRAM.

Cheers, mib

3

Hi Mib,

Thanks for the reply. :slight_smile: Appreciate it.

4

I compared my Quadro K5200 with my Titan X using the BMW27 test file. I got 01.02.00 best run on the Titan and 0.1.38.00 for the quadro (I found 480x180 tiles on 1080p to be the optimum). Considering it is a dedicated workstation card for Maya it fairs well when paired in a system with titans. That makes it flexible if you use both maya (viewport performance) and blender. Also it keeps up in VRam having 8 to titan’s 12. That being said there is one side of the problem that has the titan x trump the quadro, temps!. When you water cool the titans they remain surprisingly cool around 35-45C but the Quadro goes up to 70C in just a few minutes of hard rendering. There is no easy AIO cooler for the Quadro to mitigate that problem. Note: Everyone runs the BMW27 benchmark but a more realistic one (IMHO) is the blender site sample “classroom”. Single titan X = 07.22.00 (approx), Quadro 13.39.00 (approx) It looks like on these large scenes the Titan outshines the quadro. that is a surprise and shows how one shoe does not fit all.