Discussion Screw this GPU crisis, I'm getting a Quadro!

[AnitaPeterson]

Since the dawn of the COVID era and the Great Videocard Drought (TM), I've been patiently trying to get a low-profile GPU for a slim HTPC. It doesn't have to play games at the highest settings, but I need it to run 4k@60Hz with HDR and provide reliable, good-quality hardware encoding/transcoding.

(The latter request, unfortunately, completely eliminates AMD cards from the equation).

For a very long time, there were a couple of low-profile 1050Ti and 1650 cards popping out occasionally, but even they require two slots and are almost impossible to find at realistic prices. Meanwhile, even the GT1030 (with no hardware encoder) has been creeping up in price from two years ago, from CA$100 to CA$150.

Lo and behold, nVidia released last year two enterprise GPUs from the Quadro family which fit the bill AND don't break the bank: the T400 and T600.
Most surprisingly, they're reasonably good gaming cards as well:

A T600 can be had for about CA$250, which represents about 66% of the price for a DDR6 GTX1650, while offering about 90% of its performance.
A T400 can be had for about CA$150, and it's basically equivalent to a 1050.

There are several discussions about them on Reddit, and Youtube reviews are universally positive - some are even incredulous, like this guy:

Remember: these are both single-slot, low-profile cards, with very low power consumption, perfect for minimalists.

So if you need something that's brand-new, cheap and works well, these represent the best bet, IMHO.

I just bought one myself, and am very curious to see it perform.

 

[waffleironhead]

Just curious how a t400 which is less than half of a 1650 offers 90% of its performance when based off the same die TU117
t400
384 shaders outputting 1,094 GFLOPS SP
1650
896 shaders outputting 2.984 TFLOPS SP

 

[Leeea]

How does this compare to a 5700g?

Both of the linked reviews do not seem to provide charts or compare them to anything.

edit:

NVIDIA T600

A thorough insight into technical specs and benchmarks of T600.

technical.city

a touch inferior to a rx 570 gpu
superior to the 5700g apu

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I can run some benchmarks when I get it.
But I wonder to what extent the numbers become more of a focus than then subjective, overall experience as an everyday user. See here, for instance: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0988WSB5V#customerReviews

I've been reading about the Quadro line for a while now, and was always disappointed with the previous models. This time it may be different. Remember how we used to be able to get a Xeon CPU that did almost everything a consumer-level i7 did, but at half the price? I think we're reaching that point in graphics as well.

As I said, this is a HTPC, built in a small-factor desktop case.
It will be paired with a 9400F and 32GB DDR4.
Right now the same setup uses a GT1030, which can display 4K HDR video and do some limited gaming but has zero hardware encoding.
Which is exactly the opposite of what I want to accomplish with this machine.
If I can do my video work AND be able to play games at the level of a 1050 without paying exorbitant prices, with a single-slot, low-profile card, I call it a win. Obviously, I won't expect to play Doom Eternal in 4K with all the textures maxed out

 

[Skillz]

I wonder how well it mines.

 

[13Gigatons]

I wonder how well it mines.

Don't give them any ideas!!!

 

[Mopetar]

I wonder how well it mines.

If it was a viable mining card, then it would have already been scooped up by a miner.

 

[Skillz]

If it was a viable mining card, then it would have already been scooped up by a miner.

If it was a viable gaming card then they'd all by scooped up by gamers by now.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

These days...

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I've been seriously contemplating getting one of those too with the way GPU pricing is going.

Remember: these are both single-slot, low-profile cards, with very low power consumption, perfect for minimalists.

Single slot is a bonus in my case. It's the very frugal power consumption, and lower then 1030 price tag I'm after...

So if you need something that's brand-new, cheap and works well, these represent the best bet, IMHO.

I just bought one myself, and am very curious to see it perform.

...and the media engine. Compared to a 1030, these have the full encoder on chip too. Should be a bit more frugal then the 1030 too.

Hadn't really thought of the gaming angle, really curious about it. From specs alone, the T400 should be around the 1030, while the T600 should be a little less then a 1650. The full fat T1000 should be slightly faster then the 1650 GDDR5. So I'm guessing enough for casual gaming?

 

[Stuka87]

If you just need a GPU because your CPU doesn't have one, than this is a good option. But do not by this card expecting to play anything made in the last decade at any sort of reasonable framerate. Quadro cards as a whole are poor gaming cards. A super slow quadro is an even worse gaming card.

I have a T1200, which has triple the cores of the T400 (both are TU117). And its adequate at best.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If you just need a GPU because your CPU doesn't have one, than this is a good option.

Ryzen owners apply here. My other HTPC uses a 3600, so needs some form of basic GPU.

I have a T1200, which has triple the cores of the T400 (both are TU117). And its adequate at best.

I don't think anyone is expecting miracles. I have both a 1030 and a 1650 (GDDR5) available. The 1030 is fine for older titles, esports and indie. In short the kind of thing you might play on a HTPC. The 1650 is at least capable of running newer titles, with some compromises. It's not ideal, sure. But will work in a pinch.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I was thinking the same thing on the Radeon side.
You can get the workstation cards for ~$2500
That's about the same cost as the scalpers charge for the desktop equivalent.

Essentially an RX 6800, but with 2x the mem and ecc

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[AnitaPeterson]

The card has arrived. It was pretty much a drop-in replacement for the GT1030. No need to reinstall Nvidia drivers.
The only drawback is that it requires a 4K@60Hz miniDP to HDMI adapter, since it only has 4 miniDP outputs.

OBS recognized its NVENC capabilities right away. So did Handbrake, the media players and other programs like DVDFab and BDRebuilder.

And I just played on it for a couple of hours: Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein The New Colossus and Serious Sam 3. All at 1080p with graphic details on "High".
Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between it and the machine with the GTX1650. Didn't notice any jerkiness, stuttering or dropped frames.

Haven't tried Cyberpunk 2077 yet

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Haven't tried Cyberpunk 2077 yet

Cyberpunk does run on a PS4, so it should at least be possible if you turn down settings enough.

 

[aigomorla]

Quadro's do not offer geforce drivers tho.
Quadro's are not meant for gaming, because of the lack of geforce driver support.

You can end up waiting MONTHS for driver support on a game, as again, it is not a geforce driver.

I personally would never recommend any gamer to go this path even if they were desperate.
Your better off on a console at that point if you truly can not secure a GPU, or your best off using a iGPU as a carry over until you can secure one. IRIS PRO or Radeon G, id feel would probably have better gaming support with 4Gigs dedicated to VRAM.

The only way i would probably recommend this if you had a plex box, which you wanted NVENC in the future to help transcode, but there are better solutions for this.

I was thinking the same thing on the Radeon side.
You can get the workstation cards for ~$2500
That's about the same cost as the scalpers charge for the desktop equivalent.

If your going to pay that much, get a 6900XT.
The 30 series + 6600XT + 6800XT are death traps.

I believe the scalpers do not markup that much for one, and you can find them on Amazon in stock most of the time like this:

https://www.amazon.com/PowerColor-Graphics-Powered-Raytracing-Infinity/dp/B08Q2R71CS/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3ABDRZFESFR1V&keywords=6900+xt&qid=1642569852&sprefix=6900xt%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-2

Why would you want to go on workstation card with the missing gaming driver support?

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Quadro's do not offer geforce drivers tho.
Quadro's are not meant for gaming, because of the lack of geforce driver support.

You can end up waiting MONTHS for driver support on a game, as again, it is not a geforce driver.
[...]

Why would you want to go on workstation card with the missing gaming driver support?

I am not sure what you mean.
I just posted that my Quadro T600 was a drop-in replacement on a system which had Geforce 472 installed.
All the card's functions are enabled from first boot.
And all the modern Quadro cards will happily run on Geforce drivers, as per Nvidia themselves:

From NVIDIA: "NVIDIA Studio Drivers are compatible with GeForce GTX 10-series, GeForce RTX 20-series, TITAN V, TITAN RTX, and all Quadro products released since 2012."

You must be thinking about Game-Ready drivers, but the they're not required for gaming, either....

 

[aigomorla]

You must be thinking about Game-Ready drivers, but the they're not required for gaming, either....

oh yeah your right... im thinking about game ready drivers... but i guess RTX isn't an issue as the cards are in that range are all underpowered to enable ray tracing, or missing support of.

 

[reneamcmahangm]

I wonder how well it mines.

Since the dawn of the COVID era and the Great Videocard Drought (TM), I've been patiently trying to get a low-profile GPU for a slim HTPC. It doesn't have to play games at the highest settings, but I need it to run 4k@60Hz with HDR and provide reliable, good-quality hardware encoding/transcoding.

(The latter request, unfortunately, completely eliminates AMD cards from the equation).

For a very long time, there were a couple of low-profile 1050Ti and 1650 cards popping out occasionally, but even they require two slots and are almost impossible to find at realistic prices. Meanwhile, even the GT1030 (with no hardware encoder) has been creeping up in price from two years ago, from CA$100 to CA$150.

Lo and behold, nVidia released last year two enterprise GPUs from the Quadro family which fit the bill AND don't break the bank: the T400 and T600.
Most surprisingly, they're reasonably good gaming cards as well:

A T400 can be had for about CA$250, which represents about 66% of the price for a DDR6 GTX1650, while offering about 90% of its performance.
A T200 can be had for about CA$150, and it's basically equivalent to a 1050Ti.

There are several discussions about them on Reddit, and Youtube reviews are universally positive - some are even incredulous, like this guy:

Remember: these are both single-slot, low-profile cards, with very low power consumption, perfect for minimalists.

So if you need something that's brand-new, cheap and works well, these represent the best bet, IMHO. snow rider 3d

I just bought one myself, and am very curious to see it perform.

I wonder how well it mines too

 

[aigomorla]

I wonder how well it mines.

I wonder how well it mines too

not so great since its 2gb.

the RX580's were shown to be better at 8GB over 4GB.
My 1660 Supers @ 6GB is where the sweet spot is for memory.
Anything more i hear is excess, anything less can be bottleneck.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Quadro's do not offer geforce drivers tho.
Quadro's are not meant for gaming, because of the lack of geforce driver support.

You can end up waiting MONTHS for driver support on a game, as again, it is not a geforce driver.

I personally would never recommend any gamer to go this path even if they were desperate.

I think you're missing the point. When gaming isn't in focus, who cares about when drivers are updated? So long as they get regular security updates, all is well.

Performance? Mostly a moot point, when you use it for display output and video decoding. That it can somewhat run games is just a bonus, not the focus.

Your better off on a console at that point if you truly can not secure a GPU, or your best off using a iGPU as a carry over until you can secure one. IRIS PRO or Radeon G, id feel would probably have better gaming support with 4Gigs dedicated to VRAM.

Non-G Ryzens don't have an IGP, so there isn't really anything to fall back on...

I wouldn't recommend either of those options. Iris is Intel, so uses their drivers. Which can have issues. It also uses an older architecture (Gen9), which isn't the main focus of Intels driver development. Radeon G? Unsupported by both Intel and AMD. Essentially abandonware at this point. Both are also only available in NUC form factor, so that precludes adding a graphics card in the first place.

 

[aigomorla]

@Insert_Nickname

Then i would get a AMD FIREPRO W4100 for less then 50 dollars.


you can grab them on ebay for less then 50 dollars, and they are pretty decient at driving monitors for non gaming purpose even up to 4k.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Then i would get a AMD FIREPRO W4100 for less then 50 dollars.

Prefer Nvidia drivers. But that's just personal preference...

Besides, by the time I've paid import and the other duties, that W4100 is just as expensive.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

@Insert_Nickname

Then i would get a AMD FIREPRO W4100 for less then 50 dollars.


you can grab them on ebay for less then 50 dollars, and they are pretty decient at driving monitors for non gaming purpose even up to 4k.

I actually looked them up, and was surprised to discover those are Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition cards, except with 512 shaders instead of the 640 on the "regular" card. Not bad, at that price... That's around GT1030-level performance at half the cost.