NVIDIA Performance On Linux, Solaris, & Vista

AtomBOB suggests a Phoronix review comparing the performance of a Quadro graphics card on Windows Vista Ultimate, Solaris Express Developer, and Ubuntu Linux. The graphics card used was a NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700 mid-range workstation part. The cross-platform benchmark used was SPECViewPerf 9.0 from SPEC. Quoting Phoronix: "Using the Quadro FX1700 512MB and the latest display drivers, Windows Vista wasn't the decisive winner, but the loser... Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 5 with the 169.12 driver had overall produced the fastest results within SPECViewPerf. In only three benchmarks had Solaris Express Developer 1/08 outpaced Ubuntu Linux, but with two of these tests the results were almost identical.""

Comments

Re:What is the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between the Quadros and the consumer cards used to come down to hardware OpenGL overlay support, if I remember right.

Re:What is the difference?

[sxeraverx]

They have different priorities. Gaming cards try to keep the framerate up by degrading image (not showing every single texture, e.g.), if need be, while cards for stuff like CAD and the like lower the framerate to show every detail requested of them.

Re:OpenGL?

[glob]

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/

"Some have suggested that OpenGL performance on Windows Vista is poor compared to Windows XP. This is not the case."

Re:What is the difference?

[alex4u2nv]

I had the very same question, and this article from Nvidia turned out to be very enlightening.
Quadro vs FX -- http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_geforce.html

According to the article, there are some major differences between the two architectures. Where features are programmed either at the hardware layer (quadro), or at the driver layer.