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

What is the difference?

[moreati]

I've wondered this a while. What is the difference between the gaming cards and the workstation cards from Nvidia and ATI? Do they just have better DACs? Certified driver support for business apps? Or is the GPU itself somehow?

Alex

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: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.

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."

Just wait - windows graphic will reclain the crown

[skeptictank]

I have it on good authority that the next Windows Driver Model will run Crysis on 3 SLI 8800GTs and render it in 8-bit color at 640x480 resolution at over 50 FPS! So take that you Linux/Unix hippy beatnik freaks!

Re:the difference does not matter.

[bigpicture]

You think? I remember and have followed a similar kind of scenario, it started over 30 years ago when I was younger. It went something like this: GM was the Biggest of the Big. Had a market share greater than all other automobile manufactures combined. Had revenues higher than the GNP of 90% of the worlds nations. etc. etc. etc. They developed this Business Model called "Planned Product Obsolescence". (Your vehicle was planned to be scrap in about 10 years or before.)

There was also another little automobile manufacturer called Toyota with a very small market share, they made crappy little vehicles, used to be called "piss pots". They had a Business Model called "Continuous Improvement". There was a historic event in 2007 that went quietly unnoticed, Toyota surpassed GM in world market share and revenues.

Re:the difference does not matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

You argument is flawed. You're arguing because windows is better known it will always
have the largest market share. The same could have been said about IBM pcs, or lotus 1-2-3,
Borland's compiler suite, or wordstar word processor.

The fact of the matter that next winner has to start out small because it gets to grab
marketshare. Google is an excellent counterexample to your argument. They were just 2-3 people
in 1998 working on a master's thesis project when Yahoo and AOL were the big thing. And where
is AOL now? How much marketshare does Yahoo have for search engines?

Personally I think that Dell selling preinstalled Linux boxes in the U.S. was the first toll
of the death bell for Microsoft. Then walmart selling out the green PCs was the next tolling of
the bell, and now that Asus is selling Eepc laptops I think is the first nail in the coffin for Microsoft.

Will Microsoft die overnight? No. Will they go out with a bang? No. I think they will go out with
a whimper within the next 5 years unless they somehow manage to reverse their course like they
did in 1995 and embrace the fact that GPL software is here to stay and start using it.

Re:the difference does not matter.

[glitch23]

I bet if I randomly took 100 people off the street, put them in a room and asked what Linux was, maybe 5 at the most would have an idea, if I asked what Windows was, at the very least they could tell me it was made by Microsoft and came with their computer. Linux distros do not have the marketing capabilities that Microsoft does, and in a world where people think things should get easier to use overtime, Linux will not take even 10% of the desktop marketshare.

These are the same people who when asked what kind of computer they have answer with "black". Also, not many people can associate the maker of the softare they use with the actual software application. You ask them which browser they use and they will say "I don't know. I just click on the blue 'e'." despite the fact that the title bar says "Internet Explorer" 100% of the time the application is open. So I hope you don't expect them to know Microsoft created it if they don't even know its name.

As far as marketing capabilities, I hardly ever see a Microsoft commercial. When I do they don't ever specify any particular product in the commercial. How does that really sell Windows or Office? All the marketing seems to happen behind the scenes from the point of view of the end consumer using deals that happen between OEMs and Microsoft salespeople.