Stop pretending Quadro cards are better than Geforce

[sarsenault2CCSS]

Revit does not officially support Geforce cards, but they are a much better value than Quadro cards. The result is that architecture firms spend a lot of money on useless and slow Quadro graphic cards.

Please stop misleading customers to buy Quadro cards. This results in very slow models for offices that are spending a lot of money on useless cards. There is no reason to get Quadro cards for Revit, it is an impediment to performance, productivity and budgets.

The more people use Geforece cards, the better and more productive the Revit world will be.

[dgorsman]

There are many, *many* more GeForce/other brand gaming cards out there with more coming and others being obsoleted.  That, combined with numerous updates to drivers, makes keeping any kind of updated list of tested products difficult if not impossible.  Fewer products and fewer driver releases with workstation lines are much easier to manage.  They are also common in the desktop systems provided by the Big Box suppliers like Dell and HP, which don't provide non-workstation cards as an option on those lines.

If they work for you, and you can get them, then feel free to make your own recommendations.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

Any of the regular series (1050, 1060, 1070, 1080, etc) will work fine. You can choose the WHQL drivers if you're afraid of the new drivers.

I think Dell and the other "big box" computer manufacturers sells Quadro because there's a bigger profit margin and they know the "pros" will pay for it.

[sasha.crotty]

Hi @sarsenault2CCSS, the Revit team don't endorse the use of any specific card or manufacturer, so you can use any card you'd like if you feel confident that it works properly with Revit. As you can see in our system requirements we recommend a card that is "DirectX 11 capable with Shader Model 5." The message referenced above simply states that the specific card you are using has not been tested and that you have the option to turn off hardware acceleration if you start experiencing issues. If you're not experiencing issues then it is entirely reasonable to ignore the warning.

In most cases, Autodesk will support you no matter which card you are using (with the exception of explicitly unsupported cards). However if you happen to experience an issue and that issue turns out to be graphics card related, one thing to check with the manufacturer is whether the they will support a fix to the driver for a Revit-specific issue. Certified cards are typically certified by the manufacturer to work with Revit.

All that said, in over 5 years of being a PM for Revit, I've only seen a significant graphics card issue once and that had already been remedied by the manufacturer on more recent devices/drivers.

Last but not least, I am archiving this issue. This is not meant to imply a lack of importance - we are already reconsidering the messaging for graphics card warnings, but it is simply not possible for us to accept an idea with this title. It would imply that we were in fact doing so. 

[sarsenault2CCSS]

Hi @sasha.crotty,

Indeed, changing the language and graphic (you only show the warning sign on non-quadro or Firepro cards AFAIK) would help. So would testing Geforce cards.

My goal for the industry is to step as far back away from Quadro as possible, it's a huge impediment to the industry and this language and graphic combo only strengthens the false idea that firms should get Quadro cards in their offices. That is a tragedy in my opinion and extremely bad for BIM implementation, BIM performance and budgets.

I do have to say that on more than one occasion, your subscription tech support told me that I needed a Quadro card before I could get support. 400$ and a few weeks later, I had a useless weak Quadro card and the problem persisted. Perhaps there is a bit of clarification required for your tech support department on this issue as well.

The way that Autodesk has been wording it's relationship with regards to Quadro over the last years does imply that Quadro cards are preferred and superior. So I am glad there is a move in the opposite direction, to something that would help clients make informed technical decisions without getting ripped off and being stuck with sub-par performance on Revit.

Cheers!

[sarsenault2CCSS]

A supplementary information, the only graphic hardware you recommend (and test) is Quadro. Changing this would help a lot to make sure people understand that it's not their only recommended option, actually it's their worst and most expensive option with the worst performance. It's telling customers to shoot themselves in the foot.

[sasha.crotty]

The warning is shown on any card that is not listed on the certified hardware list available at the time that the software is packaged. As more cards are certified, updates to the copy of the certified list are included as part of the Revit point and bug fix releases. We don't connect to the cloud version of the list to do this check, so it is possible for the website and what's installed to be out of sync. Revit does not have any built-in logic to categorize cards beyond looking at the list.

If the current list does not include a specific card that means that the manufacturer has not sent us certification results for that card. We encourage you to reach out to to the manufacturer to certify any card you do not see listed.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

Hi @sasha.crotty,

When you say manufacturer, do you mean NVIDIA or the actual person making the cards afterwards (PNY, EVGA, ASUS, etc)?

I doubt I would ever be able to reach any of these companies in terms of testing their more affordable cards and they make a huge effort to disguise the fact that their Quadro cards are not adequate for Revit. This is an obvious effort to mislead customers into buying products that give them more profit margins.

I've also noticed that your hardware recommendations say to check the recommended hardware by Autodesk, which as shown in the comment above only points to "pro" graphic cards.

It's hard for me to believe Autodesk is making any effort to make it clear that Quadro cards are inappropriate or not superior to regular GeForce cards. Hopefully this changes as you've suggested.

[sasha.crotty]

By manufacturer I mean NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, etc.

Looks like we need to tweak the requirements wording a little. My comments above regarding messaging refer to the in-product messaging only.  We are not planning to change our certification procedures at this time. 

[matias]

GeForce GPUs are indeed great for Revit. Aren't Quadros better at AutoCAD, Adobe CS and other work software?
I know a good GeForce would still perform reasonably well* and for 1/3 of the cost of an not so good Quadro.

Anyone has any input on the "*"? as I don't use a lot of AutoCAD and other CAD programs that are known for being very open GL based and high processing power. I am mostly Revit and Adobe Suit but if I need to build workstations it's something I should consider.

Regards,

Matias

[sarsenault2CCSS]

Hi Matia,

AFAIK, AutoCAD only uses he graphic card for minor things like anti-aliasing, unless you are using AutoCAD for it's 3D capabilities for some reason. I'm not sure why anyone would do that since we have Revit now.

AFAIK, you are also shooting yourself in the foot by getting a Quadro for any of the main Autodesk software: AutoCAD, Revit, 3ds Max.

NVIDIA used to put software locks on Geforce cards so that they would not have access to Quadro capabilities, despite being the same cards components inside. They stopped doing that around 2012, but have tried to keep convincing consumers that Quadro cards are REALLY GOOD for 3ds Max, AutoCAD and Revit. Obviously, this is a lie made to make more profit and appease anxious techies who cannot decipher the the thick layering of obscure marketing and technical terms.

There seems to be no documented difference between GeForec and Quadro in terms of OpenGL performance or drivers. Maybe there was way back when, but I believe this has just become an urban legends that has stuck.

What differentiates Quadro cards at the moment is usually more RAM (not so much when compared to Titan cards), more double precision calculations (that Autodesk products don't use), the cards are UNDERclocked for stability (you can slow down your own cards too if you really want, you'll get less performance) and there's a few niche features that are not available on GeForce that require thousands of dollars of investments. These features are like using iray VCA to live render using multiple cards, we're talking about 15-30-45k$ of investments and a lot more.

So basically, stay far far away from Quadro. They are a money pit with only disadvantages for 99% of Autodesk users.

---

@sasha.crotty, is Autodesk planning on testing GeForce cards or are you going to leave it in the hands of the manufacturers to not test the right cards so that they can keep misleading customers through their selective and limited testing? I've never seen GeForce mentioned in Autodesk documentation for Revit in all of the documentation out there, it would be good to mention that they are a viable solution rather than keeping a shroud of mystery and obfuscation around it. It makes me wonder if Autodesk is getting paid by NVIDIA to keep quiet about the whole issue, since NVIDIA is getting rich from the whole industry misunderstanding and Autodesk is sitting by silently.

NVIDIA is operating a deceptive scam on Autodesk consumers, resulting in terrible performance at high cost to the industry. This is a disservice to BIM and, indirectly, to Autodesk.

[sasha.crotty]

At this time, the Revit team does not have any plans to expand certification efforts. We're actually working towards a reduction in emphasis on certification of cards. It is simply not feasible to test all combinations of software and hardware given the number of cards on the market. We are considering if there is a way to make the test suite available directly to customers for self-validation, but at this point this is just an high-level discussion. We encourage our customers to make the decision that is right for them. As I mentioned before, Revit is manufacturer and card agnostic, so if a card works for you, use it. The only time a certified card has an advantage is if there is a card-specific issue with a non-certified card you may have to work with the manufacturer directly to get a driver update. From my experience these kinds of issues are few and far between given the way Revit uses the GPU and there is always the ability to fall back to WARP (turn off hardware acceleration) if needed. We also suggest customers refer to the RFO benchmark as an independent source of data about graphic card and machine performance.

[yavork]

I did have  few cases the graphic card was blamed and was told that they will try to help me on "best effort basis".-And the case goes nowhere.

So since then I always reproduce the problem on certified card and only then eventually the agent tells me that my case is send to developers. 

Not using certified graphic is an easy way out for your support to blame the non supported card and close the case.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

I've had Autodesk agent tell me to reinstall Windows alltogether because they did not want to solve the problem. Pretty bad for paid subscription support... But yeah, on a few occasion, I had the exact same scenario as you. What a cop out.

[Evan.Pond]

I would love to see a user based self-validation benchmark program. This would build a great database for others to reference when building new machines to run Autodesk products.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

@Evan.Pond there is:

https://www.pragmaticpraxis.com/rfo-benchmark/rfo-benchmark-v3-1-revit-2016-2018/

It clearly shows that Quadro card are exensive and weaker than Geforce cards for Revit, as with 99% of all applications (unless you are using a double precision scientific software, that no architecture firm would efver use).

On a different setting, Octane Render banchmarks also show that Quadro are a terrible performance proposition.

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/results.php?v=3.06.2&sort_by=avg&filter=&singleGPU=1

For example the Quadro GP100 ($5000) is only 20% faster than the GTX 1080Ti ($700)

I'm still angry about Autodesk aiding this propaganda and decieving customers into buying expensive useless graphic cards.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

https://www.revitforum.org/hardware-infrastructure/35957-rfo-benchmark-v3-1-2017-results-2.html

as a concrete example, here are some recent Revit benchmarks:

Post #12 - $1000 card: Quadro P2000

The graphic portion for standard view took 23.72 seconds, 33.07 seconds for sketchy views, 64.38 seconds for renders.

Post #16 - $400 card: GTX 970

The graphic portion for standard view took 25.23 seconds, 30.66 seconds for sketchy views, 75.05 seconds for renders.

Lower scores are better.

So you get a rough equivalency, but if we follow what Autodesk says, the drivers for the 400$ card is not supported, so customers should spend 600$ more. What a ripoff!

[CacheHit]

@sarsenault2CCSS: I haven't formed an opinion one way or another, but Nvidia makes technical claims regarding the differences between their consumer and workstation cards: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_geforce.html. Notably, many of the differences aren't born out in raw benchmarks.

Most products, in many industries, feature a "professional" line that offer better support, certification, or warranties that are important for businesses that care about accountability. I suspect that this is the motivation behind Nvidia's Quadro line.

More thoughts are welcome. Cheers.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

@CacheHit This is a totally irrelevant BS marketing material from 2003. None of it is still relevant. If you find a claim you think is relevant, point it out. I've read this pamphlt and it's BS. My IT guys read it, didn't understand a thing and bough all Quadro cards. That's exactly what they want to happen. Why do you think they never updated that pamphlet in 10+ years?

Quadro cards are underclocked cardt that used to have more RAM. They usualy no longer have more RAMand GTX cards now have 8GB of RAM easily. If you really want more stability, underclock your GTX card.

Both GTX and Quadro cards are garanteed for 3 years.

http://www.nvidia.ca/object/manufacturer_warranty.html

As we saw above, the certification is BS. They just don't pay to have it certified with autodesk, to sell more Quadro cards, no becasue GeForece cards could not be certified.

[sarsenault2CCSS]

Was this comment removed?

michael (Community Visitor)

While looking around to "optimize" my new Quadro P4000 for Revit, I saw this and found it pretty interesting. I have to admit to falling for the Quadro hype recently but due to previous positive experience. After reading this thread, I thought I'd throw in my experience, mainly because the typically uninformative "Revit team" response made me chuckle. Years ago, I bought some "used" Quadro cards off Ebay and SLI'd them. I wasn't using Revit at the time, but they actually did a great job with Microstation and 3D Studio Viz (yeah, it's been awhile). Since then, I've stuck with Geforce cards. I had used a GTX 770 and recently had been running a ROG Asus 980ti (mildly overclocked) for a year or so. Revit 2015-2018 all worked well with them except rendering times, which have been...painful. I almost never have a client who gives a crap about renderings (can't build from them), but the last year has seen two who have wanted them. No need to go into the base machine hardware--it's all top-notch with 32gb of RAM pinned to a high end gamer board and all the trimmings. So, I dropped $800 for a P4000. I knew in advance that I it only came with Display Ports but had an adapter for DVI. I didn't read the small print, and the adapter didn't work for my old dual-link DVI Dell 3007WFP. No problems with my Dell U3014. This precipitated having to spend another $120 for a USB powered dual-link DVI adapter for the Dell 3007WFP (thanks, NVIDIA!). While waiting the adapter, I ran a rendering for a view with the P4000 with the same settings that I ran with the ROG Asus 980ti...no friggin' difference. WTF? I played with the NVIDIA Control Panels, made sure Revit settings were fine, but it still took the same 40 minutes. Being riled up and wanting my other monitor, I jacked in my ROG Asus 980ti beside the P4000 and hooked my Dell 3007WFP to it. I have to give credit to NIVIDIA at this point. Not a single driver issue running two different cards. The Control Panel easily lets you pick and choose which cards are doing what. Here's the suckage: even off-loading all non-Revit tasks that I could to the ROG Asus 980ti and prioritizing the P4000 for Revit, I have not seen ANY discernible increase in Revit speeds or renderings. In fact, want to bring Revit to a near screeching halt with your snappy new Quadro P4000? Find a complex 3D view and turn on Realistic and then try to rotate the view...and sit back and watch the spinning cursor--watch and scream. The ROG Asus 980ti is slow but NOWHERE as bad as the P4000. Once I got my dual-link DVI adapter, I popped out the ROG Asus 980ti since the adapter works great with the Dell 3007WFP.. I'm going to see how things go and run RFO Benchmark v.3.1. I'll then try the ROG Asus 980ti alone and finally both cards at the same time. Time permitting, I'll come back and post what happened. Final thoughts: Is the mic on? As usual, I think Autodesk lives in loonyville and usually consider most of the "help" their support provides is like communist propaganda. The real-world guys in the trenches find the hardcore fixes (saved me many times). As for the Quadro P4000, well....I'll feel really stupid if I end up yanking it out and shoving into my media server to watch movies because it ended up sucking at Revit.

[michael]

I'll just repost it. I guess since I'm not an Autodesk acolyte, they didn't like it.

-----------------

While looking around to "optimize" my new Quadro P4000 for Revit, I saw this and found it pretty interesting. I have to admit to falling for the Quadro hype recently but due to previous positive experience. After reading this thread, I thought I'd throw in my experience, mainly because the typically uninformative "Revit team" response made me chuckle.


Years ago, I bought some "used" Quadro cards off Ebay and SLI'd them. I wasn't using Revit at the time, but they actually did a great job with Microstation and 3D Studio Viz (yeah, it's been awhile).


Since then, I've stuck with Geforce cards. I had used a GTX 770 and recently had been running a ROG Asus 980ti (mildly overclocked) for a year or so. Revit 2015-2018 all worked well with them except rendering times, which have been...painful. I almost never have a client who gives a crap about renderings (can't build from them), but the last year has seen two who have wanted them. No need to go into the base machine hardware--it's all top-notch with 32gb of RAM pinned to a high end gamer board and all the trimmings.


So, I dropped $800 for a P4000. I knew in advance that I it only came with Display Ports but had an adapter for DVI. I didn't read the small print, and the adapter didn't work for my old dual-link DVI Dell 3007WFP. No problems with my Dell U3014. This precipitated having to spend another $120 for a USB powered dual-link DVI adapter for the Dell 3007WFP (thanks, NVIDIA!).


While waiting the adapter, I ran a rendering for a view with the P4000 with the same settings that I ran with the ROG Asus 980ti...no friggin' difference. WTF? I played with the NVIDIA Control Panels, made sure Revit settings were fine, but it still took the same 40 minutes.


Being riled up and wanting my other monitor, I jacked in my ROG Asus 980ti beside the P4000 and hooked my Dell 3007WFP to it. I have to give credit to NIVIDIA at this point. Not a single driver issue running two different cards. The Control Panel easily lets you pick and choose which cards are doing what.


Here's the suckage: even off-loading all non-Revit tasks that I could to the ROG Asus 980ti and prioritizing the P4000 for Revit, I have not seen ANY discernible increase in Revit speeds or renderings. In fact, want to bring Revit to a near screeching halt with your snappy new Quadro P4000? Find a complex 3D view and turn on Realistic and then try to rotate the view...and sit back and watch the spinning cursor--watch and scream. The ROG Asus 980ti is slow but NOWHERE as bad as the P4000.


Once I got my dual-link DVI adapter, I popped out the ROG Asus 980ti since the adapter works great with the Dell 3007WFP.. I'm going to see how things go and run RFO Benchmark v.3.1. I'll then try the ROG Asus 980ti alone and finally both cards at the same time. Time permitting, I'll come back and post what happened.


Final thoughts: Is the mic on? As usual, I think Autodesk lives in loonyville and usually consider most of the "help" their support provides is like  communist propaganda. The real-world guys in the trenches find the hardcore fixes (saved me many times). As for the Quadro P4000, well....I'll feel really stupid if I end up yanking it out and shoving into my media server to watch movies because it ended up sucking at Revit.