HP Z workstation GPU's

If I were to get a new HP Z420/620/820 workstation, which of the available GPU’s would be best for running Cubase? Their site lists these:

Professional 2D: NVIDIA NVS 300, NVIDIA NVS 310 (available soon), NVIDIA Quadro NVS 450
Entry 3D: NVIDIA Quadro 410 (available soon), AMD FireProTM 2270, NVIDIA Quadro 600, AMD FireProTM V3900, AMD FireProTM V4900
Mid-range 3D: NVIDIA Quadro 2000, AMD FireProTM V5900
High-end 3D: NVIDIA Quadro 4000, AMD FireProTM V7900, NVIDIA Quadro 5000, NVIDIA Quadro 6000, NVIDIA Tesla C2075

I wouldn’t do anything other than Cubase and some basic web browsing etc.

Thanks.

Graphics cards are really not that important when running Cubase. Just make sure the graphics card you pick has enough outputs to feed all your monitors and you should be grand. I think all of these have their own memory, but check that to be certain. You don’t want your graphics card to consume valuable RAM.

the lower priced the better.
but really Z an HP? when you know where to get better…

I use a lowly Quadro 380 and with a 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050 screens, this worked wonderfully with 2 x 1680 x 1050 and 2x 1900 x 1000 screens but slowed down considerably when I upped the resolution to 1920 x 1200 so is a bit borderline there, I would go for the Quadro 600, it is about 20% faster in real terms than the 380 and would cover all dual setups upto 2x 1920. The NVS solutions are actually much slower than the 600 but support up to 4 screens, the higher end cards are primarily 3D workstation cards and offer very little to you application, especially considering the silly prices. The upcoming 410 is also slower than the 600.

Nvidia provides longer term support driver for their Quadro line than AMD has done with the FirePro so on that basis you should probably choose them, the driver quality is also much better than with the consumer cards. But you may want to take a look at the V3900, I think it is considerably faster than the 600

Not in multi screen applications, the driver support is considerably better than with consumer cards, and the cheaper Pro-cards are very good at 2D even though they suck at 3D for the price, the sweet spot for those cards is usually just below the mid end, i.e. not the bottom level cards but just above them, in the NVidia case that would be 5xx, 6xx etc., can be found for under 100 euros if you search around .

The driver support long term is also better, I am using a 10 year old Quadro AGP card with Win7 64bits, fat chance of that happening with my collection of consumer cards.

really?
the question was FOR CUBASE

therefore “3D” is NOT even a subject to be discussed.

even onboard video will run dual LCDs @ 1920, my guess with your unequal montors is you are not setting it up correctly as 2 LCDs of different res can be a PITA.

as far as Quadros dont make me laugh. unles you are doing a small handful of 3D apps (Solid works/AutoCad)
a quadro is vastly over priced and underperforming from its GTX equals…

the fact HP only offers this goofy Quadros is reason enough to not buy

MULTI-SCREEN for cubase, read the posts before you go off on a tangent, most people are using 2 or more screens with their cubase installations, and read the original question again.

Quadros also perform better with 2D applications, some Quadros like the NVS have no or very limited 3D acceleration so are not intended for “small handful of 3D apps (Solid works/AutoCad)”, they are intended for multi-screen applications for the financial industry and other applications that require such like music applications, and may I remind you the original poster was asking to opinions on specific cards not on your opinions on anything else

Most onboard graphics cards do not even support 1920 x 1200 x 2, much less run it at acceptable speed they max out at a total resolution of 2560 or less so 2x 1600 is ok in most cases but 1900 x 1000 not, much less 1900 x 1200, moreover they are not acceptable for use with Cubase since they use shared memory, read the hardware issues section in the Cubase manual.

I I did not say the card was slow, I just said slower, it is still much faster in 2D than the ATI 4xxx consumer card I replaced it with

And this is what pro-cards are for, they run multiple screens at multiple resolutions well, they are not designed to run games after all

again onboard will run dual 1920. anyone with 30"LCDs would not be running onboard anyway making it moot.
the old school (very old school) thinking that onboard video is not good for audio has been a dead issue for yrs now.
the ONLY potential issue with onboard is using programs that require strong open GL (waves) or things like Nebula that want Cuda enabled support.
this onboard uses ram in a long dead issue.

a Quadro card offers no benefit for dual monitors over ATI/nVidia cheap units they only make sense for 3+ if the was a benefit i would offer them in my systems. in fact over the yrs the Quadro 3+ cards have had driver issues with Audio (DPC issues, incompatibility with UADs)

so again my answer for Z stands correct buy the cheapest if buying a qaudro at all.
(which only a fool would do unless needing 3+ LCDs) and evn then Matrox is a better option

:blush:

Thanks, Scott. Just browsing, for now I’m still fine with my old Nehalem MacPro. Saw the ad for the new HP Z’s, took a look and wondered about the Quadros and ProFires.

I remembered reading something about pro-grade GPU’s having conficts with audio apps and interfaces, that’s why I asked.

It is not a dead issue, it interferes with the memory bandwidth of the system and thus with the RT response since the memory controller is not multiplexed but shared, but of course you know better than the authors of DAW workstations and other real time applications

actually yes i do know better than most. until you have the experiance i do i suggest keeping comments to known facts not trying to link to 10 yr old web stories.
its long dead dude. has been for at least 4 yrs
and using ram is completely immaterial at this point with the average system having 8 gigs taking 128-512 meg is beyond evn a slight concern. and for audio use it RARELY touchs system ram.

i can run benchmarks all day long for audio @ 32 buffer and you wont see a bit of difference from an onboard video system to one with a dedicated video card in it.
same for laptops dedicated vs onboard.

as i said the ONLY time it matters is with a few (very few) 3rd party software like Waves (which actually does ok now with newer intel onboard die video) and things like Nebula that are Cuda enabled. (still works just not as good without an nVidia card.)

might want to look at my profile…

AT LEAST! Even when I built my first DAW in 1999, my least concern was the GPU … except that I wanted my DAW also run Microsoft Flight Simulator (the only computer game I ever play) and had to have something with directX 3D support … otherwise I would have just put in my trusty old Matrox Millenium, which had super sharp image … kind of regretted the my choise afterwards.

Jarno… Thats really nerdy :laughing:

I loved Falcon 4.0 :ugeek: