We previously reviewed the NVIDIA Quadro P1000 and P4000 GPUs, and though they certainly aren’t nearly as powerful as the company’s highest-end workstation GPUs, both of these cards performed well enough to suit most general professional use cases–and at a very affordable to boot. The P2000 offers much of the same, lying somewhere in between those two cards in the performance spectrum. Touted as the perfect balance of performance and features, this compact form factor GPU offers the power needed for creative professionals who work with intensive 3D applications.

Of course, design visualisation is best done at 4K and above, but moving to these higher resolutions would put a significantly bigger load on the GPU.

For another change of application, we looked at a beta of a new VR-capable CAD file viewer called PiXYZ Review. Here, we managed to get decent performance even with a 13 million triangle factory model, although the default render quality was not as good as in VRED. GPU rendering works almost entirely independently of the CPU, which means it can take full advantage of the power on offer. The Quadro P4000 delivered a smooth VR experience in all our architecturally-focused VR applications using a variety of test models. We also had no problems with Gravity Sketch, but this came as little surprise considering the relatively simple datasets produced by this conceptual design tool. SolidWorks also features more realistic display styles for viewing models in real time. SolidWorks RealView adds realistic materials and supports environment reflections and floor shadows. Ambient Occlusion adds more realistic shadows and helps bring out details.

The next benchmark we will be looking at is the SPECviewperf 12, the worldwide standard for measuring graphics performance based on professional applications. SPECviewperf runs 8 benchmarks it calls viewsets, all of which represent graphics content and behavior from actual applications. These viewsets include CATIA, Creo, Energy, Maya, Medical, Showcase, Siemens NX, and Solidworks. Here, the NVIDIA P2000 posted solid numbers for its class, while having much better results compared to the M2000 and P1000 as you can see from the chart below. SPECviewperf 12 it should deliver the goods in a much wider range of professional VR workflows. However, while US pricing is still to be confirmed, from the UK pricing we have seen, it looks like it will cost considerably more. NVIDIA Quadro P2000 — The Perfect Balance of Superb Performance, Compelling Features, and Compact Form Factor. It is also important to understand that VR has much bigger demands than a typical desktop 3D application. In fact, it needs around eight times more graphics computing power than is needed to view the same workflow on a single FHD (1,920 x 1,080) monitor. This is down to increased demands on resolution and frame rate. The Quadro GPUs offer certified drivers, which are optimized for stability and performance in professional applications (CAD, DCC, medical, prospection, and visualizing applications). The performance in these areas is therefore much better compared to corresponding consumer GPUs.

Quadro GV100, Quadro GP100, Quadro P6000, Quadro P5200, Quadro P5000, Quadro P4000, Quadro P2000, Quadro P1000, Quadro P620, Quadro P600, Quadro P400, Quadro M6000 24GB, Quadro M6000, Quadro M5000, Quadro M4000, Quadro M2000, Quadro K6000, Quadro K5200, Quadro K5000, Quadro K4000, Quadro K4200, Quadro K2200, Quadro K2000, Quadro K2000D, Quadro K1200, Quadro K620, Quadro K600, Quadro K420, Quadro 410 We saw similar results in game engine AEC-focused applications, Bentley Systems LumenRT and Autodesk LIVE, with significant performance gains over the previous generation and good scaling up the range. With an emphasis on visual quality, most design viz tools place a huge load on the GPU and, as a result, are much less (if at all) ‘CPU limited’ compared to CAD applications.