Mobile WS: Quadro 5010M vs Dual GTX 580M

[Leiurus]

Hi all

The title sum it up pretty well. I will soon have to buy a mobile workstation. I haven't tried Octane yet but I'm extremely interested in it and would like to use it, at least to give it a try, on this laptop.

For the same price, I have the choice between these 2 products:

Dell Precision M6600:
CPU: i7 2760QM
16 GB RAM
GPU: NVIDIA Quadro 5010M - 4GB

Custom laptop (Sager based)
CPU: i7 990X
24GB RAM
GPU: 2xGeForce GTX 580M - 2 GB each

Which one would you recommend? As Octane can't use SLI, do I have to disable it or will it still use all the cores? (I already know it will use the RAM of only 1 card)

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your kind help and inputs.

Cheers!

[roeland]

Octane can use all the cores with SLI enabled, but it is recommended to disable SLI.

The main factor for how fast Octane will render is the speed of the GPU's. A (single) geforce GTX580M seems to bee slightly faster than a quadro 5010M, so if you don't need a quadro card or the larger GPU memory, the two geforce cards will be the best option for speed.

Also, note that the GTX580M is much slower than a desktop GTX580 GPU, from the specifications it seems closer to a GTX560Ti (but at a lower clock speed).

--
Roeland

[Leiurus]

Thank you for your fast feedback Roeland

Octane can use all the cores with SLI enabled, but it is recommended to disable SLI.

Sorry if my question sounds stupid, but why that?

The main factor for how fast Octane will render is the speed of the GPU's. A (single) geforce GTX580M seems to bee slightly faster than a quadro 5010M, so if you don't need a quadro card or the larger GPU memory, the two geforce cards will be the best option for speed.

Thank you for this input, didn't now how important GPU speed was, thought speed was mainly Cores number related. I don't "need" a Quadro, even though I'm a designer using loads of CAD apps, I never thought that Quadro cards are really worth the money. The thing is that the Dell M6600 comes with Quadro cards only.

In fact, my intention was to know, "practically wise", which is the best option, like "the 4GB Quadro will allow you to load massive scenes but the 384 cores will take ages to render them" or "the dual cards will render fast but it will be useless as you will be limited to small scene because of the low RAM"

See what I mean?

[pixelrush]

4gb is probably overkill for something running at GTX560 speeds.
That sort of space would be good for archviz and large film resolutions with something running at like 4xGTX580 performance.
You can still do quite a lot with 2gb. In an experiment I managed to stuff 10m tris into mine but that had one material, no textures and very small film resolution. I guess ~4m is practical with textures. What sort of thing did you want to render typically?
2 of these cards would be about the same performance as 3x my GTX460 I think and I find that OK for my average needs. I think you could be happy with 2 and 2gb.
2 cards has the flexibility of being able to dedicate one to display and one to rendering so you can do other things while you render if you wish. Scene navigation would be more responsive too.
Quadro are really the thing to get for CAD use though although there again 4gb might be overkill.
Geforce are crippled for pro apps in comparison to Quadro based on the same chip (it varies but it may be at little as 25-30% of Quadro performance) but Quadro are clocked conservatively for stability.
Probably the Q5010 is about 75% performance of the 580M for Octane.
You should have fewer driver and display issues with Quadro for pro apps - god knows you pay for that.....
BTW 12gb of ram would be enough for 2gb vram cards.
Look carefully at the case ventilation/fans for the laptop to make sure your cards are not likely to experience overheating with the intense use of rendering - Octane will run them hot!
HTH

[Leiurus]

Thank you Pixelrush, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

I'm working as an interior designer, we typically render corporate - hospitality - F&B projects. Poly count is not really an issue, even if they can pile up pretty quickly for large open spaces / detailled dining rooms, textures are more problematic.

You raised a good point regarding the heat, I was quite concerned by that too, the laptop is aimed at gaming and I assume that GPU rendering is much more taxing on the cards than the most realistic video game.

To cut it short, I would prefer the Dell, even if the price charged is a rip-off compared to what I could build myself, there is a better quality in term of case, screen, keyboard, etc...Main issue, beyond the high price, is to be bound to Quadro cards, as stated in my previous post, the pros of Quadro cards is not worht the money IMHO.

The custom laptop is def a better bang for the bucks but chassis, screen, etc...quality is not that great, and it is basically a shrinked desktop. Fitting a desktop CPU into thix thing is not the cleverest idea ever, it makes its battery life virtually non existent (not that the Dell breaks records on this side but at least it has enough autonomy for a presentation or working a bit during a flight)

I guess if the M6600 is enough to have a decent glimpse at what Octane can do I'll go for it and save the mutil-cards rig for a custom built (and much cheaper) desktop.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Cheers

[pixelrush]

The Dell will be a very good mobile workstation. Probably it comes with more widely available support and better warranty too.
The 5010 will be a bit faster than my 460 so from experience I can tell you it ought to run Octane reasonably well.
Probably I wait 15-20 mins for a clear enough image but its OK. For pics say 1920x1080 its quite handy.
You will be able to learn and experiment some and develop an appreciation of what you might need out of a more dedicated machine.
The trouble with laptops is the premium price and really the limitation of the form factor.
Its hard to squeeze in what you might like to have for Octane and also be confident it isn't asking a bit much cooling wise etc particularly if you are doing animations. There aren't very many manufacturers/choices either.
If you have a commercial need for rendering then it is probably a better strategy to fit out a desktop for the purpose.
It might make sense to have something fairly grunty that everyone can access as required that is tucked away somewhere where fan noise won't be a disruption.
In the future it could well be that Octane develops along the lines of *real time* walkthroughs and substitutions you could show clients on a bigger screen...

[Leiurus]

Hi Pixelrush

Just a few words to thank you for your information. Very detailed, you answered all my questions.

I'll update you and the other guys here as soon as the laptop is purchased and that I start to play around with Octane.

Cheers!