CGarchitect Reviews the NVIDIA Quadro 2000

NVIDIA Quadro 2000 Review
by Jeff Mottle

During SIGGRAPH 2010 last July, NVIDIA announced the release of their new GPU chipset, based on the NVIDIA Fermi architecture, to their Quadro professional graphics product line. This review is a follow up to the extensive card review we conducted last year which can be found here: http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/Reviews/Review076_1.asp.

This new series of NVIDIA Fermi-based cards includes the Quadro 600, Quadro 2000, Quadro 4000, Quadro 5000, and the flagship Quadro 6000. For those who have not been following the developments going on around GPU compute, this new NVIDIA Fermi chipset separates itself from the previous generation by tightly integrating advanced visualization and compute features to greatly accelerate professional workflows. In general, magnitudes of speed increase can be gained with this new architecture. We were provided one of their mid-level cards specifically aimed towards the CAD market, the Quadro 2000.



The Quadro 2000 is a single slot card requiring only power from the PCI-E slot. Compared to its bigger brothers, this card is quite small, but boasts 192 CUDA cores and 1 GB of GDDR5 RAM with only 62 W of power consumption. Externally there are two display port outputs and 1 Dual-Link DV-I capable of a maximum display resolution of 2560 x 1600 at 60Hz. NVIDIA recently announced the Quadro 2000D, which has similar specifications to the Quadro 2000, but which also provides two Dual-Link DVI connectors.

[Quadro 2000 Card Images]


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For full specifications on the NVIDIA Quadro 2000 and Quadro 2000D, please visit the NVIDIA website (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-2000-us.html; http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-quadro-2000d-us.html)




Last year we did extensive tests on a number of the consumer and professional cards from both AMD and NVIDIA. We ran those same tests again with the Quadro 2000 card to see how well it performed. Our testing methodology was identical to that of the original tests using the latest Quadro performance drivers as of the time of this review (266.45). We tested performance in both AutoCAD 2011 and 3ds Max 2011. From the frame per second tests we ran, we re-ranked all of the cards to see how well the Quadro 2000 performed. As you can see from the test results below, it has above average performance and even landed a second place spot on one of our AutoCAD tests. The results in 3ds Max also placed the Quadro 2000 in the middle of the pack. For its price point, it performed on target.

To see the original review, test scenes and testing methodology, please go here: http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/Reviews/Review076_1.asp

The charts below outline the card model numbers, the test scene used and the rank of all cards tested.


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Conclusion

Based on our tests the Quadro 2000 has middle of the road performance in 3ds Max and AutoCAD. In AutoCAD one of our test scenes ranked 2nd out of the 13 cards tested. The card is reasonably priced at $450 for an NVIDIA Fermi based card and would make a good mid-level card for a CAD professional or budget minded 3d user. With 192 cores, this card could also be a decent entry level card to test GPU rendering, but will certainly not provide any real-time rendering performance. Keep in mind, however, that GPU rendering is not the main market for this card. With low power consumption, Quadro drivers and the more robust engineering of this line, we think this card is a good choice for anyone looking for a reliable professional series card for moderate sized scenes and a minimal budget.

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