NVIDIA’s latest Quadro GP100 is a monster GPU: but will you ever see it on a Windows PC?
NVIDIA has made consistent headlines for its GTX 10-Series of amazingly powerful GeForce GPUs. These cards bring incredible performance across many types of device, including laptops integrating mobile versions of the latest Pascal-based GPUs.
GeForce has always been synonym with high gaming performance, and as of late, the ability to handle virtual reality applications as well. With that said, the most amazing class of NVIDIA cards yet, is not a GeForce (and not a Titan X either), but rather the latest Quadro GP100, designed for a completely different level of computing than what average consumers would require.
Quadro cards are traditionally geared towards 3D animation, CAD/CAM design, and virtual reality, as well as scientific calculations, when working in concert with other Quadro cards, via NVLink.
This performance reported for the GP100 are truly monstrous. Its Pascal-based architecture handles 32-bit floating point performance of 12 Teraflops, through 3584 CUDA cores, blowing past the Quadro P6000.
When working at 64-bit floating point, the GP100 is still amazingly fast and capable of handling 5 Teraflops, via 1792 CUDA cores.
The GP100 can also handle 5K displays at 60Hz, and uses HBM2 memory, which is a revolutionary type of 3D RAM, leveraging performance significantly.
Another innovation brought by the latest Quadro GPU is the implementation of NVLink technology to link up multiple cards together.
In GPUs like the GeForce, communication between cards is done using SLi connectors, but NVLink provides considerably faster speeds. The only problem is that most Windows PCs do not have NVLink available, which has prompted NVIDIA to make the connector available directly on the card itself, and by allowing it to connect to other cards, for a coordinated performance boost.
As we previously mentioned, the Quadro GP100 isn’t a gaming card, however it is compatible with all major headsets, and can operate in the same way as a GeForce card, upon activating a “game developer” mode.
With that said, operating a regular Windows PC with a Quadro GP100 as a daily driver isn’t recommended. Drivers and functionalities vary widely from a GeForce card targeted to consumers, and performance typically staggering in production applications, may falter in games and other activities that are typical of an average consumer, even with the game developer mode activated.
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