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Multiple different architecture Quadro GPUs?

Question asked by Paulius Jatautas on Jun 13, 2018
Latest reply on Jun 20, 2018 by Chris Warren

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Hi there,

A simple question but still...

I have a Dell Precision Tower 5810 workstation with one Quadro M4000 GPU and I want to add one more Quadro P5000 or P4000 to speed up Visualize Pro workflow and rendering. As I understand Quadro and GeForce GPUs dont mix, right? So is there anything I should know about multiple different architecture Quadro GPUs in one system compatibility? Will I be able to fully utilize both GPUs when rendering? Does it matter which one is the "primary" one? Yada Yada...

Thanks for help.

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Jason Stevens Jun 13, 2018 2:30 PM
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I was told years back your system will run as fast as the lowest gpu. If this is still true your system will run like it has 2 M4000. Probably better off with just the P5000. But that might have changed
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- Damir Galic @ Jason Stevens on Jun 19, 2018 8:19 AM
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  I've heard that it only uses as much RAM as the graphic card with the lowest amount of RAM. While performance depends only on number of CUDA cores and I think those can stack no matter how many each has.
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Scott Ellery Jun 13, 2018 4:19 PM
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Hi Paulius ,

I believe you can actually mix Quadro and Geforce cards as the Quadro drivers also come with the Geforce drivers and you should be able to set which card handles rendering from your Nvidia control panel.

as far as Quadro and Quadro goes , I am fairly certain that you will only be able to use one or the other but not both at the same time.

the most important thing is the Driver you are using must support both cards so if you wanted to mix a Geforce card with a Quadro specifically for rendering it should probably be the same gen (i.e maxwell quadro and a maxwell geforce) unless others are also supported by that driver.
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- Paulius Jatautas @ Scott Ellery on Jun 14, 2018 5:38 AM
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  Hey Scott,
  
  I feel totally bamboozled now..
  
  "I believe you can actually mix Quadro and Geforce cards as the Quadro drivers also come with the Geforce drivers and you should be able to set which card handles rendering from your Nvidia control panel."
  
  Can somebody who tried this confirm or deny? All info online says Quadro drivers don't play with Geforce and vice versa.
  
  "as far as Quadro and Quadro goes , I am fairly certain that you will only be able to use one or the other but not both at the same time"
  
  Again, I always thought that Visualize uses all GPUs for rendering. I guess Solidworks only uses 1, but for modeling there is no need for 2 Quadro GPUs anyways.
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  - Scott Ellery @ Paulius Jatautas on Jun 14, 2018 11:41 AM
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    it looks like Jason Edelman has proven that both GPU's from quadros can be utilized simultaneously (which is very Cool!)
    
    as far as confirming mixture of cards , many forums that I have checked out including one I'll link below have mentioned that it can be done fairly easily. the trick is that you cannot run more than one driver at a time BUT Quadro drivers also come with their Geforce counterparts (so technically its two drivers in one) which allows for the use of both Quadro and Geforce.
    
    https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/928306/quadro-and-geforce-drivers-on-same-system/
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Jason Edelman Jun 13, 2018 4:42 PM
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All GPUs will be utilized when rendering, I have not seen any issues with my M and K processors...
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- Scott Ellery @ Jason Edelman on Jun 14, 2018 11:42 AM
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  This is very cool , and you must have a ton of PCI-E Slots lol
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Chris Warren Jun 19, 2018 12:45 PM
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Ironic this was posted today. I have the same question. I have a Quadro P4000 that isn't being utilized at the moment, but my current system has a Quadro P5000 in it. I'm using Visualize to do some turntable renders and thought that maybe putting the P4000 in with the P5000 might help.

I'll give it a shot tonight and report back with my findings.
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- Chris Warren @ Chris Warren on Jun 19, 2018 6:50 PM
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  Just confirmed. I have a P4000 and P5000 in my machine and am getting great performance out of both. I have the latest drivers from SolidWorks website. Just plugged in the P4000 and powered on my machine, the card was instantly recognized. No setup needed.
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  - Paulius Jatautas @ Chris Warren on Jun 20, 2018 8:07 AM
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    Hey Chris,
    Maybe you can check how GPU RAM is being utilized in your system? I don't really know a way how to do that but maybe there is one.
    P5000 has 16 GB RAM and P4000 has 8 GB RAM, so does the system use all 24 GB of RAM or 16 GB?
    
    as Damir said:
    
    "I've heard that it only uses as much RAM as the graphic card with the lowest amount of RAM. While performance depends only on number of CUDA cores and I think those can stack no matter how many each has."
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    - Chris Warren @ Paulius Jatautas on Jun 20, 2018 9:52 AM
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      A quick search showed a program called GPU-Z... There's not a section for total VRAM being used in each card, just total memory being used. It looks like neither card is fully utilizing their memory. Granted, I don't know what the utilization looks like with only one card installed. I can do some more testing soon.
      
      P4000:
      P5000:
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Multiple different architecture Quadro GPUs?

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