Choosing the Right Graphics Tool for the Job

By Alex Herrera, Jon Peddie Research

Alex Herrera Jon Peddie Research

The advancements made in 3D gaming over the past decade have been astonishing. With respect to performance and innovative visual effects, today’s games are driving graphics hardware to new levels. But the tremendous growth in 3D game technology hasn’t led to a one-size-fits-all hardware solution that can satisfy both the gamer and the CAD professional, and it likely never will.

  Gaming isn’t CAD, and vice versa. Though core technologies may have converged, how those technologies get employed hasn’t. For professional-grade 3D hardware,  it’s all about tuning the pipeline and balancing the workload for applications like AutoCAD, not Crysis.

  Hearing that, some may simply assume I’ve drunk too much of the corporate Kool-Aid,  brainwashed to think professional-brand graphics cards offer tremendous value,  when they’re really nothing more than gamer cards with window dressing. Don’t I realize the “professional” tag is just a marketing gimmick to convince customers to pay more for the same thing as the consumer brand? Well, because of the way 3D graphics has evolved, that perception is common, but it’s not accurate.

  Yes,  the GPU chip at the heart of both classes of product is almost always built from the same die, cut from the same silicon wafer. With the massive cost required to spin a new chip, no business model today can justify building separate chips for the two spaces. It’s simply no longer viable. Former #3 vendor 3DLabs was forced out of the market, simply because its professional-only strategy couldn’t compete against the economy of scale enjoyed by the industry’s big two, NVIDIA and AMD.

  While NVIDIA and AMD today draw upon a common investment in 3D silicon and software,  both invest extra time and money to enhance that raw foundation for professional requirements. Consider anti-aliased (AA) lines, still pervasive in CAD and architectural and exposed in features like AutoCAD’s Smooth line. To render them quickly and well demands a dedicated on-chip engine, hardware that requires both extra transistors and extra engineering time for design,  simulation, and testing.

  Now games couldn’t care less about AA lines, so there’s no point in burdening gamer cards with its implementation cost. Instead, it’s left to professional customers to bear that cost. In exchange, the buyer gets fast, high-quality line drawings, typically much faster and cleaner than what the consumer card can deliver.

  The same goes for the time-consuming process of ISV certification. While it’s of no consequence to gamers, certification can matter a great deal to CAD. At the very least, certification instills confidence that the card and driver will coexist with the system and software reliably, avoiding costly hiccups at inopportune times.

  But for AutoCAD users, it means a lot more than just a little peace of mind; it now means minimal system compliance. Autodesk has raised 3D system requirements for AutoCAD 2007 (and beyond) to specify certified cards, a list of which includes the professional NVIDIA and AMD brands, but not their consumer counterparts.

  So yes, despite sharing technology roots with its gaming brethren, professional graphics products require incremental design and testing, and as a result carry a higher price tag. And if a $100 premium still seems high, consider that NVIDIA’s latest entry-level professional card can now be had for a total price of just more than $100.

  Application-tuned performance and certification for the most popular CAD/CAM software packages —  available at consumer price points — have made the pro’s buying decision a lot easier.

Alex Herrera is an electrical engineer who has worn many hats during his career in semiconductors and computer graphics. Currently, he is a senior analyst with Jon Peddie Research. Send e-mail about this commentary to [email protected].