NVIDIA Quadro 2000 and 600 lower cost of pro Fermi

NVIDIA today brought its current-generation Fermi graphics to less expensive workstation cards through two models, the Quadro 2000 and Quadro 600. The two have been pared back to 192 cores and 96 cores respectively but promise more performance than the parts they replace. The Quadro 2000 is said to be about 50 percent faster in geometry rendering than the FX 1800 it replaces, while the Quadro 600 is about twice as capable as earlier starter workstation cards.

Both consume lower power than usual and are single-slot cards that consume less space and heat than faster alternatives. The Quadro 600 comes on a narrow profile board that consumes as little as 40W of energy. Both still focus heavily on general-purpose computing with extra acceleration for CUDA, DirectCompute and OpenCL as well as the full DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.x feature sets.

Boards should be available today as stand-alone cards starting at $199 for the basic Quadro 600 and scaling up to $599 for the Quadro 2000. Elsa, Leadtek and PNY are selling the cards by themselves, but Dell, HP and Lenovo have already lined up to supply completed workstations. Apple has been a longstanding supporter of Quadro video, but its support isn't known; it doesn't offer Quadro hardware in the current Mac Pro but has used it in the past and has previously added Quadro graphics in mid-cycle.

Quadro 2000 (top), 600 (bottom)

By Electronista Staff