NVIDIA Quadro DDR

CPU Utilization

The use of either an on chip (Quadro DDR) or on card  (GVX1) T&L processing should off load the host CPU to considerable extent.  The CPU workload was measured during the running of the ProCDRS-02 test for the Quadro DDR ( 3.65 driver) and for the 3Dlabs GVX1 – AGP.  A chart of the results:

ProCDRS-02 is comprised of 10 sub-tests and the CPU load profiles for each of the cards clearly shows that fact.  The Quadro DDR like the Quadro SDR and GeForce cards uses almost all the CPU when running this test and no CPU offloading was observed.  On the other hand, the GVX1 uses almost no CPU (less than 10%) during the actual running of each sub-test but does use some at the start of each of the sub-tests when the display list is being created. 

The Quadro DDR finishes the test quicker than the GVX1 but at the expense of using all the CPU.  This result means that the Quadro DDR’s performance should scale as CPU speed and the GVX1’s performance should be somewhat independent of CPU speed for this type of test.