Building new GIS Workstation - is it worth upgrading to a workstation GPU?

Posted by bsigrist on Super User See other posts from Super User or by bsigrist
Published on 2010-06-07T14:52:11Z Indexed on 2010/06/07 14:53 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 309

Filed under:

gpu

|

workstation

|

gis

We are currently building a machine from scratch to act as a GIS workstation. The primary software used is ESRI's ArcGIS and we are mainly working with vector data using raster data only for contextual background imagery. In the past I have built a GIS machine and used a consumer grade gaming GPU (Nvidia 9800GT) and found it to perform fine. However, I have always wondered if I would have been better off equipping it with a workstation GPU such as a Quadro series.

Would a workstation GPU make a noticeable difference doing 2D GIS operations or should I save money on the build and equip it with another 9800GT?

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about gpu

CUDA: Memory copy to GPU 1 is slower in multi-GPU

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My company has a setup of two GTX 295, so a total of 4 GPUs in a server, and we have several servers. We GPU 1 specifically was slow, in comparison to GPU 0, 2 and 3 so I wrote a little speed test to help find the cause of the problem. //#include <stdio.h> //#include <stdlib.h> //#include… >>> More
Software for monitoring/measuring GPU temperature (WinXP/7)

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Are there currently any programs available for monitoring/measuring GPU temperature? Something preferably free, and for either Windows XP and Windows 7. Thanks in advance! >>> More
Port scientific software to GPU and publish it

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, let's say that I am a physicist and that I am the master of the universe when it comes to port salready existing oftware to GPU's with 100x or more speedups. Let's say that I find that some other scientist, which does not know how to program GPU, publishes the Open Source code in his/her website… >>> More
Intel Merges GPU, CPU for Netbooks

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
The move to integrated CPU and GPU continues as Intel brings the technology down to the low-end netbook segment. >>> More
Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux for GPU computing

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
<b>The H Open:</b> "The Japanese Fixstars Corporation, which specialises in software for the Cell processors, has announced the release of Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux (YDEL) 6.2 for CUDA, the first enterprise Linux OS optimised for GPU computing." >>> More

Related posts about workstation

Looking for Inneroffice Access Tool, Workstation to Workstation

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
This may be a simple question to answer, and I apologize if it's a duplicate. I looked through the suggestions and nothing jumped out at me as the right answer, so here goes: My office has several workstations, Macs and Windows boxes. We do have a firewall and a VPN solution, so getting in to the… >>> More
Mutli-processor workstation as a workstation/server

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I work in a research institute and a number of programs we use are computationally intensive (I actually wrote one of them). Right now we have one computer that is dedicated for one of these programs (with local accounts only, as in users physically sitting in front of that pc) and the other programs… >>> More
RDP from domain workstation to non-domain workstation via VPN

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I am trying to RDP from a domain computer to a non-domain computer over a VPN. I created a rdp profile for a specified user (for example user name: USERX) with the option to save the password. I am able to establish the connection the first time by entering in the password. However, from that point… >>> More
VMware Workstation Recording feature

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have seen some documentation about a Record/Replay feature in VMware workstation 6 and 7 here : http://cto.vmware.com/the-amazing-vm-recordreplay-feature-in-vmware-workstation-6/ http://www.vmware.com/pdf/ws65_manual.pdf But I don't find that feature in my VMWare Workstation 10. I don't find… >>> More
Can VMWare Workstation 7.x and Sun VirtualBox 3.1.x co-exist on the same Windows7 64bit HOST togethe

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
BACKGROUND INFO: My Old Workstation Host: 32bit Ubuntu 9.04 running Sun Virtual Box 3.x hosting Windows-XP VM Guest for Windows Software app development (VS2008, etc) My New Workstation Host: 64bit Windows7 running VMWare Workstation 7 to host 32bit Ubuntu 9.10 for linux project work. NEEDS: I need… >>> More