Reviews - Pro-Clockers! PC Reviews One MegaHertz At A Time

"For the uninitiated, here's a quick summary. Workstation graphics cards are used by a wide assortment of professionals, such as 3D professionals working in CAD, DCC, broadcast, medical imaging, and financial services. They tend to focus on OpenGL as the API of choice, as the vast majority of applications opt for it rather than Direct3D, the common API for gaming-level graphics on the desktop. Typically, GPU makers perform very little modification to their base GPU for workstation class products. Rather, they unlock improved performance with driver enhancements and workstation application optimization and validation alone. Professional graphics drivers really enable increased performance though highly focused tuning in specific workload and software environments. Also note that workstation cards go through many stages of certifications from application providers to ensure compatibility as well. Mainstream gaming cards simply don’t have to be tested as strenuously, hence the considerable price discrepancy between the two types of cards."

 

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