Workstation build, mostly for SolidWorks

[GhostWolf]

Someone asked me about a build they were offered for a workstation meant mostly for SolidWorks.

The full specs:

• CPU - i5 4570 Haswell
• CPU Cooling - Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2
• Motherboard - Asus B85M-G LGA1150
• RAM - G.Skill Value 2x4GB DDR3 1600Mhz
• GPU - PNY Quadro K600 1GB DDR3
• HDD - WD Blue 1TB
• PSU - Antec Basiq 450W
• Chunk Of Metal - Sharkoon VS3-S Black Chrome

They didn't give the prices for every part, but the whole thing is 1038$.

I don't know much about workstation graphics cards beside the fact that they cost way more than they are worth, so the main question is whether the Quadro K600 he was offered is actually worth anything compared to a similarly priced GTX750Ti (again, for SolidWorks).
Just seeing that 1GB DDR3 memory makes me assume it's terrible.

Any comments?

/Edit
After googling a lot, I am actually surprised, because it seams like the workstation GPUs are far better at running SolidWorks (and the likes) much better than gaming GPUs.
Even this low end K600 supposedly runs much faster than high end GTX680 / GTX770 and the like, according to multiple benchmarks.

 

[Velmarshal]

Yeah, my friend bought a laptop with a quadro card specifically for solidworks. It's capable of gaming, but for solidworks and such programs it trounces the consumer grade cards. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl4yNCgD3iA

Otherwise a fine build.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I don't know much about workstation graphics cards beside the fact that they cost way more than they are worth, so the main question is whether the Quadro K600 he was offered is actually worth anything compared to a similarly priced GTX750Ti (again, for SolidWorks).

I am not entirely sure what the difference is with work station cards.

On Wikipedia I compared the specs of that card with my 760 GTX and the difference was that the 760 GTX was about 6 times better in every way.

Searching the internet yields the following.
-GeForce consumer cards and Quadro cards are often almost identical physically.
-Standard GeForce cards have specifically disabled double precision floating point units, Quadro cards do not. This is often done with some hardware differences (a few jumpers/resistors enables it). I am guessing physically this is down to yield with slightly flawed chips (with disabled functions) being used for GeForce.
-The drivers between GeForce and Quadro are very different. Quadro is optimized fully for OpenGL unlike GeForce which is aimed at only common/game subset of OpenGL.
-Quadro cards are 3-4 times the price of similar GeForce cards. Yield may play a part in this.
-Quadro cards are often weaker computationally yet have better screen fill rate and throughput than similar GeForce cards. Even a weak one should have little problem spreading tools across 4-6 displays.
-Developers of professional tools specifically target OpenGL and Quadro cards. GeForce cards of superior technical performance will perform worse using these tools than a Quadro card.

A business aimed scam? I have mixed opinions. The limited double precision performance of GeForce cards hints yield origin. They also may have higher reliability than GeForce cards (workstation using it all the time for years), again a yield concern. On the other hand their performance for cost ratio is very bad. A lot of what I read reeks of driver and software flaws that result in worse performance on GeForce cards than they should physically be capable of.

In either case SolidWorks will probably perform better on that card than a similarly priced GeForce card. If this is fair or even logical is another question.

GTX680 / GTX770

That would be the double precision float performance. Only the Titan has reasonable single to double ratio. (3:1 instead of 30:1).

Then again the Titan was meant to be a merger between Quadro and GeForce, to create the ultimate card. Obviously cost is a major problem with that card, being more than the computer and all.

 

[GhostWolf]

Yeah, it seems like it's pretty much Nvidia/AMD selling drivers for a whole lot of money.
Is this a scam? no. Is it disgusting? certainly.

In a better world you would be able to select the driver branches whenever you wanted.

 

[Dr Super Good]

In a better world you would be able to select the driver branches whenever you wanted.

That would only resolve performance difficulties relating to the driver. The double precision float performance is hardware limited. Yes you can use hacks to enable it but these reportedly make the card unstable (which would be the case since if the card could run those it would not be sold as what it was).

In Hardware design there is no such thing as a lucky component (a component sold cheaply with the specs of a high end component). If you buy a 100 Ohm resistor with +/- 5% it will be closer to 95 and 105 Ohms than 100 Ohms because all the ones that are close to 100 Ohms are sold as100 Ohm +/- 0.1% or whatever.