GTX 1080 and M4000 Quadro for Edgecam Benchmark - SA

Hi guys

I'm looking to benchmark some CAM software I use at work.

The software is called Edgecam and while it is widely used, not much information exists about what GPUs work best.

Edgecam uses openCL and it's machining simulation is quite demanding, I have seen the older generation card we are using now, GTX 570, slow to below 1FPS when things get complicated.

While the developer of Edgecam only supports Quadro and FirePro cards, it runs bug free on the GTX 570. I can't help but think that the sheer performance of a GTX 1080 would outperform the similarly priced M4000 Quadro.

Now, would anyone be able to help me in regards to getting my hands on a demo 1080 and M4000? Any ideas where I could even start to look?

Thanks
Aaron

 

i'm not sure if its possible but rather then trying to get the cards your self could you look at asking someone with a 1080 and an M4000 to install the software and trail it for you? offer a 6 pack or something as payment

i have a titan Xp if you want me to see how it would run with that?

 

This topic isn't one I'm greatly familiar with but AFAIK the only two differences between consumer and "certified" workstation cards with their "official" drivers is (a) use of ECC RAM and (b) more FP64 units also (c) I am led to believe only workstation cards show their virtualised display inside a VM.

CAD software can run in non-ECC video cards as I believe it has other methods to overcome flipped bits like calculating everything twice. If you don't need (a) and a lower amount of (b) is acceptable then a consumer one will do fine.

In addition to being slow the GTX570 has only got about 1.3 GB of RAM so it may be bottlenecking on this aspect alone, but it appears to be very slow compared to modern cards, it doesn't even appear on the radar but you can see the difference between the older and newer video cards here and especially here. Your Quadro M4000 is much slower than even a GTX1070.

I suggest you consider the Gainward GeForce® GTX 1070 Phoenix "GLH" which MSY have for $669 as it goes almost as fast as a stock GTX1080 but best of all at full tilt its still only 34 decibels loud which is near silent if the case is next to you and you happen to be working with it all day.

The only disadvantage with this card is its 2.5 slots wide, extra height (133mm) and probably extra long (285mm) so you may need to buy a bigger computer case if it won't fit.

Cheers

 

I wouldn't be looking at anything other than a Titan or a Quadro. Purely on Vendor Certified Drivers alone.

And even then - if the vendor doesn't support it, then its a non-starter. You make money with this software right? IIRC EdgeCam is serious $, why fucking cheap out on the GPU.

Explain your problem to your CAD vendor, and purchase hardware specifically to address that need.

There was a period of time where Quadros vs Geforces was ok, but largely NVidia cottoned on to it, and started strong arming vendors into crippling support for it.

If you have a 1070 or whatever lying around that you can give a try, go for it - but for the purposes of Business, I'd buy a Workstation w/ NBD support and get the appropriate card for your performance/budget.

 

i thought this slightly aswell, can't you claim this kind of stuff on tax against your business?

 

Unfortunately the licencing requires a computer connected to our server. The files I want to test with are also restricted so it's impossible.

If it were up to me I would always have the latest and greatest gear but unfortunately I don't pay the bills. Every machine shop I have worked in has had a problem keeping the computers up to date.

There are no specific drivers for Edgecam and the software is pretty poorly optimised from a processing point of view.

The main reason I want to do some benchmarking is because I suspect that the software will not run much different between a workstation card and a GTX card with similar specs but the Quadro card would be x10 the price.

After all, it's not really doing much compute, just displaying triangles in the form of an STL

 

How much is a CNC machine?

Right good, so dropping $2.5k on a Quadro 5k is a non-issue, and is supported by the vendor.

 

I totally agree, but like I said, not my money, I'm just trying to do the best I can.

 

So I work in a Business that supports Small Business. I work with Precision machine shops. something quite similar to this came up about a month ago.

I said.

Pete - I'm not going to sell you a machine that will run XP. You are going to have to upgrade your software.

he said, he didn't want to - because he didn't see the value in it.

Look, and this is not bullshitting you. Kicking the can down the road is a dumb idea - because sooner or later that hardware is going to break, then you're going to be looking at E-bay and Computer recyclers to get another piece of shit that is just going to break. And when it breaks, its going to take time to get a replacement - think days to weeks, or lost or delayed business. If you get a new machine - and the new software that goes with it, you can just call people up and say "oi come replace this" - and they do the next day. If you really want me to build something for you - I'll do what i can, but largely I'm telling you don't do it - because its genuinely not the right decision to maintain your business.

he said - yeah, I see your point. Righto, I'll go sort an Edgecam license and let you know the specs of what we need.

Jobs done.

No-one likes spending money. But if there is a business case for it, they generally will do it.

 

My boss has no problems spending Big cash on machines and understands the need for decent workstations but the guy that handles the cash flow won't come to the party, there is always something else to spend money on. It's very frustrating to say the least.

 

so, not your business and not your money... so take it your an employee just trying to help the owner out.

as Nsanity has put it you may need to just spell it out to boss in dollars. just work out how much time is spent by you or other workers standing around doing nothing while this machine is chugging along compared to if a newer card was doing it.

granted you may need some info on how fast a newer card can do it but it can't be too bad to estimate. with some rough figures http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1444?vs=1447 its easy to say a titan X is around 250% faster then a gtx570

that would mean if it takes your current machine an hour to do a run that means a $350 second hand titan X could do it in around 20 minutes.

say the guy operating the computer gets paid $25 an hour
$25 / 3 = $8 an hour (per each run of the software with a titan x)
$350 / 8 = 42

so after 42 runs the GTX titan X will have started paying for its self and the rest is profit


*the above maths was worked out after 5x $2 heineken long necks, please forgive any mistakes

 

This is exactly what I have done. I'm just trying to work out whether a workstation card is required. I'd love to just drop $8K on a high end Quadro but even a $1000 gpu is ridiculous to some people, justified or not.

The reality of it is that I can justify spending $20k on a workstation but $20k on a computer is crazy talk to some.

 

So I'm wondering how an Edgecam system ( ~$10K for a license? ) ended up with a GTX570 in it to begin with

But anyway, Hava's on the money with those calculations IMO.

 

$10k, and the rest, x2 seats.
The current systems handle smaller jobs no worries at all but once they get bigger, more complex with 5axis simultaneous movements the machine simulation really struggles. The trouble is that it is poorly optimised to begin with. They have only just made the switch to 64bit. Even with a top of the line workstation most of the compute power would go unused. It could be that we are simply asking too much of the software.

 

Oh my sweet sweet summer child, you must be new to CAD/CAM software.

Its actually the worst.

 

Nope, not new to it at all, I've used most of the major packages. Edgecam certainly wouldn't have been my first choice of CAM software but there are some things it does that others can't, and when those things are customer requirements you really don't have much choice.

 

have you run proc mon and performance traces on it to confirm your bottleneck is indeed gpu?

 

Nope, I'm not sure what that is tbh.

 

Just googled it, I'm going to have to do some reading/learning.