NVIDIA today released its current-generation Fermi graphics to less expensive workstation cards through two models, the Quadro 2000 and Quadro 600. The two have been pared back to 192 cores and 96 cores respectively but promise more performance than past models they replace. The Quadro 2000 is said to be about 50 percent faster in geometry rendering than the FX 1800 it replaces and the Quadro 600 is about twice as capable as earlier starter workstation cards.
Both are single-slot cards that consume less space, power and heat than faster alternatives. The Quadro 600 comes on a narrow profile board that consumes as little as 40W of energy. Both cards still focus heavily on general-purpose computing with extra acceleration for CUDA, DirectCompute and OpenCL as well as the full DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.x feature sets.
Boards should be available today as stand-alone cards starting at $199 for the basic Quadro 600 and scaling up to $599 for the Quadro 2000. Elsa, Leadtek and PNY are selling their version of their of the cards. Dell, HP and Lenovo have already announce they will using the cards in completed workstations.
NVIDA Quadro 600
NVIDA Quadro 2000
