Steve, check out this comparison as a referencehttp://images.anandtech.com/doci/5747/CreoVBO.jpgand the full storyhttp://www.anandtech.com/show/5747/amd-partners-with-ptc-for-creo-parametric-20
I don't know how biased it is since it's a report from AMD but still interesting to see that even for Creo 2.0 Q2000 shows equal or better performance than Q4000.
This is an interesting thread. I tested 4 different cards on 2 different workstations with Creo 2.0 and the OCUS 64-bit benchmark. I found almost no difference between the Quadro 600, 1800 and 4000 cards. I found the Quadro 3450 to be slower than the aforementioned. I was surprised considering the price range of the 600, 1800 and 4000 cards.
While I don’t think you can directly compare the OCUS benchmark with Wildfire 4.0 to Creo 2.0, I did find interesting differences. (We just migrated from Wildfire 4.0 to Creo 2.0)
I ran the Wildfire 4.0 benchmark on 2 machines; an “old” one and a “newer” one. I found the new machines ran the OCUS benchmark with Wildfire 4.0 about 50% faster than the old machines. I found the new machines ran the OCUS benchmark with Creo 2.0 about 100% faster than the old machines.
I saw about a 35% increase in speed on the old machines by swapping their 3450 cards for either the 600, 1800 or 4000 series cards. Indecently the new machines slowed down when I tried them with a 3450 card.
My conclusion is that the older/lower end cards don’t work so well with Creo 2.0, however the higher end cards are too high end and Creo doesn’t take advantage of them.
When we went live with Creo 2.0, the users with the 3450 cards started complaining....hence my benchmarking, so we’ve been upgrading those cards.
-Dave Engel