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NVIDIA's $18,000 Graphics Card Unveiled!

gwn.com — How's your e-penis now? As if PC gaming wasn't expensive enough, Nvidia have unveiled a graphics card that will be known to shooter fans simply as 'God'. The $18K Quadro Plex 1000. You could buy a pretty decent sports car for that kind of money. How many of your children will you sell to buy one?

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  • TheBobman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+114The Quadro line of graphics cards are geared towards professional designers, engineers, etc. They are NOT designed for use in gaming. You'll notice that the official page (http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html) doesn't mention the word "game" even once.
    • Recluse, on 10/12/2007, -87/+11Yeah it says that in the article, what's your point?
    • Destinatus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+61yes, this card is obviously designed for developing, not gaming. Anyone who gets this for gaming needs a financial advisor ...I have a pretty resonable rate =P
    • ImTheDarkcyde, on 10/12/2007, -10/+39yes, and everyone on digg should know this because its about the third time it's hit frontpage
    • solrac149, on 10/12/2007, -36/+31Dude what are you TALKING ABOUT??

      My Pong is gonna SCREAMMM after I install this thing! I'll have friggin' MOTION BLUR on the pong ball!!
    • gothsquirrel, on 10/12/2007, -23/+5Doesn't mean i don't want to find one, steal it, plug it into my laptop and see if it will run Elder Scrolls Oblivion
    • nOOBert, on 10/12/2007, -10/+32The Quadro line will run games. They will NOT preform as good as you think. The coding on the cards is NOT ment for games. They are ment for apps like CAD.

      In fact if you look around on the net or newegg and find people who actually spent money on these for gaming... they are now crying because they will not preform like a $500 card.

      It is like comparing apples to bannans. They are tottally different and ment for totally different things.
    • BugMeNot2, on 10/12/2007, -6/+73"It is like comparing apples to bannans. They are tottally different and ment for totally different things."

      Apples and bananas are meant to be eaten.
    • meznak, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18@Bob

      Sure... but you know part of you still wants to try.
    • theBrink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The Quadro line has always been for professional use, not for gaming, the card's performance would probably not exceed their ultra-line model card in games, because that is not what it's tuned for.
    • Rickler, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Quadro is best for OpenGL. Almost all of the latest FPS video games use directx.
    • KamikazeeDriver, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6"You'll notice that the official page (http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html) doesn't mention the word "game" even once."

      And You'll notice your link no longer works. I also wonder if you bothered to read the article, as it also states they weren't designed for gaming.
      Yours is the first 'bash post' that didn't get dugg down.

      Read the article, then you'll know if you're repeating it.
    • protez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, you are definitely right. Quadro series is not proper for gaming.
      With Quadro 800 plex powered Linux, I am experiencing severe lacks playing Doom II.
      I finally gave up to play the latest version. Hey, please send me a copy of Doom I.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4DUPE, inaccurate and wrong category.

      It's not a gaming card. I submitted this story three days ago in HARDWARE. And possibly this wasn't even the first submission. Since then I saw at least four other dupes.

      http://digg.com/hardware/Nvidia_Debuts_Standalone_Rendering_Box

      It's interesting how the Digg process works. It seems to be all about the sensationalist titles, or if you have alot of active friends. That's too bad, because we miss alot of good stories that way.

      And get alot of these dupes.

      I'm guilty of mistaken dupes too, I don't deny that, but at least five previous submissions and this story getting duped again anyway is a little much!
  • teddyrux, on 10/12/2007, -4/+91My e-penis is fine, thank you.
    • threepio, on 10/12/2007, -3/+45I've always wondered - would women have e-breasts or an e-gina?
    • animalgod, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33Since it's a size thing, I think e-rack.
    • EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34boob-e I think.
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -13/+7its iPenis..
    • frizop, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Woman are allowed to have an e-penis.
    • JAppi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8There are no women on the internet.
  • ninamyers, on 10/12/2007, -36/+8Do you think this would help me get girls? :P
    • Paktu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+93No, but if you have an additional $982,000, you may have an opportunity to do two chicks at the same time. Chicks dig dudes with money.
    • magister, on 10/12/2007, -5/+59Well not all chicks...

      Although, they type of chicks that would double up on a dude like me do.
    • sneakerelph, on 10/12/2007, -23/+17heh, thumbs up for the Office Space reference.
    • wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Whats all your problem down modding the Office Space reference? I thought the same thing....
    • killerofkiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@sneak and wifl
      thanks for runing the moment... like one of those guys when everyone is telling jokes and laughing and u go "oh i get it"
  • NICU, on 10/12/2007, -7/+71From the caption "You could buy a pretty decent sports car for that kind of money." What sports car can you buy for $18,000? Oh wait don't tell me, a bottom of the line Honda Civic for $14,000 and a 3 foot tall rear spoiler, brighter head lights, and a fake exhaust for the other $4000?
    • djSyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7Or how about a Scion tC? You know, the overweight boulevard cruiser with a Camry engine? :P
    • steveoa3d, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15You could take an old 80's Mustang LX 5.0 and make it a 10 second car for under 10K. For 18K you can get an used race car like a Rally Car. I have seen completely prepped Group N Rally Cars for around 18K and they are street legal.
    • wistar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Honda S2000s of a certain vintage can be had for $18K as can late 90s SL500s and SL320s, Z3s, MR2s, Boxsters. The list is long, actually.
    • threepio, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13"Overweight Boulevard Cruiser", eh? That's not what your mother said, Trebek!
    • bontaq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1That sort of neat Smart Roadster is around 18k I think.
    • gatorsrule21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ponitac Solstice maybe.
  • borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -34/+1"If anyone out there actually plans to purchase one of these suckas, we'd love to hear how many of your children you intend to sell in order to fund such a venture. Of course, we do not condone such things."

    That was very amusing, however i would like some more specs. For instance, how will you connect this to the PC? i doubt it is usb. Furthermore, does Quadro mean that there is 4 seperate cards in there like quad SLI?

    Also, last i checked isn't gaming prety much the only reason you would need such a good video card?
    • agent888, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30>>> Also, last i checked isn't gaming prety much the only reason you would need such a good video card?

      Um, nah....movies like Shrek, Cars, and all those other nifty 3d movies are all produced with TnT 32 meg video Cards
    • kremus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Quadro simple means the type of card it is. It is to design modeling programs like the GeForce line is to Games

      Quadro - 3D design such as ProE, Solidworks, and other progs for modeling.
      GeForce - 3D DirectX games

      As for the specs, I have yet to read the article, so the card may be 4 cores, but the "Quadro" is not implying that at all.
    • W00DR0W, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9If it's not DX10 compatible no gamer would want one any ways.
    • dustinhoffman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2umm... Quadro has been Nvidias workstation cards for quite a few years... it's just the brand name just like GeForce (and no that doesn't mean that your pc will be pulling an G's).

      shoot.. was talking to one of my co-workers and didn't submit... thanks kremus...
    • inkyblue2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3the market for this is the same market that used to keep SGI afloat: scientific visualization, high-end modeling, CAD, etc. you don't buy one of these for your apartment, you buy one for your CAVE.

      $18000 is pretty entry level compared to the prices that SGI machines used to command. too bad nvidia didn't hire any of their industrial designers, though; this thing looks more like a WMD than a workstation.
    • borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I work with cad, cam, and other 3d modeling programs. You don't need a kick ass video card. A kick ass processor is helpful but a 64 mb vid card is fine.
    • cdawzrd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It connects to your PC via a special cable that connects to a special "driver" card you put in your PCIe x16 slot.
  • Phyltre, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3At last, a future-proof video card.

    I'd love to hear how it integrates into a gaming PC.
    • dschep, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Hardware wise: just fine. Software/usage wise: badly, seeing as its a Quadro which is geared towards workstation graphics (cad, 3d modeling etc). Now if there was a crazy go nuts GeForce like that... that would be a different story.
  • JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Not _for_ gaming? And? That doesn't mean that if one of us got our hands on it we wouldn't try it. >_
  • Tsuroerusu, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4For 18,000 dollars this thing better have some good drivers along with a gift card for the local red light district at the same time!
  • TheAnti, on 10/12/2007, -37/+3Sorry, burried for dupe
    http://digg.com/hardware/Coming_soon_an_external_video_card_near_you_2
  • LordRahl72, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Lets get Kevin Rose to buy us all one. J/K
  • JohnBoySligo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4correct me if im wrong but didnt ati say they had a 18 x gpu set up for the canadian and american air force ( something to do with flight simulatiors with mad 100 x anti aliasing )
  • briansorders, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21this thing is going to be a worthless brick in a a few years or less ...
  • vandread, on 10/12/2007, -8/+8"You could buy a pretty decent sports car for that kind of money."

    What is your idea of "pretty decent sports car"? Sounds like you mean "4 door Kia"
  • TheVetos, on 10/12/2007, -17/+3*spurt* *spurt*
  • FullMetalMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I would rather buy a Delorean with that money than pay that much for a graphics card!
    • animalgod, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Hell, then you could hit 88 mph and buy one on future eBay for dirt cheap.
    • afeitarse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That would be funny if in 2020 ebay was actually called "Future Ebay". :-p
  • hodyoaten, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1I refuse to buy any more nvidia products. After my card had been out for 3 years they stopped carrying any drivers for it. Imagine how that would suck. "Damn, I lost the driver for my $18,000 video card... guess I'll head on over to www.free-driver-cesspool.biz and get one."
    • rondeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Just curious, here...which card? The NV1? Last time I was out there it seemed there were drivers all the way back to the TNT line at least.
    • LordRahl72, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5What card would that be? Since there drivers cover every card from TNT to the newest Geforce cards I don’t see how your card is not supported.

      http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

      ForceWare Release 90
      Version: 91.31
      Release Date: June 23, 2006
      WHQL Certified
    • TheAnti, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What card do you have, they have drivers going years back. Is it a GPU made specifically for a laptop? If so then that's the problem right there, depending on what you have the laptop maker would have the driver not NVidia.

      I seriously doubt if you have a normal PC graphics card that they don't have the driver.
    • ArcticCelt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"After my (NVIDIA) card had been out for 3 years they stopped carrying any drivers for it."

      Hu ho they deleted it with your internets, or maybe a hacker stole your megahurts!!!

      Not really NVIDIA continue suporting ALL their 3D chipset since the original TNT in 1997. In fact NVIDIA was the first card company who started doing that unified driver thingy and I have lots of respect for that.

      http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_91.31.html
    • hodyoaten, on 10/12/2007, -9/+0Alright assholes, I have a 5-year old card and have no plans to buy a Wii, so I guess I'm not worthy to post here and you can keep digging me down. So what if I want to spend my money on other things but still expect a shred of driver support? It was on a new XP computer, for chrissake, so expecting their last round of drivers to be kept on their site is not asking much.
    • kremus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3LOL... dOOd... if your system came with XP and still has the original vid card in it, and the card is a Nvidia. then the latest drivers from Nvidia will work. But, like the others said, if its a lappie, you will probably have to look at the lappie manufacture and inquire with them. And no one is being an ass hatz with you, just simply trying to help.

      Also, what does a Wii have to do with this?? Cause it has a Nvidia chip?? Two different things.
    • EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nvidia's drivers available on their website pretty much cover every standalone product they've released over the last 10 years. If you couldn't find the right driver you're either confused and it is available on the Nvidia site or you've got an integrated Nvidia solution (like what might be found in a laptop) and you're blaming the wrong party. Integrated solutions hardware and drivers are unique to the manufacturer so you can't those drivers from Nvidia--only the actual manufacturer.

      You're being modded down because your story is highly improbable. Either provide more details or drop it.
    • Revolt25, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0i admit, ive never had a really good nvidia video card, but i always some how end up buying it my ati 9800 was a great card, i wish they had some type of sli and i would definally go ati again
    • cesclaveria, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2guys come on!!! he is talking bs, and spamming a site... Nvidia has great driver support, for windows and linux (i dont know about mac os x)
    • rondeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In case anyone is still reading this, and have a laptop Nvidia graphics chipset, google for 'laptopvideo2go'...they explain how to use the newest drivers with the mobile chipsets. I've been running my amd64 laptop with geforce440go like this for a couple years with zero problems. Just FYI.
    • Xiata, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Ha. Who would have thought the legacy pack still supported my STB Riva TNT 16mb.

      Man that thing is pimp blazing away at 30fps on UnrealTournament.
  • Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5Burrying for innacurate... The Quadro cards aren't meant for gaming, as has been pointed out. In fact, they usually perform rather poorly in games, since they put emphasis on things that gamers don't even need (antialiased lines for example, which is only used by CAD or perhaps 3D modeling apps).

    On top of that, from what I understand, the rendering power of these things is internally just from the two Quadro graphics cards onboard (The rest seems to be other support cards that don't do rendering). So you'd probably get better gaming performance out of taking those two Quadro cards and sticking them right into a desktop. Of course, I'm not sure why you'd want Quadro cards in your desktop, since they cost a fortune and suck at game rendering. You'd be a lot better off with a Quad SLI rig.
    • Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Oh, and the specs for these cards claim a fillrate of 80 gigapixels. A quad SLI rig offers 48 gigapixels. And a quad SLI rig costs a small fraction of the price.
    • meznak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5who said it was for gaming? buried for burying for inaccurate.
    • ohnnyj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's true gamers may not need antialiased lines but it sure does make things look better.
    • brkn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ohnnyj: Not Full Screen AntiAliasing like most games support, but antialiased lines (GL_LINE_SMOOTH). As in a single wireframe line from point A to point B. Consumer graphics cards, especially ATIs, are notorious for having very poor or no support for these such areas of OpenGL. The only game that I could think of immediately that would really benefit would be battlezone ;)
  • KaptainKandy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I would rather use that money to have people stop commenting about how 18K won't buy you a decent car.
  • alienz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I can't wait to be reading a PC magazine in 20 years time that talks about how things were 20 years ago. I'll see this card and scoff at how my $20 wrist watch makes better holographic projections.
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+220 years from now "Dude, my printer is faster than AMD and Intel chips 20 years ago!"
  • JohnBoySligo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1unless you have a cpu as fast as a super computer this graphics card wont be of any use
  • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2"How many of your children will you sell to buy one?"

    I'd go for 19'000$ of someone-else's-children-meat. So I can get it for free plus make thousands bucks.

    Thanks for asking.

  • ScottMaximus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Why is this even here? The Quadro Line is designed explicitly for Workstations. This is not an Opteron situation where you drop it in and it works. You try gaming on a Quadro and see how HL2 looks at 4 FPS.
  • neutrino15, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0slightly overkill, if I may add
  • zemkacz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0wow. A gamer who would want to but one is either a) crazy b)idiot or c)a rich crazy idiot gamer. Also u need like 7 top of the line cpus. I bet only the goverment and private orginizations with super games and movie producers like ppl who created shreck and cars like the other guy said would only buy this. But i winder if i had a supecomputer and this card how would oblivian and graw run on it all settings maxed? i bet i could even play fear, oblivian, and graw at once with this baby.
    • jedi_master, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Spell check much?
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+41. You are an idiot, this card IS NOT MEANT FOR FREAKING GAMING no matter which computer it is run on.
      2. Your english is that of a Myspacer.
      3. What?
  • wistar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In 1997 I bought an Intergraph NT workstation with their Wildcat card. The card at the time cost $13K and the box, complete, was $27K. It didn't run Quake very well, I remember. Of course, this was a fraction of the cost of the ¿#&% SGI Indigo2 boxes I had purchased only a year earlier ($60K including the 384MB RAM).

    This must be one hell of a graphics engine.
    • GoodBrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I remember that workstation.

      I also remember the backend of the Evans & Sutherland flight sim I saw in ~'83 or so. Each screen had its own graphics pipe, and each pipe was something like $1M and occupied an 8' tall 19" rack.
  • albel65, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1e-penis envy? You should see this.
  • olddirtycr, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4ACtually guys I am using two of these puppies in my emachines side by side right now. I can get over 973 FPS on Half life 2 with max settings all round. I suggest these for any gamer whose a dumbass.
  • zemkacz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0wtf? how did u get it this early? while u r cheacking try like 3 games at once.
  • bbhh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2okay, i have a quadro card in my work pc, but it's not the size of a house cat. i should ask for this one, even though it's worth like 97% of my yearly salary.
  • berry120, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1"973 FPS on Half life 2 with max settings all round."
    What CPU have you got that can churn out that amount of frames for it to process?!
    And how many gamers will have the recommended 4gb of RAM? Price tag, lack of gaming mention and specification all say that the only market this product is targetted at is the professional one.
    • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"And how many gamers will have the recommended 4gb of RAM?"
      If you're shelling out $18000 for a video card I don't think 4 GB of ram is going to be an issue.
  • noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"...that will run every PC game due for release in the next century."

    I highly doubt that. XD
  • Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2It's pretty obvious that this would not even perform very well for gaming, because it's probably not designed to run 60 frames per second of anything, they're designed to render incredibly detailed and gigantic frames for CGI films, and even with the power that these things offer, you'd probably still have to run it for 10 hours to get a second of CGI film rendered at full quality and size

    These kinds of setups would be used for 3d rendering of movies, not playing FarCry
  • EBFoxbat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Um... I can't ready anything about quadroa because it hurts.

    Is this just outside-the-box-SLi ?
  • Flump5000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"that will run every PC game DUE FOR RELEASE* in the next century."

    *assumning the next century's announced games are the 100 or so games announced for release in 2007-2009
    • pixelfox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2unless we actually hit the theoretical maximum for storage and processing power, I think this will get obsolete much faster than a century. Remember when twenty megabytes was all the storage we'd ever need?
  • Dthwish09, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1yes, but can it run DOOM?
  • minuteZERO, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13 words: Re Tart Ed.
  • jellygraph, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1isn't it just an overflexed version of what they have already? ok, so instead of running your games at 80 FPS, now you can run it at 800... not all that useful really. most useful for intensive scientific, engineering work...

    gee, you wonder why this is news at all? its not like its the first of its kind
  • GT35R, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1As previously mentioned the Quadro series are for CAD and other 3d modeling apps. They help take the load off the CPU durring rendering by taking it upon themselves to render some of the data, I dont believe normal cards do this.
  • mxfreak92, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i serriously doubt the playability of the next centurys games on dx9 shader model 3 hardware.....
  • iMatt711, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1where does it plug in?
  • speel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'll take 2. Thanks.
  • Toph18, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Wow! I can't afford that!
  • skamper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wonder what type of cooling it uses :)
  • mayurpatil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It looks more like an Nvidia Cpu dan a gfx card
  • atanguay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh goody, welcome back to the days of Silicon Graphics machines that cost 20K-50K. All of us 3D animators sure miss that. These dark days of off-the-shelf PCs and reasonable video cards was a real drag.

    The guy further up is right, you really don't need all that much juice to run a 3D content creation program decently...and if you're buying this to play games, then shame on you for being so wasteful. I can think of several thousand things to do with 18K that make more sense.
  • blanktarget, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Looks like some people got to it before me. This is not a gaming card it's for developing games! They act very differently and simply because you bought this for $18k doesn't mean it'll play games better than, say, your 7800GT!
  • Antz0rz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Do you idiots realize this is a developer tool and not for gaming?
    • vav00m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yeah i dont think you're going to play much FEAR on this bad boy, but i'd love to be proven wrong.
  •  

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