Nvidia’s Quadro K5000 Will Use GTX670 PCB and Will Cost $2250 (1850 EUR)

Nvidia is apparently changing its strategy regarding developing huge professional graphics cards. The company no longer wants Quadro to be the center of attention. Nvidia tries to make Tesla its professional flagship instead of Quadro and wants to convince customers to spend $5500 (4500 EUR) for a professional solution.

It seems Nvidia is completely satisfied with what it has already achieved with its Quadro brand. The name is practically synonymous with professional graphics and it has actually managed to obliterate competition like 3D Labs WildCat or IBM’s FireGL.

AMD are the ones that inherited the FireGL brand, but the company, although making competitive devices, was often stuck playing second best.

Readers should keep in mind that a professional card is actually a normal, desktop card with higher quality electronics, some added features and a whole lot of certification and testing behind it.

The material and manufacturing part for a professional graphics adapter can range from $200 to $600, the rest is software support and hardware certification.

Therefore, there is a great deal of profit to be made from professional cards as, after all the software and hardware work is done, Nvidia is selling a $400 device for $3000.

Up until now, Quadro was Nvidia’s main professional brand, but the company is now moving it to second place and strongly associating it with Tesla.

Not having to test, certify and ensure hardware reliability on a 350 watts card is surely going to reduce your costs for such a product.

Nvidia is trying to make 250 watts or even 200 watts Quadro cards with the Quadro K5000. Therefore, the devices will have less demanding cooling and power requirements and fit into more workstation and server designs.

Making Quadro K5000 less complex means that there will be less concerns with cooling and power, but it also means a larger profit and better sales.

Also, compared with AMD’s $4000 (3250EUR) W9000 that we’ve detailed here and here, Nvidia’s future Quadro K5000 seems rather affordable and AMD will have a hard time selling such an expensive solution.

From what we know, the Quadro K5000 will use a GTX670 PCB and will have a lower TDP when compared with today’s GTX 680.

The design will be simpler and easier to integrate in smaller workstations.