Wow, that thing is around $1500 bucks! That's five i7 chips. I'm curious about the Cuda thing but holy cats those vid cards seem spendy.

I've got a 1500 and have noticed no improvement in any application that is designed to benefit from that card. I just recently replaced it with a geforce gt240 because I do like some Flight Simulator from time to time and the Quadros are NOT gaming cards.

Unless you are running AutoCAD, Maya or some other application that is specifically designed for it, you are throwing your money away. Even then, your mileage may vary.

I bought the card because I intended to use Avid for editing. Avid takes full advantage of the card. Every effect I used in my Avid trial was real time. Even the one's that usually are not. The ONLY time I had to render and effect was for the motion stabilization.

The upcoming version of Adobe Premiere will leverage the card, as I would bet After Effects would too. So just because Vegas won't leverage it doesn't mean you're throwing money away.

A while ago when I tried to decide on which graphics card to buy, I did some readings through the various online forums. From what I read, Quadro cards are designed for accuracy, not speed. For 3D works, such as AutoCAD or serious 3D works in apps such as Maya, Quadro cards are essential. In video editing, Quadro cards will not have advantage. Some said that they were actually in a disavantage because of their slow speed.

Do correct me if my understanding is incorrect.

OK guys - let's differentiate:

- "Quadro" nVidia cards have always been their high-end solution; not for gaming, but mainly for CAD and alike. NO NLE could/can take advantage of that

- the specific Quadro model the OP mentions is something more; its GPUs support CUDA technology. And this is quite another story; while high end CAD/CAE applications can use the CUDA GPU for number-crunching (see Moldflow), some NLEs (and/or plugins for them) can also utilize CUDA for on-the-fly decoding/encoding.

As Perrone mentioned, one of them is AVID Composer (most FXs/CC in real time); Adobe seems to use CUDA with some effects/plug-ins only.

Probably the greatest benefits of CUDA is H.264 hardware encoding - the NLE that can gain some 400% speed increase in this is PowerDirector from Cyberlink.

BTW, with number-crunchers like Moldflow - surprise, surprise - it's NOT the number of GPU threads, but the memory they handle (VRAM) that is the most important factor.

"... the NLE that can gain some 400% speed increase in this is PowerDirector from Cyberlink"

I suggest that anyone interested in this piece of software, read the user reviews that are online, like at:

http://download.cnet.com/CyberLink-PowerDirector/3640-13631_4-11092706-1.html

CUDA-supported is a good point. If one googles "CUDA supported cards", or go to nvidia website, one will find that there is a list of GeForce cards, as well as a list of Quadro cards, that are CUDA supported enabled. I am sure when the use of CUDA by NLEs becomes common, there will be a lot more cards with CUDA support built in.

My understanding is that Quadro cards are specifically designed for 3D content creations, such as industry design using CAD or artistic design using Maya, etc. They shine in situations where geometric precision and big memory are essential. Quadro cards in general have slower clock speed because speed is not a big factor in their intended uses.

In the theme of the on-going Winter Olympics, Quadro cards are like
precision and finesse based figure skaters. If you ask them to do speed skating, they may be able to do a decent job, but it will not be their strength.

Avid doesn't specify any gaming cards for their NLE. So apparently, they don't see the slower clock speed of the Quadro cards to be an impediment. I'm not sure what to make of that in light of comments here. All I know is that the card and NLE proved an incredibly effective combination.

NLE-boosting today is about OpenGL which is an open standard used by many graphics card manufacturers.

Quadro and other workstation cards have a lot of work put into their OpenGL drivers and hardware to make them as powerful and reliable as possible when used with pro applications designed for OpenGL specifically (as opposed to say DirectX).

It's not about gaming fps, where the gamer cards usually shine, at a fraction of the cost.

CUDA is an Nvidia proprietary "standard" for GPU access for computing, with OpenCL as the open contender.

Well, don't take my understanding for it. I certainly wouldn't argue with what the app recommends, in particularly if a pro here find it works well. When I searched for a card for mainly hobby use of animation + some video editing, I did feel left out. On one end are Quadro cards that gear toward CAD, Maya, 3ds Max, on the other end are gaming cards that gear toward gaming. Video editing needs neither the high speed of gaming cards nor the sophisticated powerful features of Quadro cards.

One thing for sure, workstation cards such as Quadro or ATI FireGL have more features, are better built, better tested, and can take big workloads reliably. It is possible that even though a lof of the most powerful features of a Quadro card do not get used in video editing, it still works better and more reliably than a cheaply built gaming card. So if one has the funding, go for it.

The lower end quadro cards are probably no more expensive than the high end gaming cards. That's what I don't get about everyone freaking out on the cost. People act like the FX4800 or Tesla, or FX5800 are the only Quadro's out there.

Here's a Quadro NVS for under $150:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133275&cm_re=quadro_cuda-_-14-133-275-_-Product

Good enough for guys just doing HDV work.

And this one for $450 should be good enough for just about anyone:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133272&cm_re=quadro_fx-_-14-133-272-_-Product

I bought the FX4800 simply because it was on the AVID approved list, and I had the budget for it. It was by no means a "must have". Especially with Vegas which doesn't use the card at all.