NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Review

We previously reviewed the NVIDIA Quadro P1000 and P4000 GPUs, and though they certainly aren’t nearly as powerful as the company’s highest-end workstation GPUs, both of these cards performed well enough to suit most general professional use cases–and at a very affordable to boot. The P2000 offers much of the same, lying somewhere in between those two cards in the performance spectrum. Touted as the perfect balance of performance and features, this compact form factor GPU offers the power needed for creative professionals who work with intensive 3D applications.

We previously reviewed the NVIDIA Quadro P1000 and P4000 GPUs, and though they certainly aren’t nearly as powerful as the company’s highest-end workstation GPUs, both of these cards performed well enough to suit most general professional use cases–and at a very affordable to boot. The P2000 offers much of the same, lying somewhere in between those two cards in the performance spectrum. Touted as the perfect balance of performance and features, this compact form factor GPU offers the power needed for creative professionals who work with intensive 3D applications.

Like all graphic cards from this line, the P2000 is based on the Pascal GPU architecture. It also features 1024 CUDA Cores, 5GB GDDR5 memory, and the ability to support up to four 5K (5120 x 2880 at 60Hz) displays natively. The Quadro P2000 measures in at 4.4” H x 7.9” L and uses a single slot via the PCI Express 3.0 x16 interface. It features the line’s usual 4x mini-DisplayPorts and supports HDMI and VGA connections through adaptors.

Backed by a 3-year warranty, the P2000 goes for roughly $425.

NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Specifications

• CUDA Cores: 1024
• Peak Single Precision FP32 Performance: 3.0 TFLOPS
• GPU Memory: 5 GB GDDR5
• Memory Interface: 160-bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 140 GB/s
• System Interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
• Maximum Power Consumption: 75 W
• Energy Star Enabling: Yes
• Thermal Solution: Ultra-quiet active fansink
• Form Factor: 4.40” H x 7.90” L, Single Slot
• Display Connectors: DP 1.4 (4)
• DisplayPort with Audio: Yes
• DVI-D Single-Link Connector: Via included adapter
• HDMI Support: Via optional adapters
• VGA Support: Via optional adapters
• Number of Displays Supported: 4
• Maximum DP 1.4 Resolution: HDR 5120 x 2880 at 60Hz (30-bit color)
• 5K Display Support: HDR 5120 x 2880 at 60Hz (30-bit color)
• 4K Display Support: HDR 4096 x 2160 at 60Hz or 3840 x 2160 at 60Hz
• Maximum DVI-D DL Resolution: 2560 x 1600 at 60Hz via 3rd party adapter
• Maximum DVI-D SL Resolution: 1920 x 1200 at 60Hz via included adapter
• HDCP Support: Yes
• Graphics APIs: Shader Model 5.1, OpenGL 4.5, DirectX 12.0, Vulkan 1.0
• Compute APIs: CUDA, DirectCompute, OpenCL
• NVIEW: Yes
• NVIDIA MOSAIC: Yes (Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and Linux)
• Warranty: 3 Years

Performance

To see what the NVIDIA Quadro P2000 is capable of in the way of performance, we installed the card inside our HP Z640 desktop workstation and put it through several graphics benchmarks while comparing to the nearest similar-class GPUs in the lab: the NVIDIA M2000 and P1000. As far as specifications go, these cards have less memory than the P2000 (4GB GDDR5 vs. 5GB GDDR5) and a less powerful interface memory (128-bit vs. 160-bit). Nonetheless, we will be using a benchmark that looks at several aspects of the ESRI ArcGIS program; specifically the average of the drawtime, average frames per second (Average FPS), and minimum frames per second (Minimum FPS).

Looking at drawtime, the P2000 measured in at 6.492 seconds, which was just slightly higher than the older generation M2000 (which posted 6.262 seconds). The P1000 recorded a moderately better score of 6.412 seconds. In average FPS, the P2000 posted an average of 460.94 FPS, while showing a minimum FPS of 202.78. This was noticeably better than the P1000, which posted an average of 342.25 FPS and minimum FPS of 187.16 FPS. The M2000 had significantly lower results with 273.51 FPS and 160.51 FPS, respectively.

The next benchmark we will be looking at is the SPECviewperf 12, the worldwide standard for measuring graphics performance based on professional applications. SPECviewperf runs 8 benchmarks it calls viewsets, all of which represent graphics content and behavior from actual applications. These viewsets include CATIA, Creo, Energy, Maya, Medical, Showcase, Siemens NX, and Solidworks. Here, the NVIDIA P2000 posted solid numbers for its class, while having much better results compared to the M2000 and P1000 as you can see from the chart below.

Conclusion

NVIDIA’s new Quadro P2000 professional graphics card fits nicely alongside the other mid/lower range models of the impressive line. This low-profile form factor performed as expected under our workloads, successfully leveraging its 1024 CUDA core Pascal GPU and 5GB GDDR5 of on-board memory. Though its footprint is not as small as other cards from the new Quadro line, the P2000 is still smaller than most cards boasting the same specifications, making it an ideal high-performance solution for professionals with compact workstations.

At $425, the Quadro P2000 is priced is roughly a hundred dollars more expensive than the P1000, allowing NVIDIA to stratify performance and cost at a very specific level. This higher price tag is well worth it for users that want to find good midrange performance, as it is equipped with better components and delivers a noticeable upgrade in way of performance.

Quadro P2000 at Amazon

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