Upgrading your gaming PC often involves chasing the latest and greatest GPUs, but sometimes, hidden gems from the professional market can offer surprising performance. After selling a high-end consumer card and experimenting with different setups, one user found unexpected gaming capabilities in the NVIDIA Tesla M40. Initially used as a primary GPU, the M40 was later moved to a secondary PC after acquiring a newer RTX 3080. This journey highlights the M40’s viability for gaming, especially within the Windows 11 environment, and this guide explores how to leverage its power for your gaming needs.
Windows 11 has significantly improved the experience of using the Tesla M40 for gaming. Previously, custom BIOS flashes and driver workarounds were common hurdles. Now, Windows 11 handles the M40 much more smoothly in WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) mode. This means you can largely “set it and forget it” until driver updates occasionally revert the settings, requiring a simple SMI command to re-enable WDDM. The operating system intelligently manages power distribution, assigning the integrated GPU (iGPU) for low-power tasks and the M40 for demanding applications, including games.
One of the most significant improvements in Windows 11 is the ability to manually select a preferred GPU for specific applications. This feature, absent in standard Windows 10, was a key motivation for some users to disable their CPU’s integrated graphics, sacrificing the benefits of the iGPU’s Quick Sync Video and other features. However, with Windows 11, you can harness the full power of your CPU and dedicate the M40 to gaming. While manual game assignment is still necessary, the performance gains are often worth the minor inconvenience.
In this setup, a user paired the M40 with a low-profile NVIDIA Quadro K410, an older card acquired to enable 10-bit color output on a 4K TV. The K410 handles 1440p at 60Hz adequately, though 4K resolution proves too demanding. Given the M40’s limitations with modern 4K gaming, this pairing becomes a practical solution. The M40 occupies the primary x16 PCIe slot, while the K410 sits in the secondary CPU PCIe x16 slot, both running at x8 speeds. This configuration allows for display output through the K410 while utilizing the M40 for heavy rendering tasks in games.
Cooling is a crucial aspect when repurposing professional GPUs for gaming. The user ingeniously adapted an old 780ti cooler with a custom adapter to fit the M40 and motherboard fan control. Features like ASUS’s temperature probe and fan control integration, allowing fan curves based on GPU temperature via a T-probe, become invaluable for managing thermals. This level of control, also available on older chipsets like the Z97 Pro, ensures stable operation and prevents thermal throttling during extended gaming sessions.
Windows 11 compatibility was tested via a clean installation using the official ISO and a specific partitioning method. While the M40 can function with an upgrade install, a clean install provides a more reliable assessment of compatibility, eliminating potential conflicts from legacy settings.
Despite the generally positive experience, some limitations were observed. Besides the manual game assignment, display card compatibility and limitations remain factors. In one instance, the game Shadow of the Tomb Raider (SOTTR) only ran in DirectX 11 mode, potentially due to an implicit multi-GPU (mGPU) glitch. However, the NVIDIA Control Panel (NVCP) remained accessible and functional because of the Tesla/Quadro combination. Attempts to use a GeForce GT 730 alongside the M40 resulted in driver conflicts, highlighting the importance of driver compatibility in multi-GPU setups. The M40 exhibited good compatibility with Intel drivers, although AMD GPU combinations were not tested due to hardware availability.
Exploring partial multi-GPU rendering revealed interesting insights. NVIDIA Sharpening, for example, appears to be processed by the display GPU (K410 in this case), not the rendering GPU (M40). Evidence for this comes from observed increases in K410 usage when sharpening is enabled in NVCP, even when the M40 is heavily loaded. This behavior mirrors how Intel’s CMAA (Conservative Morphological Anti-Aliasing) operates, offloading processing to the integrated graphics. Interestingly, overriding anti-aliasing settings in NVCP did not show the same increased load on the K410, suggesting this offloading is specific to certain post-processing effects like sharpening. Despite its limited 512MB VRAM, the K410 performs adequately when used solely for display output in this configuration.
While the price of M40 GPUs has increased, approaching the cost of a used GeForce 980 Ti in some markets, the M40 can still represent a value proposition, especially if acquired at a lower price point. Attempts to flash alternative VBIOS versions, including those from Titan X and 980 Ti cards, proved unsuccessful, suggesting firmware limitations prevent cross-flashing with different GPU architectures.
In conclusion, the NVIDIA Tesla M40, when paired with Windows 11 and a compatible secondary GPU for display output, offers a surprisingly capable and cost-effective gaming solution. While manual game assignment and some software limitations exist, the improved driver handling and GPU selection features in Windows 11 unlock the M40’s potential for budget-conscious gamers willing to experiment with unconventional hardware.
