> I understand that pretty much the only difference between $3000+ "professional" GPUs that get certified for AutoCAD and other workstation systems are identica

> I understand that pretty much the only difference between $3000+ "professional" GPUs that get certified for AutoCAD and other workstation systems are identical to $1000 "gaming" GPUs, just with a different on-card BIOS/firmware and e-fuses. I remember ages ago that people were able to simply re-flash their ATI Radeons into FirePro cards and that unlocked higher performance in some applications. Yep. I have an old laptop with an Nvidia Quadro FX770M GPU that (hackintoshed) macOS sees as a Geforce 9600M GT and runs the included Geforce drivers quite happily on because the FX 770M so close kin with its consumer counterpart. In fact, in a twist of irony for years the supposedly-more-stable Quadro Windows drivers had a power state bug with this card that would cause the laptop to bluescreen if the GPU tried to ramp down to an idle state. The only solution was to prevent the GPU from idling or to run a different OS with more generic drivers.