AMD Announces the Affordable FirePro V4900

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[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]What makes these cards different from normal video cards? I always wondered this.[/citation]
FirePro are optimized for desktop applications, not games. They are designed to run under high stress loads (such as 3d redering) for long periods of time and remain stable.
 
[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]What makes these cards different from normal video cards? I always wondered this.[/citation]

Drivers, stability, price and support. Also, some vendors intentionally gimp things like FP performance on their desktop cards to differentiate them with the pro cards.
 
Only some specialized software can take advantage of these cards. And certain applications see no difference. Check for reviews for a specific application u are using to see if it runs better on proffecional rather then gaming card. Often $300 gaming can beat $2000 pro cards.
(read a review somewhere)
 
They have drivers made for professional apps such as CAD. We tried a variety of video cards with 64bit Win7 and AutoCAD and Revit, only the FirePro and Nvidia Quadra were reliable. The ones that we were buying were about $130-140.
 
[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]What makes these cards different from normal video cards? I always wondered this.[/citation]
Drivers and support, nothing more!
 
[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]What makes these cards different from normal video cards? I always wondered this.[/citation]

These professional cards are made for real time rendering. The gaming cards not. the gaming cards are for pre-rendered video.

There are charts where a HD5970 is way worse than cheaper FirePro and Quadro cards. Ati firepro v7800 costs like 500 dollars but is WAY better than hd 6990 or gtx 590, in Autodesk and professional software like that.
 
[citation][nom]julianbautista87[/nom]These professional cards are made for real time rendering. The gaming cards not. the gaming cards are for pre-rendered video.There are charts where a HD5970 is way worse than cheaper FirePro and Quadro cards. Ati firepro v7800 costs like 500 dollars but is WAY better than hd 6990 or gtx 590, in Autodesk and professional software like that.[/citation]

LolWUT? Gaming cards are made for pre-rendered video? :lol:

nVidia and AMD intentionally lock the capabilities which sell FirePro and Quadro (3D design instructions, etc.) on their gaming cards. There're some custom drivers to unlock these instructions on gaming cards, but it's unreliable.
 
Pro cards are for support and driver stability. Try getting nvidia to help you figure out why your gtx 590 keeps crashing auto cadd... wont happen
 
Pro and Gaming cards are identical hardware wise, don't let the price think one is better HW then the other. The difference is the firmware / BIOS in the card and drivers on the OS. The FW on the card has been optimized for OpenGL and professional rendering where realism and accuracy are the most important. The drivers are certified to provide this accuracy and have software specific tweaks for performance.

In a gaming card it's the other way around. The FW is optimized for speed and performance over realism and accuracy. The drivers have been optimized for performance and are certified to work on various gaming platforms. In a game your not going to notice pixels being slightly off color, or a shape not being perfectly accurate. The scene is changing so fast that it's better to maintain the pace and visual effects over spending extra time to be precise.

Ultimately, same card but different software package loaded to support it.
 
AMD should buy CUDA license from nVidia. Many companies avoid using AMD workstation graphics cards because of two reasons.
1. Abysmal driver support for wider variety of operating systems.
2. No CUDA (as at production level CUDA is the most used GPGPU specification).
 
[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]What makes these cards different from normal video cards? I always wondered this.[/citation]

The Drivers are optimized for workstation Apps

[citation][nom]Article[/nom] six displays4 increasing user productivity.[/citation]

4???????? Now that doesn't sound very professional. It seems like this guy has been chatting on Facebook or something. It also can be a typo.
 
[citation][nom]Kensingtron[/nom]AutoCAD Rant:My Autocad has crashed so many times that I now have over 2 pages of recovery files, it's been a year and they have note responded to any requests or patched the error. Autocad is over 20 years old and I find it one of the buggiest programs I've ever used. I've got an Nvidia Quadra...[/citation]

I call BS troll. Cadder made a typo in his post (or trolling as well) as it is "Quadro" not "Quadra. I find it highly unlikely that you would say it wrong as well especially if you actually have one of the cards.

If you really did have one and tried contacting support then you would know that it is high level support you get and the repsonse time is really quick. Atleast it has been on the 6 occassionas i've had to use it over the years and much the same for anyone else I know in an industry that uses workstation cards.
 
julianbautista87 :

These professional cards are made for real time rendering. The gaming cards not. the gaming cards are for pre-rendered video.There are charts where a HD5970 is way worse than cheaper FirePro and Quadro cards. Ati firepro v7800 costs like 500 dollars but is WAY better than hd 6990 or gtx 590, in Autodesk and professional software like that.



LMAO

dumbest thign i ever saw posted on toms.

gamings cards arnt just for prerendered video you moe-ron.

gmaes are rendered in real time too jsut the math behind rendering a game in real time is much differnt than say rendering in auto caod or 3ds max or maya. the ONLY difference with these cards is the software (both firm ware and drivers) and the support.

I know some people that run games on these cards but it's relaly a wast of teh card , reversely , I'm in school for game art design and MOST of my fellow classmates and myself are using gaming cards not pro cards , it works fine for those programs but the work station cards would work better at those programs .
 
Hardware-wise, there is NO difference between the commercially available 'gaming' cards and 'professional' cards.

The manufacturers simply lock the hardware on a BIOS or software level so that you as a consumer can't use the gaming card as a professional one (and of course they overcharge you for the 'pro' cards).

The only 'benefit' you see with 'pro' cards is in 3d programs such as AutoCad, LW, 3d Stduio Max, Maya, etc... and even then, the differences are reserved for VIEWPORT previews (not actual rendering that churns out images of scenes - or animations) - or in essence, increased FPS count and higher stability when seeing objects in viewports.
Crashes that occur when using consumer or 'gaming' cards are nothing more than insanely stupid support for those cards on a software level, nothing more.

3d Studio Max started incorporating gpu based rendering in it's later versions, so that final images/animations are done via the GPU AND CPU and not only the CPU.
And for the most part, it can only take advantage of CUDA technology.

AMD has it's own equivalent of CUDA actually which is just as good... but the devs do not use them because Nvidia holds the reigns for the most part when it comes to that 'Nvidia, the way it's MEANT to be played' garbage is one of the examples.
 
optimized or not , a 6970 ill be at some second to the best workstation 1000-2000$ card. Lots of website to proove it. Those workstation card are just for those want to save you 1-5 min a day over gaming high end.
 
[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]Just looked it up myself- here's the answer:http://www.ehow.com/about_5426830_ [...] -card.html[/citation]
I'm sure there will be some people who strongly disagree with me, however, I would suggest evaluating the needs of your system before you spend big money on a "pro" graphics card. For all but high-end users, consumer graphics cards will probably work perfectly - speaking from the standpoint of having personally run "simple" models in SolidWorks on a GTX-460.

At some point, a consumer graphics card will under perform when compared to a pro graphics card, however, the cost vs. benefits may not be worth the cost difference.
 
[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]julianbautista87 :These professional cards are made for real time rendering. The gaming cards not. the gaming cards are for pre-rendered video.There are charts where a HD5970 is way worse than cheaper FirePro and Quadro cards. Ati firepro v7800 costs like 500 dollars but is WAY better than hd 6990 or gtx 590, in Autodesk and professional software like that.LMAO dumbest thign i ever saw posted on toms. gamings cards arnt just for prerendered video you moe-ron. gmaes are rendered in real time too jsut the math behind rendering a game in real time is much differnt than say rendering in auto caod or 3ds max or maya. the ONLY difference with these cards is the software (both firm ware and drivers) and the support. I know some people that run games on these cards but it's relaly a wast of teh card , reversely , I'm in school for game art design and MOST of my fellow classmates and myself are using gaming cards not pro cards , it works fine for those programs but the work station cards would work better at those programs .[/citation]


You are right, but I couldn't find a "delete comment" button.
 
Weren't you able to flash the bios between the series. Like flash a Firepro bios on a Radeon card and vice versa? Not sure if they fixed that.

But since I'm not playing around with some modeling software on my computer I wouldn't really care. Even the most enthusiastic computer gamer would care less about a professional card unless it really beats out the best gaming card out there in gaming.
 
I had to replace Radeon HD 5850 cards with FirePro V4800's when we upgraded to Revit Architecture Suite a few months ago. The graphics were choppy and corrupted with the 5850's.
 
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