AMD Expands Line of ATI FirePro Workstation GPUs

[Marcus Yam]

ATI's professional line gets filled out.

AMD Expands Line of ATI FirePro Workstation GPUs : Read more

 

[tpi2007]

One question somewhat related to this: has ATI already fixed the 2D performance on the consumer graphics cards ?

Would you, Tom's Hardware, do a review of the 2D performance of these professional parts for comparison ?

 

[Guest]

I'm sure the graphic capabilities are amazing but damn 1,500? I agree with tpi2007; toms should give us a side by side comparison with the radeon.

 

[dman3k]

wait... is that a single slot Radeon 5000 series equivalent that I see?

tom's, get your benchmark team asap!!!

UPDATE:
$799 for the ATI FirePro V7800 2GB PCIe
$469 for the ATI FirePro V5800 1GB PCIe
$189 for the ATI FirePro V4800 1GB PCIe
$109 for the ATI FirePro V3800 512MB PCIe
$299 for the ATI FirePro 2460 512MB PCIe

I just want to know what's the difference between V4800 and Radeon 5750/5770

UPDATE:
Argh... the v4800 is just a 5670 that costs nearly twice as much...

 

[Bolbi]

[citation][nom]tpi2007[/nom]One question somewhat related to this: has ATI already fixed the 2D performance on the consumer graphics cards? Would you, Tom's Hardware, do a review of the 2D performance of these professional parts for comparison ?[/citation]
The 2D performance issues were fixed with yesterday's release of the Catalyst 10.4 drivers. And I agree that a review of the 2D performance of the professional FirePros would be interesting.

 

[etrom]

I see a CrossfireX finger on these cards, what's the point to have, say 2 ou 3 of these cards in Crossfire?

 

[silentq]

Agreed with above. Without benchmarks just looks like masked overpriced consumer cards oriented for business with minor performance enhancements.

 

[tpi2007]

[citation][nom]Bolbi[/nom]The 2D performance issues were fixed with yesterday's release of the Catalyst 10.4 drivers. And I agree that a review of the 2D performance of the professional FirePros would be interesting.[/citation]

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that yet. Strange that Tom's still didn't report this in the news feed.

From the release notes a lot more than Bettlefield is fixed, including:

"Desktop mouse cursor will no longer intermittently appear enlarged", which I've read some people had

and yes,

"Performance on 2D applications and benchmarks has now been fixed"

http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_104_release_notes.pdf

 

[Guest]

I wonder if those Firepro cards are good for gaming,
I mean, what if I'm working on developing games (eg by creating characters in a 3D modeling software), and want to test out my character in a game environment (uhuh, like crysis.)?

 

[antilycus]

NVIDIA over ATI any day. better drivers, better performance and it wont my my system freeze at the worst time possible.

 

[cadder]

A workstation card with a single DVI?????

Even our cheapo FireGL cards have dual DVI's.

 

[Guest]

im thinking about getting a HP Elitebook 8540w notebook with the firepro M5800. however, its just DDR3. can anyone give me a clue on that card's gaming performance? since i would use that notebook for daily office use and best possible gaming only... i love HP's Elitebooks.

i would mod the ccc/drivers so that the m5800 is treated like a radeon (im used to that since ive been modding the ati desktop drivers for 3 years now for my mobility radeon hd2600 until 10.3 was released).

but what radeon is this (desktop) firepro 5800 based on (the mobile then is probably one classs below)? i thought its like the first digit being the equivalent of the second digit of the radeons, ie. 8800 = radeon 5800, 5800 = radeon 5500 etc.
but "UPDATE:
Argh... the v4800 is just a 5670 that costs nearly twice as much..." would make taht theory wrong.

so, would it be a good idea for gaming?
thx

 

[Guest]

You guys don't understand what you're talking about.

These cards are for CAD workstations and graphic design. They aren't designed for gaming. CAD uses a much different method of calculating geometries than gaming/video does. These cards are work horses for doing 3D models with hundreds/thousands of parts.

I'd never use a Radeon 5850 to run any of my CAD models at work, just like I'd never use a FirePro VL7800 to try to play Crysis.

These cards aren't supposed to run games any better than the Radeon series. Don't expect to drop $1500 on one of these and see an improvement over a Radeon 4850 in your FPS.

 

[kansur0]

I think what remains to be seen is a direct comparison of the apples and oranges. It's pretty obvious that the drivers sets for what in most cases is identical hardware/GPU memory and chipsets minus a single transistor to separate via bios checks.

What I would like to see happen is a direct comparison between a standard graphics card (nVidia 480 or ATI 5870) used in professional applications like 3DSMAX and Adobe CS5 Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects just to see how much difference there really is in performance and usability.

With consumer graphics cards becoming as powerful as they have is the line between needing a professional solution and making due with a high end consumer card getting a bit blurry?

I would like everyone who would like to see this article please write to Tom's and post the article suggestion. Graphics hobbiests like myself would like to know.

 

[necrophyte]

@ deuce271
sure, but if theres no option for a radeon (or any gaming card) with my desired notebook model, i ask about the only gpu available. afaik the driver makes the difference on how the gpu is used.. so therefore i ask about your opinions on the gaming performance of a M5800 using ccc & drivers for radeons. but any explanation is welcome so i can learn something! thx

 

[mrmotion]

I have only used quadro's because of the problems in the past that I have had with the firepro's. What I would like toms to do is a face off between the firepros and the quadro's. Best workstation card for cad,cam solidworks etc.. Lets see if we can make that happen!

 

[tpi2007]

I fully agree with kansur0.

Besides, Tom's Hardware, are you reading these comments ?

Why haven't you, as of now, posted a news article stating that Catalyst 10.4 is out ? It's not that every driver release is newsworthy, but this one says if fixes the 2D problem in Windows 7 you wrote an artcicle about!!!

So, what are you waiting for ?

 

[falchard]

I've seen the benchmarks between the HD4870 and its Firepro equivalent. In OpenGL applications and CAD, the difference is staggering. In games the firepro loses, but you don't get one to play games. You get one for the dedicated driver support and the high degree of ability in workstation apps.

 

[kansur0]

Falchard...a link if you please? I have been scouring the net time and time again...I have never seen any benchmarks that compare workstation to consumer cards in pro apps. Thanks.

 

[Chris_TC]

[citation][nom]deuce271[/nom]I'd never use a Radeon 5850 to run any of my CAD models at work, just like I'd never use a FirePro VL7800 to try to play Crysis.[/citation]
Except workstation cards don't really do anything differently than gaming cards. They may have a bit better support for certain real-time features and different drivers, but for the most part a gaming card does the trick just fine for a fraction of the cost.

I don't have problems navigating scenes with 10 million+ polygons on a gaming card. I certainly won't waste money on an overpriced workstation card. And a lot of fellow professionals agree with me.

 

[spoofedpacket]

[citation][nom]Antilycus[/nom]NVIDIA over ATI any day. better drivers, better performance and it wont my my system freeze at the worst time possible.[/citation]

This comment smells of being a fanboi, but in the professional line, Nvidia's Quadro drivers do whip FireGL up one side and down the other.

I thought it was a pretty good plan: Make your professional cards the best, so the people who design games will pick them, then they are that much closer to getting the Nvidia stamp on the finished software product due to a good experience by the people designing the games.

[citation][nom]kansur0[/nom]Falchard...a link if you please? I have been scouring the net time and time again...I have never seen any benchmarks that compare workstation to consumer cards in pro apps. Thanks.[/citation]

Because it is moot. If you consider Second Life a game, then these stomp consumer cards. DirectX performance is rather lacking with both Nvidia's and ATI's cards. It would be much like a race between a dump truck and a Corvette.

 

[spoofedpacket]

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]Except workstation cards don't really do anything differently than gaming cards. They may have a bit better support for certain real-time features and different drivers, but for the most part a gaming card does the trick just fine for a fraction of the cost.I don't have problems navigating scenes with 10 million+ polygons on a gaming card. I certainly won't waste money on an overpriced workstation card. And a lot of fellow professionals agree with me.[/citation]

If you are running apps like Maya on a gaming card, I have serious doubts about you being a professional.

Before buying into this smug post, head on over to the Autodesk forums and look at all the people crying about how nothing works right on their ATI or Nvidia consumer level cards. Big chunks of OpenGL support are missing and the only way around that is by buying a card with proper support.

 

[idisarmu]

Can't you just flash the bios to emulate having a workstation card?

 

[cadder]

My experience is all with AutoCAD and more recently Revit. And price is always important so we stay on the budget end. Our use is more for lines and static display, and not extensive rendering and movement. IOW it doesn't take much GPU power to render even a complex graphic if you are just looking at it in one view and not moving it or rotating it, etc. Of course some people do want to rotate their renderings, do fly-overs and walk-throughs, etc. so they need more GPU power.

AutoCAD will work surprisingly well on any crude graphics display you want to use it on, after all lots of people run AutoCAD and Revit on normal laptops. When I started in CAD I was running AutoCAD on an IBM PC (4.77MHz 8088). OTOH recently we migrated some of our workstations to Win7 64bit and started having trouble with drivers. I had read on CAD forums where the FireGL cards worked well so we bought several of them. We had a few problems with drivers so our last machine was built with a Quadro FX380 and it seems to work well too.

 

[DJ898]

For me the problem is that there is almost IDENTICAL hardware running underneath both the professional and consumer models. Why couldn't ATI/Nvidia bring out a graphics card that could do both CAD work AND gaming? The horror!

I know a friend of mine is trying to find a graphics card to both game and animate with MAYA and its impossible. There is no graphics card that can both!