AMD Expands Line of ATI FirePro Workstation GPUs
ATI's professional line gets filled out.

Professional graphics workers now have an entire new line of ATI FirePro graphics cards to choose from now. In addition to the FirePro V8800, which launched earlier this month at an 'affordable' $1,499, AMD has now expanded the family to include the ATI FirePro V7800, ATI FirePro V5800, ATI FirePro V4800, and ATI FirePro V3800 to fill different needs and budgets.


Like the rest of the current ATI GPU family, these FirePro cards support DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.0 and OpenCL along with ATI Eyefinity technology.
AMD also announced the ATI FirePro 2460 Multi-View, a low profile, quad display graphics solution designed for financial institutions. This graphic part sips power with an average board power consumption of 13W.
Would you, Tom's Hardware, do a review of the 2D performance of these professional parts for comparison ?
Would you, Tom's Hardware, do a review of the 2D performance of these professional parts for comparison ?
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...
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.
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
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.)?
Even our cheapo FireGL cards have dual DVI's.
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
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.
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.
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
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 ?
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.
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.
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.