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AMD FirePro V8700: High-End Workstation Graphics
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1. Introduction

AMD's RV770 graphics processor, so well-known for its use in gaming variants of the Radeon HD 4870, is now being used in the company's workstation graphics cards. At the same time, AMD has stepped away from its well-known FireGL brand; the most current professional graphics adapters now carry a FirePro label. Tom's Hardware has been lucky enough to score an early production model, the FirePro V8700, for comprehensive benchmarking.

The FirePro boards also mark a complete switchover by AMD from 80 to 55 nanometer manufacturing technology. Buyers should rejoice in that this means reduced power consumption, and correspondingly quieter cooling fans. But can a smaller die size and related technological advancements also improve performance?

Price is certainly a key factor here. At a price of $930 at Newegg, the V8700 is an astounding $284 cheaper than its predecessor, the FireGL V8600. Until this product hit the market, AMD's ATI division had always placed great emphasis on maintaining price-performance ratios across similar products of its own design.

Nvidia has historically been able to outperform similar ATI products at the highest end of its product offerings. These days, Nvidia buyers must be willing to settle for performance parity instead--for example, see our previous article, "Pro Graphics: Seven Cards Compared".

It's not completely clear to us why ATI has suddenly dropped the GL suffix from its Fire brand names, replacing that portion of that name with "Pro" instead. In discussions with product managers at ATI, we were repeatedly informed that "Pro" stands for "Professional" and thus better speaks to the goals of the workstation graphics group. Nevertheless, we believe that it can be risky to mess around with established brand names. Perhaps it makes more sense to see this move as a way of de-emphasizing differences between OpenGL and DirectX technologies? Either way, ATI has decided to switch its branding completely from FireGL to FirePro.

Market Overview

Workstation Graphics Cards and their Mainstream Equivalents
Workstation-
Model
Chip-
Basis
FabMainstream-
Equivalent
Graphics RAM
3-Pin StereoDisplay Port
ATI FirePro V8700
RV770
55 nm
Radeon HD 4870
1024 MB GDDR5
yes
yes
ATI FireGL V8600R60080 nmRadeon HD 2900 XT1024 MB GDDR4yes
no
ATI FireGL V7700RV67055 nmRadeon HD 3850512 MB GDDR4yesyes
ATI FireGL V7600R60080 nmRadeon HD 2900512 MB GDDR3yesno
ATI FireGL V5600RV63065 nmRadeon HD 2600 XT512 MB GDDR4nono
Nvidia Quadro FX 5600G8090 nmGeForce 88001536 MB GDDR3yesno
Nvidia Quadro FX 4600G8090 nmGeForce 8800768 MB GDDR3yesno
Nvidia Quadro FX 1700G8480 nmGeForce 8600512 MB DDR2yesno

Workstation-
Model
Memory
Bandwidth
DirectXOpenGLShader ModelCore ClockMemory ClockPixel and Vertex Processing
ATI FirePro V8700115 GB/s10.12.14.0750 MHz900 MHz800 SPUs
ATI FireGL V8600111 GB/s102.14.0675 MHz868 MHz320 SPUs
ATI FireGL V770072.0 GB/s10.12.14.0775 MHz1125 MHz320 SPUs
ATI FireGL V760051.0 GB/s102.14.0500 MHz510 MHz320 SPUs
ATI FireGL V560035.1 GB/s102.14.0800 MHz1100 MHz120 SPUs
Nvidia Quadro FX 560076.8 GB/s102.14.0600 MHz800 MHz112 SPUs
Nvidia Quadro FX 460067.2 GB/s102.14.0500 MHz700 MHz112 SPUs
Nvidia Quadro FX 170012.8 GB/s102.14.0460 MHz400 MHz32 SPUs

Legend: SPUs = Stream Processing Units

In this context, we also think it's wise to describe a couple of interesting software initiatives. When it comes to Nvidia's CUDA (Computer Unified Device Architecture) we can offer a comprehensive article. On the other hand, the competition offers its own AMD Stream Computing. We dig into this more deeply on the next page, and do likewise for the ATI FirePro V8700 hardware details.

2. FirePro V8700 Hardware Details: DisplayPort Times Two

When it comes to hardware, only a few items differentiate this graphics card from the Radeon HD 4870 model that targets gamers. As we describe on the following page of this story, the biggest differences between the V8700 and the HD 4870 relate to the drivers.

In everyday use, the card's ventilation made a very positive impression. It's much quieter than earlier solutions of the same caliber from ATI.

The new DisplayPort graphics interface also appears to have captured ATI's fancy, which probably explains why the company decided to include two such ports on the V8700. We aren't sure we understand why, because so few monitors currently support this interface--the majority of high-end monitors use DVI, and you still run into an occasional VGA-only model even today. Here's a sampling of the monitors that support DisplayPort:

  • HP DreamColor LP2480zx
  • Dell UltraSharp 3008 WFP
  • Eizo FlexScan S2432W-H

The V8700 warranty provides three years of coverage, including access to a dedicated technical support staff that specializes in workstation systems. Mainstream Radeon cards for gamers give nowhere near this level of protection.

3. Software: Driver Features

The FirePro V8700 ships with the same Catalyst Control Center (CCC) that comes with the Radeon HD 4870. In fact, one notices hardly any obvious differences between these two products. At first glance, the only obvious difference is the additional menu item entitled "Workstation." A single click on any of these thumbnails will open a picture gallery with larger images.


One of the nicest driver features is automatic application recognition, which ATI calls AutoDetect. This software seeks to apply optimal settings for all of the workstation applications it finds on a particular machine. This turns out to be a valuable capability, especially to those users who work with numerous graphics-heavy applications. This is one particular area where Nvidia has some serious catching up to do.

(Ed.: It's worth noting that, while you see CrossFire connectors in the images on the previous page, AMD's FirePro cards currently don't offer any benefits to running in CrossFire mode. Nvidia, on the other hand, offers SLI support for its Quadro FX boards, enabling accelerated rendering, multi-display mode, or higher capacities for FSAA. This is one area where AMD has some serious catching up to do.)

4. Test Configuration

 Tom’s Hardware offers benchmark results for the following graphics cards:

Contestants
ATI FireGL/FirePro-series
Nvidia Quadro FX-series
ATI FirePro V8700

ATI FireGL V8650Nvidia Quadro FX 5600
ATI FireGL V7700Nvidia Quadro FX 4600
ATI FireGL V7600Nvidia Quadro FX 1700
ATI FireGL V7300Nvidia Quadro FX 5500
ATI FireGL V7200Nvidia Quadro FX 4500
ATI FireGL V7100Nvidia Quadro FX 3500
ATI FireGL V5600Nvidia Quadro FX 570
ATI FireGL V5200Nvidia Quadro FX 370
ATI FireGL V3600Nvidia Quadro FX 1500

System Hardware
CPUIntel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 (2.93 GHz)
MotherboardAsus P5W64 WS Pro (rev 1.01, BIOS 0802) with Intel 975X Chipset
System memory (RAM)4 GB (4 x 1 GB) Corsair XMS2-6400 (CM2X10246400-C3) with CL 4.0-4-4-12
Optical drive
Samsung SH-D163A , SATA150
Power supply
Zalman, ATX 2.01, 510 W
Hard disk
Western Digital WD1500ADFD 150 GB

System Software&Drivers
OSWindows XP Service Pack 3
3D API UpdateDirectX 9.0c
Intel Chipset drivers
Version 8.3.1.1009
ATI FireGL Drivers
Catalyst 8.453.1-081008
Nvidia Quadro Drivers
Quadro 181.20 + Maxtreme 11
SPEC Benchmarks SettingsApplication settings according to SPEC Project Group rules, driver using application optimizations if available
SPEC Benchmarks UsedSpecViewperf 10.0
SPECapc 3ds Max 9 (3D Studio Max)
SPECapc Solidworks 2007
SPECapc Maya 6.5
5. Maya Benchmarks

6. 3ds Max Benchmarks

7. Solidworks Benchmarks

8. Viewperf Benchmarks

9. Viewperf Benchmarks, Continued

10. Gaming Versus Workstation Performance : Radeon HD 4870 Versus FirePro V8700

After our latest round of OpenGL workstation articles, we received numerous questions about why we didn't include a gaming series in our testing. It seems that not all of our readers were ready to accept our claims that gaming cards run more slowly than workstation graphics cards, especially where professional applications are concerned. That's why we include a comparison with hard numbers instead of vague generalizations in this story.

Performance Comparison: Viewperf 10
Graphics adapter
Radeon HD 4870FirePro V8700
ChipRV770RV770
Memory bus
256-bit256-bit
Core Takt750 MHz750 MHz
Memory clock
900 MHz850 MHz
DriverCatalyst 9.1FirePro 8.543
3dsmax-04 (3D Studio Max)23.3544.23
Catia-0217.944.95
Ensight-0327.5846.96
Maya-0240.12240.2
Proe-04 (Pro/Engineer)13.8245.39
SW-01 (Solidworks)30.75103.33
Tcvis-01 (UGS Teamcenter Visualization)8.1537.78
Ugnx-01 (UGS NX)16.6456.93


As you can clearly see, the ATI driver programmers have done an amazing job. The two models' hardware is 99% identical, and yet the FirePro adapter completely outclasses the cheaper Radeon gaming card. The most extreme case in point is Maya, where the FirePro V8700 is six times faster than the Radeon HD 4870.

We also decided to investigate if there were visible differences in picture quality between the two models. On a basic Windows desktop we discovered no discrepancies, but as soon as you load a professional graphics application such as Maya or 3ds Max and import a complex 3D model, things change completely. When using the Radeon, you simply have to accept that wire frames will peek out of shaded surfaces all over the place, and that significant clipping occurs as numerous objects are viewed or animated. These phenomena simply don't occur when using the FirePro. Bottom line: those who seek to be frugal with expensive workstation applications should not fall prey to false economies.

11. Summary And Conclusions

After careful evaluation of the benchmark results, we conclude that the ATI FirePro V8700 is just a hair faster in several categories than its predecessor, the V8600.

Looking at the big picture level, we don't see any sweeping or major performance improvements from this new hardware. Nevertheless, this latest ATI offering makes a very good showing against the Quadro FX 5600, our previous performance champion. Given all of these observations, the pricing on this card makes it a very good deal for the money, even though a lot of money is involved. By way of comparison, the recently released Nvidia Quadro FX 5800 goes for an astounding $3,150, and the FX 5600 at $2,700 isn't exactly cheap either.

That's why we can recommend the ATI FirePro V8700 as an ideal product for demanding all-around graphics professionals, without any doubts or hesitation whatsoever.

For more information on professional workstation graphics performance, please check out our workstation graphics charts to see where the latest cards stand.