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 4870 | FirePro V8700 |
| Chip | RV770 | RV770 |
| Memory bus | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Core Takt | 750 MHz | 750 MHz |
| Memory clock | 900 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Driver | Catalyst 9.1 | FirePro 8.543 |
| 3dsmax-04 (3D Studio Max) | 23.35 | 44.23 |
| Catia-02 | 17.9 | 44.95 |
| Ensight-03 | 27.58 | 46.96 |
| Maya-02 | 40.12 | 240.2 |
| Proe-04 (Pro/Engineer) | 13.82 | 45.39 |
| SW-01 (Solidworks) | 30.75 | 103.33 |
| Tcvis-01 (UGS Teamcenter Visualization) | 8.15 | 37.78 |
| Ugnx-01 (UGS NX) | 16.64 | 56.93 |
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.
- Introduction
- FirePro V8700 Hardware Details: DisplayPort Times Two
- Software: Driver Features
- Test Configuration
- Maya Benchmarks
- 3ds Max Benchmarks
- Solidworks Benchmarks
- Viewperf Benchmarks
- Viewperf Benchmarks, Continued
- Gaming Versus Workstation Performance : Radeon HD 4870 Versus FirePro V8700
- Summary And Conclusions
You're clueless. The price premium is for the drivers themselves, not the hardware. No one crippled your gaming card. But no one optimized its drivers for workstation applications either. And these optimizations are not simple tweaks but massive and careful code to give you massive performance boost under very very specific applications.
You could go as far as saying that you're in essence buying an expensive piece of software as well and not just a graphics card.
I'd love to see how the real thing would stack up next to a card with different BIOS.
Ok, so basically, we'd have to get ahold of a fireGL bios, and hack it into a 3850. If there was an equivilant to a 3870, I'd do it myself.
Who's brave enough?
That's what a BIOS hack will do. You change the BIOS of the 4870 card to that of it's workstation equivalent.
Do a google search. It's been done before. Although I doubt this new card would yield any benefit over a 4870 with a BIOS hack, other than in some overclocking.
I'd be more interested in the Nvidia card because then they at least add a little more VRAM. Hell, I'd love to see a Quadro card, with lots of VRAM, BIOS hacked to a Desktop variant to see how it would do at higher resolutions over the actual desktop variant.
You're clueless. The price premium is for the drivers themselves, not the hardware. No one crippled your gaming card. But no one optimized its drivers for workstation applications either. And these optimizations are not simple tweaks but massive and careful code to give you massive performance boost under very very specific applications.
You could go as far as saying that you're in essence buying an expensive piece of software as well and not just a graphics card.
Of course its possible. But at best performance will be equal, I would assume a bit worse, depending on whether FirePro drivers include the specific game optimizations catalayst includes or not.
The V8700 doesn't loose to the V7700 all that often, but in some of the cases when it does loose, it also looses to nVidia's counterparts (with the V7700 winning). It would be a much more compelling product (especially at the already good price) if it could beat the V7700 across the board.
Ah, but that's assuming they are the same. Some Nvidia cards have more VRAM than their desktop counterparts. With a BIOS hack, I wouldn't be surprised if they did better than them, especially in those higher res situations.
You got it backwards. You get a cheaper desktop card, BIOS hack is, then use the expensive FirePro drivers.
Soldedworks went directX in ver 2009
And there main competition Inventor in 2008
Both stating the fact that openGL cards are too expensive
So TW your soldworks benchmark looks obsolete