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.
- 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