AMD FirePro V8700: High-End Workstation Graphics
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Page 1:Introduction
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Page 2:FirePro V8700 Hardware Details: DisplayPort Times Two
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Page 3:Software: Driver Features
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Page 4:Test Configuration
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Page 5:Maya Benchmarks
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Page 6:3ds Max Benchmarks
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Page 7:Solidworks Benchmarks
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Page 8:Viewperf Benchmarks
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Page 9:Viewperf Benchmarks, Continued
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Page 10:Gaming Versus Workstation Performance : Radeon HD 4870 Versus FirePro V8700
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Page 11:Summary And Conclusions
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.
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 | Fab | Mainstream- Equivalent | Graphics RAM | 3-Pin Stereo | Display Port |
| ATI FirePro V8700 | RV770 | 55 nm | Radeon HD 4870 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | yes | yes |
| ATI FireGL V8600 | R600 | 80 nm | Radeon HD 2900 XT | 1024 MB GDDR4 | yes | no |
| ATI FireGL V7700 | RV670 | 55 nm | Radeon HD 3850 | 512 MB GDDR4 | yes | yes |
| ATI FireGL V7600 | R600 | 80 nm | Radeon HD 2900 | 512 MB GDDR3 | yes | no |
| ATI FireGL V5600 | RV630 | 65 nm | Radeon HD 2600 XT | 512 MB GDDR4 | no | no |
| Nvidia Quadro FX 5600 | G80 | 90 nm | GeForce 8800 | 1536 MB GDDR3 | yes | no |
| Nvidia Quadro FX 4600 | G80 | 90 nm | GeForce 8800 | 768 MB GDDR3 | yes | no |
| Nvidia Quadro FX 1700 | G84 | 80 nm | GeForce 8600 | 512 MB DDR2 | yes | no |
| Workstation- Model | Memory Bandwidth | DirectX | OpenGL | Shader Model | Core Clock | Memory Clock | Pixel and Vertex Processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATI FirePro V8700 | 115 GB/s | 10.1 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 750 MHz | 900 MHz | 800 SPUs |
| ATI FireGL V8600 | 111 GB/s | 10 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 675 MHz | 868 MHz | 320 SPUs |
| ATI FireGL V7700 | 72.0 GB/s | 10.1 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 775 MHz | 1125 MHz | 320 SPUs |
| ATI FireGL V7600 | 51.0 GB/s | 10 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 500 MHz | 510 MHz | 320 SPUs |
| ATI FireGL V5600 | 35.1 GB/s | 10 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 800 MHz | 1100 MHz | 120 SPUs |
| Nvidia Quadro FX 5600 | 76.8 GB/s | 10 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 600 MHz | 800 MHz | 112 SPUs |
| Nvidia Quadro FX 4600 | 67.2 GB/s | 10 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 500 MHz | 700 MHz | 112 SPUs |
| Nvidia Quadro FX 1700 | 12.8 GB/s | 10 | 2.1 | 4.0 | 460 MHz | 400 MHz | 32 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.
- 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
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? :P
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
You guys really don't get it. These are not gaming cards. Check the difference between 4870 and 8700. It goes up to 6 times slower in specific applications while they pretty much sport identical hardware.
So no, a 285 would not outperform a 8700 on the applications tested on this review. Once again, major part here is the driver, not the hardware. Stop thinking that workstation applications work like games.
This is most likely due to the fact that both of these cards are optimized for openGL and taht the applications being tested don't currently make good use of the extra capabilities of the new card. You have to understand that currently the hardware is VERY far ahead of the software. Also the way the benchmarks were done can be outdated, they even used Maya 6.5 in these benchmarks which is.. what? 5 years old?
Anyways, I really want to thank THG for this review. Please do more of these when you have a chance.