SPECviewperf12: CATIA, Creo, And Maya 2013
Introduction to SPECviewperf 12
SPECviewperf 11, introduced back in 2010, has been showing its age for a while. It wasn't really giving us a realistic-looking picture of modern workstation graphics hardware and driver performance anymore. The applications composing it were just too old. Moreover, AMD and Nvidia were thoroughly optimizing for the specific workloads, throwing off the suite's value.
So, the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) chose to step up its game with a much-needed update. After all, SPEC’s mission is to create relevant benchmarks that closely adhere to current industry standards.
AMD and Nvidia are both members of SPEC, allowing them to exert some influence over the new collection of tests. The idea is that no company gets an unfair advantage. We'll see how that works out in practice, though.
CATIA V6 R2012
The FirePro W9100 surpasses its predecessor, as well as the Quadro K5000. But Nvidia's Quadro K6000 is in a class of its own. Even so, the W9100 still pulls off an impressive debut.
Creo2
While the new AMD card tops the previous flagship, both Quadro cards outperform it. Clearly, AMD’s driver team still has unresolved action items.
Maya 2013
The opposite is true in Maya 2013, where AMD's close collaboration with Autodesk pays off. Its FirePro W9100 beats Nvidia's Quadro K6000, if barely.