Old Hand Meets Young Firebrand: ATi FireGL X1 and Nvidia Quadro4 980XGL

Nvidia/ PNY Quadro4 980XGL

Following the announcement that Germany's Elsa had applied for bankruptcy, Nvidia had to search for a new marketing partner for its OpenGL workstation graphics cards. PNY landed the order. In contrast to the ATi FireGL X1, the Quadro4 card doesn't need additional power in the form of a plug or the AGP Pro50 slot expansion.

The Quadro4 980XGL differs from its brother, the 900XGL, only in its interface. Thanks to the NV28 graphics chip revision, this card can take a maximum of AGP8X, provided the motherboard platform supports it. Server chipsets aside, this option is currently only available with the Intel E7205 (Pentium 4), the VIA KT400 and the Nvidia nForce2 (both Athlon XP). All other chipsets only manage support for AGP4X at present. This needn't be seen as a failing, though, as the following tests will show.

Chip speed is 300 MHz for both the 900XGL and the 980XGL. The hardware features of both Quadro4 chips, the NV25 and the NV28, are also identical.

Two DVI-I jacks enable dual monitor operation, regardless of whether analog displays or digital screens are used. A combination is also possible. The jack to plug in 3-D glasses from Stereographics can be found in the center of the slot.