Nvidia Quadro FX 4800: Workstation Graphics At Its Finest?

Features
By Uwe Scheffel
published

Test Configuration

 Tom's Hardware offers benchmark test results for the following graphics cards:

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ATINvidia
ATI FirePro V8700Nvidia Quadro FX 5600
ATI FireGL V8650Nvidia Quadro FX 4800
ATI FireGL V7700Nvidia Quadro FX 4600
ATI FireGL V7600Nvidia Quadro FX 1700
ATI FireGL V7300Nvidia Quadro FX 5500
ATI FireGL V7200Nvidia Quadro FX 4500
ATI FireGL V7100Nvidia Quadro FX 3500
ATI FireGL V5600Nvidia Quadro FX 570
ATI FireGL V5200Nvidia Quadro FX 370
ATI FireGL V3600Nvidia Quadro FX 1500
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CPUIntel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 (2.93 GHz)
MotherboardAsus P5W64 WS Pro (rev 1.01, BIOS 0802) with Intel 975X Chipset
System Memory (RAM)4 GB (4 x 1 GB) Corsair XMS2-6400 (CM2X10246400-C3) with CL 4.0-4-4-12
Optical driveSamsung SH-D163A , SATA150
Power supplyZalman, ATX 2.01, 510 W
Hard diskWestern Digital WD1500ADFD 150 GB
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Operating SystemWindows XP Service Pack 3
3D API UpdateDirectX 9.0c
Intel Chipset driversVersion 8.3.1.1009
ATI FireGL driverCatalyst 8.453.1-081008
Nvidia Quadro driverQuadro 182.08 + Maxtreme 11
SPEC Benchmarks settingsApplication settings according to SPEC Project Group Rules, driver using application optimizations if available
SPEC Benchmarks runSpecViewperf 10.0SPECapc 3ds Max 9 (3D Studio Max)SPECapc Solidworks 2007SPECapc Maya 6.5
Uwe Scheffel
Uwe Scheffel
79 Comments Comment from the forums
  • why do i feel like when everyone compares workstation cards to gaming ones they get it wrong. a 4800 Fx will performs 99% like a 260GTX and if you softmod it to a Quadro than you have the same effect the other way around. really you are paying for driver support. i much rather just pay for the card.
    Reply
  • ankolistoflower
    They really mean it when they say great support. I once got a custom driver made specificly for my system overnight for a glitch I had. It saved me from loosing a client and a few thousand dollars for that one specific gig...
    Reply
  • cangelini
    bob49574why do i feel like when everyone compares workstation cards to gaming ones they get it wrong. a 4800 Fx will performs 99% like a 260GTX and if you softmod it to a Quadro than you have the same effect the other way around. really you are paying for driver support. i much rather just pay for the card.
    I think the comparison to the gaming card came from readers in past workstation card stories requesting such comparisons.
    Reply
  • ph3412b07
    Great article, I appreciate the benches comparing the GTX 280 on workstation apps. I'll spend my money on gaming cards and leave it to corporations to purchase workstations...
    Reply
  • ohim
    cangeliniI think the comparison to the gaming card came from readers in past workstation card stories requesting such comparisons.this is challanging the consumers intelect with all things on the table ... actulay is the same GPU chip but performs so differently because of few modifications ... wonder how much this thing will keep up from nvidia and amd ... makeing their customers stupid so obvious ... i mean it is the same fukin engine at heart why sell it so overpriced ?
    Reply
  • Looking at the results, I cannot understand how you can wholeheartedly recommend FX 4800 over cheaper FirePro V8700. Quadro benchmark results do not seem "convincing" to me since differences are quite small in most cases. The recommendation has to be based on type of work/application someone is using.
    Reply
  • Spathi
    The naming is getting confusing again... FX4800 HD4650 HD4850 ...
    Reply
  • tacoslave
    that nvs 295 sounds interesting...
    Reply
  • armistitiu
    I'm getting tired of NVIDIA's crap: "....but our cards have CUDA support". Enough marketing! I think someone who's willing to buy a card because they want to program on the GPU MUST know that both vendors have a SDK for stream programming and it's actually the SAME thing. I've tried them both (FireStream and CUDA) and there are very little differences between them. If they wanna brag about 3rd party apps...well how many are they? 2? 3? Just wait until OpenCL (sdk and cl) is finally released and maybe then we'll see more applications in this GPGPU area and maybe they'll stop with this "oh but we have CUDA" thing.
    Reply
  • fayskittles
    I would like to see them use riva tuner and to tell the drivers it is not a geforce and see what kind of bench marking they get then. Or the other way around. Turn the workstation card into a gaming card. How about throwing a game on a workstaion card. See how it handles it.
    Reply