ATI FireGL V5000: Well-Rounded Mid-Range
by Derek Wilson on January 31, 2005 3:52 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
SPECapc 3DStudio Max 6 SP1 Performance
We ran the 3DStudio Max 6 SP1 Benchmark with both built-in OpenGL drivers and custom OpenGL drivers. We are showing the results of small groups of tests that are very graphics card intensive. The rendering tests are left out in order to keep from skewing the benchmarks in favor of tests run previously on multiprocessor systems.These numbers are very stable when scaling from one to two processors. Total runtime of the tests decreases a lot when moving from one to two processors, which makes these SPECapc numbers (minus the rendering test) good measures of graphics power, but poor judges of overall system performance.
Obviously the the FireGL V5000 offers quite incredible performance in wireframe mode running the ATI 3DStudio Max driver. Both the ATI parts make handy work of the rest of the pack in line drawing under 3dsmax.
Both shaded and any sort of textured surface performs better on the X3 card, and on the Quadro FX 4000 while we're keeping score. The drop in pixel pipelins didn't help any here.
The boost in object creation performance is likely due to the difference in RAM between platforms. Specifically the speed advantage of lower latency unbuffered RAM could help when sendup large blocks of data to the card to draw at a time.
Overall 3dsmas performance under the V5000 is fairly average. However, if you are one of those users who disables shaded mode and goes straight for wireframe drawing, this solution may be a good fit.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
9 Comments
View All Comments
nadirshakur - Saturday, February 26, 2005 - link
please please please someone tell me what the hell is that thing in the middle, it looks like s-video but has three pins instead of the usual four on s-video i have the card and trying to connect it to my computer, someone please help, thanks!nadirshakur - Saturday, February 26, 2005 - link
nadirshakur - Saturday, February 26, 2005 - link
Draven31 - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
But, it won't fix the occasional OpenGL errors you'll get by risking putting an ATI card in your workstation. No thanks.Shadowmage - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
Damn, that's pretty bad. nVidia's going with a mere THREE vertex shader card?Yeah, I didn't mean to demean your review; I just think that getting $500 performance with a $200 card is rather amusing. That's even better than getting $550 performance (X850XT PE) out of a $400 card (X800 Pro VIVO)!
And yeah, there are some driver hacks that let you install the workstation drivers on an UNMODIFIED consumer card.
DerekWilson - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
Shadowmage ...There are a few other factors that go into it, but the silion they've stuck on there is the same as the x700.
The differences are the fact that the X700 lacks the 2 Silicon Image TMDS transmitters for 2x dual-link dvi, the stereo connector, has a different bios, and also uses different drivers. Build quality is also generally better with pro boards, and cap/resistor/pcb layouts are slightly different in some cases.
The reason we focused on the hardware rather than on the consumer part from which it is derived is that we are going to take a look at NVIDIA's 3 vertex 8 pixel workstatoin design shortly. We would rather see NVIDIA go with a 6 vertex 8 pixel design for their workstation as well, but this would have meant deviating from their consumer desing (6600). It just so happened that ATI was lucky and their consumer part fit what we wanted to see in a midrange workstation.
We want to encourage NVIDIA and ATI to look at their workstation parts as requiring different silicon. Maybe eventually they will actually start doing things the right way with respect to the end user. Of course, maybe I poured that message on a little thick at the beginning, but we feel it's very important.
By the way, there was actually a guide to modding r3xx cards to their respective fgl cards on adrian's rojak pot in january. We haven't seen documentation on modding r4xx based cards into the fgl v series. It's interesting to note that it's not enough to simply flash the bios and install the drivers -- ati makes it more difficult than that.
Derek Wilson
Shadowmage - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
LOLThis is just the X700 with a different driver! :D
phaxmohdem - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
LOL I just found the pricing info. My bad. Great job Anand.And BTW
1st and 2nd Post's bitches!!! (since that seems to be the staple of bragging rights these days for whatever reason.)
phaxmohdem - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
Crap! A story thats been up for nearly 24 hours with no comment love.....Fear not I have not forsaken thee!!
I wish I could find pricing information on this card. Looks to be perfect for my needs dabling in 3D design.