A year has passed and the never ending flurry of new professional cards from ATI has stormed out into the professional community.
Performance has been exceptional from each new outing and most effectively the actual cost of the cards has been superbly positioned. Big sales to many Tier One suppliers and major OEM’s have boosted ATI’s market share.
Today we take an exclusive look at the first of two new cards from the ATI stable. A few months back when we heard mutterings of the new card and just what it was able to deliver took us by surprise. But the proof of the claims has been well founded as we were to discover very quickly indeed.
But things do not stop there and with the announcement of the two new cards, we see a strategic change in the FireGL name brand. Enter the ATI FirePro series of cards – more to follow on this sector within the conclusions.
For a few months now speculation has been rife that new GPUs were due out soon, some stating as early as September. These guesses are not too far out as today sees the actual first live outing of the R730 GPU chipset with the ATI FirePro (FireGL) V5700.
This is to be a fairly comprehensive article covering a few of the professional products and benchmarks which will give the end users of the professional community a good idea how much the technology in this card has grown. To gauge the actual uptake in this mid range card we would advise you to have a swift look over at the SPEC Website and compare with what has been shown today with the current results shown of the FireGL V5600 to get factual evidence of which is better. As always the results that will be shown will be precise and to the point allowing you the individual to draw that ever so important conclusion deciding upon which is better!
This midrange workstation card with 512MB of frame buffer memory is among the industry’s first 3D workstation graphics accelerators to feature two DisplayPort outputs. With a full 30-bit display pipeline producing more than one billion colours (10-bit per RGB component). The ATI FirePro V5700 is ideally suited to applications that benefit from accurate colour reproduction and superior visual quality.
Based on a new generation GPU with 320 unified shader units, the ATI FirePro V5700 ultra parallel processing architecture maximizes throughput by automatically directing graphics horsepower where it’s needed. Intelligent management of computational resources enables enhanced utilization of the GPU to enable real-time rendering of complex models and scenes while increasing frame rates when animating.
The ATI FirePro V5700 features two DisplayPort outputs and a Dual Link enabled DVI output, together generating a multi-monitor desktop of over 5000 pixels wide from a single accelerator. In addition, with native multi-card support, users can see more and do more using up to four displays being driven by two ATI FirePro products in the same workstation.
ATI FirePro workstation graphics accelerators are thoroughly tested and certified with major Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Digital Content Creation (DCC) applications, ensuring a level of reliability not found in consumer graphics products.
So lets look at both the new cards side by side and see what this actually means.
Entry Level Mid Range
ATI FirePro™ Model V3700 V5700
MSRP $99 $599
Memory Configuration 256MB 512MB
Memory Interface 64-bit 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth 15.2GB/s 28.8GB/s
Unified Shader Units 40 320
Dual Link DVI Outputs 2 1
DisplayPort Outputs 2
10-bit Color Yes Yes
HD Component Output Yes
PCIe 2.0 Compliant Compliant
The first thing that will have many of you reeling is the actual number of Unified Shader Units that the FirePro V5700 has to offer. Yes, you have all read correctly - 320 of them powered by a 128-bit bus and DDR3 memory. Many questions must be now being asked hmm, what sort of performance is now going to be gained over the FireGL V5600 that many so dearly love.
The results from the FirePro V5700 will show just how powerful it really is.
The SPEC website has been recently updated with new FireGL V5600 results so this is a good comparative to gauge the new FirePro V5700 astonishing performance. Our test systems for this outing are mostly courtesy of Intel EU. The Intel DX48BT II Extreme mobo with a Core2 Extreme QX9650 Processor. These are exceptional parts especially with the recent price reductions and this configuration should now be found within most studios starting as Mid Range desktop.
Skulltrail. It’s been around for some time now and still continues to amaze with its raw processing power. Many have seen this configuration working within the multimedia sectors; though we took it one stage further to show SoHo users that this mainboard configuration can be used successfully within the Workstation environment.
Within these scenarios we aimed to show how powerful the set-up really is that we have shown today. Although these are expensive pieces of equipment, the facilities that the board has to offer are huge and for the SoHo user taking time in upgrading we decided upon showing this route today with a further look later on utilising both CPU’s. Although only PCI Ex 1.1 complaint, the results we have collated will astonish you all.
Benchmarks and Software Used (32 Bit Mode)
The plethora of benchmarks available in this arena; one could spend all day in producing results if the time permitted, paralysis by analysis! The clock ticked hard and fast against us therefore we did only have a very short time in which to complete this basic but factual review.
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3
3DS Max SP2 Scenes
Cinebench 10
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf® 10.0 – Run All Tests ran at 1280 X 1024 Resolution.
So that readers will be able to see how much performance increase has been gained throughout the range SPECviewperf® tests by the individual cards, we have split up into their individual test categories from each test system and run. Each card completed the test on a clean system hard drive to ensure that no residual drivers were left installed with all updates/patches applied. A test render was completed many times over different periods of the system uptime.
Maintaining the fair play rules of SPECviewperf we did not manipulate any of this mainboards functionality and left it at its default settings in which it was supplied. Tests were conducted and completed at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32 bit colour. Results that have been shown within this review are from the application/benchmarks first run in accordance with the SPECviewperf fair play rules. Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is OK.
Results and benchmarks
3D Studio Max 9 SP2 Time to complete:
CBALLS2 Video Post Render (Bonetrail II – X48) 1 Minutes 50 Seconds
CBALLS2 Video Post (Skulltrail) 1 Minute 03 Seconds
Radiosity Render – full 101 Frames (Bonetrail II – X48) 11 Minutes 32 Second
Radiosity Render – full 101 Frames (Skulltrail) 6 Minutes 27 Seconds
Underwater Scene - full 301 Frames – 5 frame pass
(Bonetrail II – X48) 1 Hour 28 Minutes 30 Seconds
Underwater Scene - full 301 Frames – 5 frame pass
(Skulltrail) 44 Minutes 41 Seconds
Conclusions
We have come to expect nothing but the best out from the ATI FirePro camp, today is no different. A card that romps home in such style, precision and costs less than $600 we all must be sitting up and taking complete stock of what has been achieved here. So much for so little. Who would have thought that a 128-bit controller card with DDR3 memory would outperform its older brother the V5600? These two cards fresh out of the stable doors will be now bolting down the streets like young Stallions.
The standards built into the card are exceptional value for money and as we have witnessed, the Displayport output at maximum resolution was simply mind bogglingly clear. The new Dell 27' 2709W Black Widescreen LCD monitor shown at the full native 1920 X 1200 was crystal sharp and the imagery as clear as the blue skies here.
We all thought that when DVI came out this was the upgrade path to follow. Along came HDMI and this was a huge leap forward. DisplayPort - you have to experience it to see just how good it really is. Remember the new V7700 was the first professional graphics card to fully support the new DisplayPort technology which means Maximum Resolution of 2560x1600 in 10-bit color depth DRM Support. This also sees a reduction in precious KWH output and a single cable for audio and video output. Look closely at the pictures of the FirePro V5700 as we have deliberately left out one important piece of information which will have many of you now wondering, “What is that for?” For now you will have to wait and see for our next outing, though for now and to jog your memory,
• Next generation GPU with 320 unified shader processors
• 512MB Memory
• 2 DisplayPort and 1 Dual Link enabled DVI Output
• High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering with 8-bit, 10-bit, and 16-bit per RGB colour component
• Multi-Card Support Drives Up To Four 3D Displays
• Full Blu-ray feature support with Unified Video Decoder 2.0
• Decode VC-1, H.264 and MPEG-2
• Offload CPU for other tasks
• Dual-stream and picture in picture (PIP) capabilities
It has been one of those events that we would have wished to have shown more, but the clock ticked hard and fast against us as there is a huge demand to see this excellent new graphics card from ATI. There is so much it has to offer. As time really was completely against us and we only had a short few days to complete all the tests. What is conclusive is that the base line tests from SPECviewperf 10.0 have returned substantial amounts of indisputable results for the FirePro (FireGL) V5700 which is exceptional for a mid range level professional card.
For those of you who may have over looked the fact, it has to be noted that Skulltrail PCI Express Rail currently runs at PCI Express* 1.1 x16 and the X48 Bonetrail’s II PCI Express Rail runs at PCI Express* 2.0 x16 standard. The new technology that AMD’s FirePro team has brought to the fore with this release, most certainly is the most comprehensive outing of a new professional graphics card. We should applaud AMD’s FireGL team for getting it right first time around.
The FirePro V5700 will be shipping from distributors into the EU and UK in September 2008. Current MRSP (Ex Taxes and VAT) are $599 US Dollars, £280 UK Pounds, €335 Euros.
Taking into consideration its price performance point we have to seriously think about this card when buying a new system or upgrading. At the price point, you would have to be completely irrational not to check it out.
The crown in the professional graphic card arena remains firmly in the clutch of ATI’S FirePro titanium fist and the FirePro Team maintains its status of being the ruling power of the Workstation place. X
IT Examiner Score 10 out of 10
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