Cadalyst - March 2008 - (Page 24)

cadlabsreview AMD’s ATI FireGL Graphics Cards New graphics boards are ideally suited to CAD and digital-content–creation applications. By Ron LaFon A MD recently introduced a whole new family of ATI FireGL graphics cards, three of which are ideally suited for CAD and digital-content– creation (DCC) applications. Two cards in the family incorporated expanded RAM, with 1 GB and 2 GB models available, although these are more appropriate for industrial imaging, GIS, or working with extremely large models. Take a look at the new FireGL V3600, V5600, and V7600 cards. Testing Procedures To test all the graphics cards in this Cadalyst Labs review, I used a new system from Hewlett-Packard, the HP xw4600 workstation, which is based on a proprietary Foxconn motherboard that uses the Intel X38 Express chipset. This system has an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 processor rated at 3.0 GHz and a front-side bus speed of 1,333 MHz. The test system was preloaded with Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed. The requested configuration included 2 GB of DDR2 800-MHz ECC RAM, a 250-GB SATA hard drive, and a DVD±RW double-layer Super Multi (SATA) optical drive. When I was ready to start the tests, I downloaded the newest drivers from the AMD Web site and installed them before running the benchmark tests. The downloaded drivers, version 8.391.2.1110 (September 24, 2007), included support for the ATI FireGL V3600 and V5600 but not the FireGL V7600. For the last card, AMD sent me a CD with driver v.8.420.0.0 (August 20, 2007) for use in testing that specific graphics card. At the time of testing, the then-current ATI MAXimum accelerated driver for Autodesk 3ds Max did not support this new generation of FireGL cards, so I was unable to test with an accelerated driver. For the first part of the benchmark tests, I ran the new Cadalyst C2008 benchmark (available at www.cadalyst.com/ c2008) under AutoCAD 2008 with Service Pack 1, which was used to test performance with both AutoCAD’s native OpenGL drivers and the Direct3D drivers. If an accelerated AutoCAD driver was available, I noted it in the accompanying online feature table (www.cadalyst.com/0308ATItable) but didn’t use it for testing. All cards were tested at 1,280 x 1,024 resolution at 32-bit color depth. The new Cadalyst C2008 benchmark adds two additional 3D tests — Hidden Shade and Flat Shade — and works with AutoCAD 2008 under both Windows XP and Vista. In addition to the single OpenGL and Direct3D tests, I also ran sideby-side sessions of C2008 to make use of the additional microprocessor core. These two test times were combined for a final result with the comparable time-to-completion times listed. Because AutoCAD is not multiprocessor-core aware, this procedure seems to be the best method at present for testing AutoCAD on multicore systems. I used MAXBench4 with the recently released Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 for this benchmark, typically in two configurations: with the native OpenGL drivers and with the native Direct3D drivers. The ATI MAXimum accelerated driver for 3ds Max didn’t yet work with this new generation of FireGL graphics cards, so only the OpenGL and Direct3D test results are given. The final benchmark test for the submitted graphics cards is the full SPECviewperf 10 benchmark (www.spec. org), which works under both Windows XP and Vista. I list the scores for each of the component tests in the online feature table for these reviews. The new ATI FireGL graphics cards reviewed here are based on the R600 graphics processor, and they feature dual 400 MHz random-access memory digital-to-analog ATI FireGL Graphics Cards Report Card Product ATI FireGL V3600 ATI FireGL V5600 ATI FireGL V7600 24 Performance B+ A– A Price A+ A+ A Warranty Connectivity Pros A A Excellent entry-level graphics card; good driver support; moderately priced A A Good mid-range graphics card; good driver support; moderately priced A A Good performance; good driver support; speedy Cons Grade None significant A None significant None significant A A March 2008 | cadalyst | www.cadalyst.com http://www.cadalyst.com/c2008 http://www.cadalyst.com/c2008 http://www.cadalyst.com/0308ATItable http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - March 2008

Cadalyst - March 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Thicker than Water Safe Keeping — Backup Software Secures Your Designs AMD’s ATI FireGL Graphics Cards AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 — Surveying, Civil Engineering, and Land Development Software Cool Software Utilities for Your Job History, Nonhistory, or Both? In the Eye of the Storm Builders’ Information Modeling CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes CAD from the Streets

Cadalyst - March 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.