Cadalyst - July 2008 - (Page 30)

ﬁrstlook By Ron LaFon AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 Two graphics cards supply good performance and lots of onboard RAM for graphically demanding applications. arlier this year, AMD sent Cadalyst two of its highend graphics cards for evaluation and testing — the ATI FireGL V8600, which features 1 GB of onboard RAM, and the ATI FireGL V8650, which was the ﬁrst card on the market with 2 GB of RAM. I tested both of these full-length graphics cards and put them through their paces with Cadalyst’s current benchmark series. These RAM-heavy cards are intended for users who work with memory-intensive applications. The Cadalyst benchmark tests give a very good evaluation of performance with a wide range of applications, but none of these benchmarks specifically address the full memory capabilities of such graphics cards. System requirements for the both of the graphics cards were a PCI Express–based workstation with an available 16x lane graphics slot; connectors to the system power supply, which must be at least 650 W (assuming a fully loaded system); and 256 MB of system memory. Software installation required a CD-ROM drive. Software drivers for both cards were available for Windows XP and XP64, Linux 32 and Linux 64, as well as Windows Vista and Windows Vista 64. Acceleration support for OpenGL 2.1 with OpenGL Shading Language and Microsoft DirectX 10 was incorporated. E Testing Procedures I tested both the ATI FireGL V8600 and ATI FireGL V8650 in an Xi MTower 2P64X Workstation from @Xi Computer with AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 1-GB and 2-GB Graphics Cards Pros: Good onboard RAM, 1 GB for FireGL V8600 and 2 GB for FireGL V8650; extensive application certiﬁcations; good performance. Cons: Driver problems with OpenGL under AutoCAD 2008; no accelerated driver for Autodesk 3ds Max; pricey. Price: MSRP $1,899, FireGL V8600, and $2,799 for FireGL V8650; lower street prices available. AMD 408.749.4000 www.ati.amd.com/products/workstation.html 30 dual Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processors that were overclocked to 3.60 GHz. (Cadalyst will be reviewing this system in an upcoming review.) This system configuration features a 1,600-MHz front-side bus speed and included 4 GB of DDR2, 800-MHz FB-DIMM ECC dual-rank interleaved heat-spreader RAM. All tests were conducted under Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed, with the most current ATI WHQL-certified drivers available at the time of the testing, which were v.8.440.0.0, dated November 16, 2007. At the time of the tests, no accelerated drivers for Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 were available for use with either of the these graphics cards. (New drivers that support AutoCAD 2008 and 3ds Max are now available at http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html.) I ran our current test suite, which includes the Cadalyst C2008 benchmark (www.cadalyst.com/c2008) running under AutoCAD 2008 with Service Pack 1 installed, the MAXBench4 benchmark running in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 with current updates, and the full SPECviewperf 10 benchmark suite (www.spec.org). Tests for AutoCAD 2008 and 3ds Max 2008 were attempted with both the native OpenGL and Direct3D drivers, although the OpenGL tests under AutoCAD wouldn’t run to completion with these drivers. I was able to run the C2008 benchmark to completion with both graphics cards using the native Direct3D drivers. The concurrent session tests were completed successfully using the native Direct3D drivers. Both cards were tested with MAXBench4 running under Autodesk 3ds Max 2008, using both the native OpenGL and native Direct3D drivers. As previously noted, no accelerated 3ds Max driver was available at the time for testing. I ran the full SPECviewperf 10 benchmark to completion with both graphics cards. Results for all tests are given in each graphic card’s review. ATI FireGL V8600 The first of the two high-end ATI FireGL graphics cards is the FireGL V8600, a double-width, full-length card that features 1 GB of GDDR4 onboard memory. The V8600 features two dual-link DVI-I outputs for any combination of digital and analog displays with independent multimonitor resolution and refresh-rate selection. The dual-link outputs will drive displays at resolutions of 2,560 x 1,600. A stereoscopic www.cadalyst.com cadalyst July 2008 http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html http://www.cadalyst.com/c2008 http://www.spec.org http://www.ati.amd.com/products/workstation.html http://www.cadalyst.com

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

Cadalyst - July 2008 Editor’s Window CAD Central FIRST Robotic Beasts Draw Students to Engineering Power! Speed! Action! — Mighty Mobile Workstations are Packed and Ready for Adventure! Vico Virtual Construction Suite 2008 AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 — 1-GB and 2-GB Graphics Cards Gaining Independence and Influence The Current State of MCAD Rewriting the Rules of PDM BIM Goes Residential CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Pleasures of Customization

Cadalyst - July 2008

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