Cadalyst - October 2007 - (Page 27)

cadlabsreview will drive an analog monitor at 2,048 x 1,536 resolution at 32 bpp or a single-input, dual-link digital panel at 2,560 x 1,600 resolution at 32 bpp. You’ll find two dual-link DVI-I connectors on the back of the Quadro FX 5600, as well as a VESA stereoscopic output. The Quadro FX 5600 carries an estimated street price of $2,500 and a three-year warranty. NVIDIA regularly updates drivers for their Quadro line of graphics cards, with new drivers often offering performance benefits. You’ll find drivers on the company’s Web site for a number of operating environments, including 32- and 64-bit versions of both Windows XP and Vista, in addition to drivers for Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD. For the benchmark tests, I used the most current Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL)–certified drivers available at the time I began testing, which in this case were v. 6.14.10.9778, along with the MAXtreme v.9.00.01 driver for the 3ds Max components of the tests. On the Cadalyst C2006 benchmark running in AutoCAD 2008, the FX 5600 produced a total index score of 310 with the native OpenGL drivers and a total index score of 434 with the native Direct3D drivers. I ran the MAXBench4 benchmark with Autodesk 3ds Max 9 in three different configurations: with the native 3ds Max OpenGL drivers, the native Direct3D drivers, and with NVIDIA’s MAXtreme accelerated driver. The averaged high/low scores for these tests were 108.31 for the OpenGL drivers, 233.72 for the native Direct3D drivers, and a speedy 252.49 with the MAXtreme accelerated driver. For the final benchmark tests, I ran the entire SPECViewperf 10 benchmark to produce the following scores: 44.31 for 3dsmax-04, 54.99 for catia-02, 48.83 for ensight-03, 181.98 for maya-02, 49.18 for proe-04, 94.62 for sw-01, 27.46 for tcvis-01, and 31.18 for ugnx-01. Although these are speedy performance numbers, none of these benchmarks really access the extra memory available on the FX 5600, so there are likely to be even more performance benefits for users who deal with particularly large and complex models. c Ron LaFon, a contributing editor for Cadalyst, is a writer, editor, and a computer graphics and electronic publishing specialist from Atlanta, Georgia. He is a principal at 3Bear Productions in Atlanta. Make lines or make New product concepts are your company’s life blood; don’t let them wait until someone else finds time to model them. Alibre Design™ is easy to use and affordable without sacrificing power — and just one-fifth the price of Autodesk Inventor® or SolidWorks®. Get the industry's fastest growing 3D CAD software risk-free. Visit our website for a free copy of Ailbre Design Xpress or get a full 30-day trial of Alibre Design Professional. ideas. Go 3D. Go Alibre 877-525-4273 www.alibre.com ©2006 Alibre Inc. All rights reserved. Alibre is a registered trademark and Alibre Design is a trademark of Alibre Inc. All other trademarks belong to their respective holders. www.cadalyst.com | cadalyst | October 2007 27 http://www.alibre.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - October 2007

Contents Editor's Window Cad Central Tech Trends: First-Hand Architecture in Second Life Rev It Up — Graphics Cards Pack Power for Today’s Hottest Designs TurboCAD Pro 14 — 3D Modeling Software SimEnterprise R2 — Design Simulation Software CADopia 6.2 SP3 Professional Edition — 2D and 3D Modeling Software Cad Manager: Programming Resources for CAD Managers MCAD Modeling: Customer Service Horror Stories PLM Strategies: Manufacturing Across Time Zones AEC in Focus: Digital-Asset Management in AEC/O Cad Cartoon Issue Indexes Cadfidential

Cadalyst - October 2007

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