AMD FirePro V9800 4 GB: Eyefinity Meets Professional Graphics

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What's red, black, sports 4 GB of GDDR5, and has DisplayPort outputs all over? AMD's FirePro V9800, the company's ultra-high-end workstation card. We run it through a battery of SPECapc and real-world performance tests, then compare it to Quadro 5000.

Test Setup And Benchmarks

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Test Hardware
ProcessorsIntel Core i7-980X (Gulftown) 3.33 GHz, LGA 1366, 6.4 GT/s QPI, 12 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled
MotherboardGigabyte X58A-UD5 (LGA 1366) Intel X58/ICH10R, BIOS FB
MemoryKingston 6 GB (3 x 2 GB) DDR3-2000, KHX2000C8D3T1K3/6GX @ 8-8-8-24 and 1.65 V
Hard DriveIntel SSDSA2M160G2GC 160 GB SATA 3Gb/s
GraphicsAMD FirePro V9800
Row 5 - Cell 0 Nvidia Quadro 5000
Power SupplyCooler Master UCP-1000 W
System Software And Drivers
Operating SystemWindows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
DirectXDirectX 11
Graphics DriverAMD Catalyst 8.773
Row 11 - Cell 0 Nvidia Quadro Release 259.57

Although AMD positions its FirePro V9800 against Nvidia's Quadro 6000, it doesn't take a 6000 to offer up competitive performance, we've found. If you're more interested in a comparison to the 6000, know that it includes more shader processors (448 vs. 352), more memory (6 GB vs. 2.5 GB), more memory bandwidth, and consumes more power. With an MSRP of $5000, it's like the FirePro V9800 in that it appeals to a very tiny sliver of the market who can put its massively large frame buffer to use.

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Benchmarks and Settings
Video Encoding
BlenderCustom Workload; cd blender-2.54-beta-windows64, bench_blender.bat, rem blender -b thg.blend -o testset -f 1
Applications
Adobe After EffectsCS5; Custom Workload, SD project with three picture-in-picture frames, source video at 720p
Adobe PhotoshopCS5; Custom Workload, Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates filters
Adobe Premiere ProCS5; Custom Workload, 1280x720p, 59.94 FPS video, Panasonic DVCPro100, HVX-200 camcorder on P2 media, Render to Work Area; Adobe Paladin workload (with hardware Mercury Playback Engine support on Quadro)
Adobe Media EncoderCustom Workload, Encode Premiere Pro project to h.264 for Blu-ray
e-on Software Vue 8 PLE1920x1080 landscape render, Global Illumination enabled
NewTek LightWave 3D 9.6Custom Workload, high-poly Tom's Hardware logo; clone surface detail across logo (Modeler, script); OpenGL preview of 600-frame animation of Tom's Hardware logo (Layout); 1.68 million polygon render of four captured frames using motion blur, ray-traced shadows, global illumination.
Autodesk 3ds Max 2010Default Scanline Renderer and Mental Ray Renderer, both test scenes from 3dspeedmachine.com
Autodesk MatchMover 2011Custom workload, 720p camera footage tracked in 3D space
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
SPECapc LightWave 9.6LightWave 3D Discovery Edition, Render and MT benchmark scores
SPECviewperf 11Default GUI options, 2560x1600; Workloads: CATIA, EnSight, LightWave, Maya, Pro/E, SolidWorks, Teamcenter Visualization Mockup, NX
SPECapc Maya 2009Default run, composite score generated through SPEC Excel template
SPECapc 3ds Max 9Default run, composite score generated through SPEC Excel template
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Nvidia shines in the industrial/commercial/scientific market, with their driver team and CUDA/GPGPU tech. Too bad the V9800 fell short of expectations. Also, Nividia cards are obviously going to have better results in Adobe Mercury since both companies worked together on hardware optimization. AMD needs to be more aggressive in working together with software makers, (including games!) to have a stronger hold on both the CPU and GPU markets. Overall, a good read.
    Reply
  • reprotected
    It would actually make sense if they compared with the V8800 and the Quadro 6000. We also need a review of the Quadro 4000, 2000 and the 800, along with the lower Firepro 3D series.
    Reply
  • reprotectedIt would actually make sense if they compared with the V8800 and the Quadro 6000. We also need a review of the Quadro 4000, 2000 and the 600, along with the lower Firepro 3D series.1. Definetly, a review of the "lower end" cards would be nice.
    2. Plus, it would be nice to see how well the SLi cards scale.
    3. Also, with the updated (e)nVidia desktop cards (GF100 to GF110), will the Quadro ones see a revision too - if so, when?
    Reply
  • Benchmark with gpu base render engin like mental images IRay or Chaos Group V-Ray RT
    Reply
  • cangelini
    radiovan1. Definetly, a review of the "lower end" cards would be nice.2. Plus, it would be nice to see how well the SLi cards scale.3. Also, with the updated (e)nVidia desktop cards (GF100 to GF110), will the Quadro ones see a revision too - if so, when?
    Good question (3), I'll ask!

    Cheers,
    Chris
    Reply
  • Cwize1
    This was a rather underwhelming test suit. I think the fundamental problem you have is that most of the tests you ran were CPU based.

    What most of these production apps use the GPU for is on the fly rendering. For example, sculpting in blender can tax the GPU quite nicely given enough vectors. Another good blender one would be playing back a super resolution baked fluid simulation in real time. For example, take the tom's hardware logo you had before, turn it into water and let the water fall onto a flat surface. Bake the simulation with a ridiculous resolution (as much as you can before blender crashes) and then play the simulation back in real time while watching 5 high definition videos at the same time.
    Reply
  • tony singh
    What a disappointment, hopefully next firepro will be aa winner.
    Reply
  • hell_storm2004
    The FirePro has still the long way to go to catch up with the Quadro. I hope ATI makes good progress in the workstation models soon like they have come a long way in the desktop market.
    Reply
  • wa1
    cool...
    Reply
  • eclecticfortune
    In this article's conclusion appeared this statement:
    "If you’re a creative professional working with Adobe’s CS5 suite, then the Quadro is hands-down a no-brainer."
    Benchmarks indicate that the lower priced GTX 480 is a far better choice (cost effective)for those taking advantage of the Mercury Playback Engine running Premiere Pro CS5.
    http://ppbm5.com/Benchmark5.html
    At the top of this page, click on the "MPE Performance Chart" to get a comparison between the different Nvidia Cards with Premiere Pro CS5.
    Reply