ATI takes the workstation crown: FirePro V8800 reviewed

Bobby Miller 10 Jun, 2010 at 1:06pm ET Article published in Tech

Astonishment is a word used to convey the feeling that follows complete surprise. I can think of few words more appropriate to describe ATI’s newest ultra-high end Workstation GPU, the FirePro V8800. I knew the FirePro V8750 was going to be a tough act to follow, jammed with 800 stream processors and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. ATI not only found a way to surpass its previous king from a spec and performance standpoint, but they made a statement to the wide world of Digital Content Creation—AMD is serious about workstation graphics, and they’re not going to stop until they sit upon the throne as the victor.

I was in Sunnyvale, California at the beautiful campus of AMD’s world headquarters for the unveiling of the Cypress XT-based chip. While there, I had the opportunity to not only put the fresh-from-the-presses V8800 through the benchmark paces, but I also got to see demonstrations of one of the card’s most impressive feature additions—Eyefinity Multi-display. Before we dig into all of that, let’s explore the details of the GPU.

The FirePro V8800 is based off the the 40nm AMD Cypress XT GPU—the core that powers the Radeon HD 5870. It is a two slot solution that requires two six pin power connectors. It is also a very attractive looking GPU. In the past, NVIDIA’s Quadro cards have always held the beauty crown while the FirePro cards were typically very bland. With this new generation, ATI has modeled the FirePro cards to share the same design as the Radeon HD 5xxx series. The results are a very aesthetically pleasing workstation GPU.

The full specifications are as follows:

AMD Cypress XT-GL GPU
40nm process node
825MHz core clock
1600 Stream Processors
2GB 1150MHz GDDR5
256-bit Memory Bus
147.2GBps memory Bandwidth
Power: 2×6-pin PCIe
208W TDP
4x DisplayPort
Stereoscopic (3D) Output
Eyefinity support
CrossFire Pro Support
Supports DirectX 11
MSRP: $1,499 USD

It is impressive that the V8800 packs double the amount of stream processors, increases the memory bandwidth, and ups the core clock from its previous generation counterpart, the V8750, while still managing to carry an MSRP that is $300 cheaper. On top of all that, the V8800 goes a step further by adding DirectX 11 compliance and adding support for Eyefinity Multi-display. Getting more for less is never a bad thing, especially in GPUs.

DirectX 11 has been making a big splash in the world of desktop GPUs designed for gaming purposes. The architecture, introduced with Windows 7, ushered in a plethora of new technologies that brought computer graphics to a new level. The three biggest additions were multi-threaded rendering, DirectCompute, and hardware tessellation. Gamers have been enjoying this new technology for months now, but the DCC world had yet to see any workstation solutions implement the new architecture. ATI has beaten NVIDIA out the DX11 gate by first adding support in the FirePro V8800, and soon afterward, releasing an entire lineup of DX11-compliant workstation boards. At the time of this writing, NVIDIA has yet to answer ATI’s DirectX 11 volley, but you can bet the company is poised to unleash a new lineup sometime soon. Until they do, advantage goes to ATI as the only company offering DirectX 11 workstation GPUs.

Perhaps an even greater addition to the FirePro V8800 is support for AMD’s multiple monitor fete, Eyefinity Multi-display. The GPU supports up to four display outputs at once via the four Displayport connectors. The GPU ships with Displayport to DVI converters to increase display compatibility out of the box. Having the ability to output to an array of four displays from one GPU is a definite killer app in the busy DCC industries. To an artist, it is invaluable to have that much screen real estate.

At the press event in Sunnyvale, AMD had set up many workstation solutions operating with Eyefinity Multi-Display. At the TurboSquid booth, for instance, the artist had one full screen devoted to 3DS Max, while the other two displays were set exclusively to a web browser and a material/asset browser for Max. Finally, the fourth output went to the artist’s Wacom Cintiq tablet which sports a built in high resolution display in which she could edit textures. It was easy to see how much an Eyefinity workstation setup could improve an artist’s workflow.

So how does the FirePro V8800 stack up against the competition? We put the GPU through the benchmark paces with Cinebench R10, Cinebench R11, and SPECViewPerf 10. Our testbench used is comprised of an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T hexa-core processor at 3.20 GHZ, 8 Gigabytes of DDR3 1600 memory, and a 1 Terabyte Western Digital Caviar Black SATA HDD, all plugged into the new MSI 890FXA motherboard and running Windows 7 Professional.

For comparison purposes in this review, the V8800 will be going up against the full lineup of DirectX 11 FirePro cards, which include the V7800, V5800, V4800, and V3800. It will also be compared against the ultra high end V8750, which was ATI’s strongest solution from the previous generation, as well as the FirePro V7750 and V5700 from the previous generation. The NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 will be the final combatant, which is a very strong high end solution. Let’s see how the card performed:

: SPECviewperf SolidWorks

: SPECviewperf Maya

: SPECviewperf EnSight

: SPECviewperf 3ds max

: SPECviewperf UniGraphics NX

ATI has upped the ante of real time OpenGL performance in their newest generation of workstation GPUs as the FirePro V8800 has taken a commanding lead, beating the V8750 by 300 points. Its roots in the Cypress XT GPU is certainly shining in that respect, not to mention the ginormous amount of stream processors taking care of business. It is equally impressive the the new FirePro V7800 not only beats the V8750, but actually scores close to, and in one case, manages to overtake the V8800.

Looking at the ViewPerf results leaves no doubt that the newest generation of FirePro GPUs are rendering frames and taking names. The FirePro V8750 is beaten at almost every test by a considerable margin by the V8800, and in many cases, the V7800. Surprisingly still, the V7800 manages to best the V8800 is a few cases as well. Maya once again becomes the high framerate battleground as both the V8800 and V8750 turned out very impressive numbers. The V8750 put up a good fight with Maya, but the V8800’s larger memory bandwidth and double stream processors managed to show some seriously impressive gains on some of the tests.

The FirePro V8800 isn’t perfect, though. That kind of performance comes at a price. For starters, the V8800 is a very large GPU. Measuring at 11 inches in length, this card is only going to find a comfortable home in larger, roomier chassis. The GPU also uses a considerable amount of electricity with a TDP of 208W. Finally, that amount of juice is going to generate some decent temperatures.

The V8800 does run a bit on the hot side. During the evaluation, the GPU idled at 55 degrees Celsius. Under the full load of FurMark, the GPU peaked out at 86 degrees Celsius. In a more realistic scenario, I played Grand Theft Auto 4 and Modern Warfare 2 with the V8800 for about five hours and achieved average temperatures in the low 80’s. Thanks to the GPU’s dual-slot cooling solution, it is more than capable of staying completely stable at these temperatures. Just don’t be surprised when your workstation turns your office into a brick oven of sorts.

At an MSRP of $1400, this GPU is not marketed towards the individual artist and home enthusiast. While those unfamiliar with the workstation market may find that price point a bitter pill to swallow, it is an attractive price to studios and firms that rely on workstation technology. It is astonishing that AMD has managed to put together a GPU that is cheaper than the FirePro V8750 and the Quadro FX 4800 and 5800 while managing to outperform its previous generation combatants.

ATI have produced an incredible product with the FirePro V8800. The V8750 set expectations very high, yet the V8800 barely broke a sweat surpassing it. It isn’t for everyone, especially if you’re looking for an entry product into workstation GPUs, but those that need a solution of this magnitude will find everything they’re looking for and more. The lightning quick performance and superb feature set are more than enough to offset the pangs of heat production and power use, so long as you have enough space to house the card. The addition of Eyefinity Multi-Display alone makes the V8800 a perfect solution for artists who spend too much time alt+tabbing through work. I can guarantee if you get a chance to work with the FirePro V8800, you will not be disappointed in any way. This card is spectacular.

If the FirePro V8800 is any indication of what to expect from the next generation of workstation GPUs, then I cannot wait to spectate in the ensuing battle between NVIDIA and AMD. Prices are dropping and feature sets are rising. As an artists in today’s world of computers, what more could you ask for?

ATI FirePro V8800 is available now from Newegg and Amazon, for around $1250

Comments

11 Jun 2010 ~ 2:20am Tim Didn't the 8750 just come out a couple months ago?
11 Jun 2010 ~ 2:24am UPSLynx The v8750 is actually a year old. It hit the market some time in July of last year (we first saw it at SIGGRAPH 09 in New Orleans, and had ours on the test bench soon afterwards), I believe. Before it, the v8700 was released in August of 2008, during SIGGRAPH I think.

The v8800 not only came along ahead of schedule according to this pattern, but it leapt well above the bar set by the v8750.
11 Jun 2010 ~ 4:36am Sledgehammer70 How much of a performance increase is it from a 3800 to 5800 on the Nvidia front? Also what 3d applications are using DX11 currently? Is Max and or Maya using DX11?
11 Jun 2010 ~ 6:05am maximusgaius hi.. what is the price of other cards 7800,5800,4800,3800
thanks in adv
11 Jun 2010 ~ 2:31pm UPSLynx Sledge, I'm not sure. We were never able to get a 5800 from NVIDIA to put on the testbench. I've heard both that the 5800 is in a league of its own, and that it isn't a big enough leap over the 4800 to warrant the massive $3400 MSRP.

From what I've seen on the benchmarks of the publications that have both an FX 5800 and v8800, the v8800 bests the FX 5800. Then again, the 5800 is using 4GB of DDR3 while the v8800 is using GDDR5 memory, so that makes sense.

As for DX11, I'm not exactly sure. I think I remember reading that Maya's viewport in D3D rendering utilizes DX11, but don't quote me on that. For the most part, animation packages are using their own renders and rely very little on OpenGL/D3D rendering.

It is certainly something I could stand to research and learn more about, though.

Maximusgaius, the prices are $799, $469, $189, $109 respectively. If you stick around, we'll have a review roundup of all of those GPUs on Icrontic before too long.
11 Jun 2010 ~ 3:48pm maximusgaius yipeee for reviews. as for renders it is true that softwares use their renders but from what i know this is for final render which uses cpu. the viewport is drawn with opengl or d3d and i think 11 is not yet supported in viewport drawing. then again i could be wrong....

oh UPSLynx i was wonder wether you could do a hardware render in maya for a scene and compare the times between cards. though renders like mental ray use cpu, hardware renders use GPU. so it will be interesting to see the sec required by each card.
thanks in adv
11 Jun 2010 ~ 8:06pm UPSLynx Maximusgaius, I will attempt to get some data for Maya renders for the review roundup. I was going to try to do a similar thing for this review, but the process was marred by many hardware failures on my end, so we went with the artificial data.
12 Jun 2010 ~ 7:33am maximusgaius hi
max 2011 now has a render called quicksilver. is there anychance of getting this too in the mix
12 Jun 2010 ~ 2:17pm UPSLynx I would love to give quicksilver a run, but we don't have a copy of 3DS Max 2011 on the testbench. We have the Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite and Softimage 6.5, but no access to Max unfortunately.
15 Jun 2010 ~ 1:54pm drasnor What's the story with the SolidWorks benchmarks? These look like they're CPU or memory-limited.
15 Jun 2010 ~ 1:59pm Thrax The test system is a hexa core Phenom II with at least 4GB of memory.

Bobby can provide more info
15 Jun 2010 ~ 2:04pm shwaip It's surprising to see all the ati cards perform exactly the same in the viewperf_3ds test...is it possible this is due to the same thing that was seen before with vsync?
15 Jun 2010 ~ 2:25pm Thrax Vsync was disabled on both brands. (Vsync is disabled by default on ATI cards.)
13 Sep 2010 ~ 10:41am Senor Freebie This seems to be about the only place on the net where people are actually talking about the viewport renderer for 3Ds MAX 2011. I'm looking for a renderer that will display tesselated and displaced models and having very limited luck outside AMD's GPU MeshMapper.

As for these cards, do they typically perform as well as their gaming counter-parts? I typically buy my GFX for the dual purpose of 3D art and gaming.
13 Sep 2010 ~ 11:49am Tushon This article touches on the game performance of workstation cards.

http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/the-real-difference-between-workstation-and-desktop-gpus/
13 Sep 2010 ~ 11:49am UPSLynx Regarding gaming, I have had better performance in my own tests with FirePro GPUs than I did with Quadro.

While writing this review, I kept the FirePro V8800 installed in my machine the entire time. I continued to play games on it like normal. I have yet to play a game on the V8800 that I could not play with all detail settings on highest.

The Quadro FX 3800 struggled a bit, but it is a mid to high range. The FirePro V7750, AMD's equivalent to the FX 3800, performed better in games when I was messing around with them. The Quadro 6000 is a different situation, as it gamed on par with the FirePro V8800. The Quadro 6000 did run very hot while gaming on it though, with the exhaust fan running at near maximum the entire time.
13 Sep 2010 ~ 2:55pm Tushon Thanks for the correction.
1 Mar 2011 ~ 11:48pm Srikumartata I am working on Maya dynamics and realflow, Presently i am using NVIDIA 9400 GT. Can you suggest me what is the best Graphic card for VFX purpose, Is QUADRO FX 6000 is ok for all my real flow simulations, Crowd multiplications in maya? Thanks adv.
4 Mar 2011 ~ 2:39am UPSLynx If by Quadro FX 6000 you simply mean the Quadro 6000 (they dropped the "FX" in their current lineup), then that is massive overkill for doing dynamics and crowd sims. It'll get the job done, sure, but that GPU has an MSRP of $4,999. There are plenty of other options from AMD and NVIDIA alike that won't require you to take out a loan like the Q6000 will.

I would suggest either the ATI FirePro V7800, FirePro V8800, or Quadro 4000 (or maybe even 5000, but still very expensive).
4 Mar 2011 ~ 5:41pm drasnor Any workstation card at all is going to be better than that 9400 GT.
11 Mar 2011 ~ 9:38am Marcus unfortunately V-ray RT (new GPU render from ChaoGroup) dont recognize OpenCL from ATI Firepro V7800 and nolonger any other ati firepro cards.