• 128-bit colour precision
• Unlimited fragment instruction
• Unlimited vertex instruction
• 3D volumetric texture support
• Single-system powerwall
• 12 pixels per clock rendering engine
• Hardware accelerated antialiased points and lines
• Hardware OpenGL overlay planes
• Hardware accelerated two-sided lighting
• Hardware accelerated clipping planes
• 3rd generation occlusion culling
• 16 textures per pixel in fragment programs
• Window ID clipping functionality
• Hardware accelerated line stippling
   
• 12-bit subpixel sampling precision enhances antialiasing quality
• Rotated Grid Full-Scene Antialiasing (RG FSAA)
• 8x FSAA dramatically reduces visual aliasing artifacts or "jaggies" at resolutions up to 1920 x 1200
• Twin dual link DVI outputs drive two digital displays at resolutions up to 3840 x 2400
• Internal 400MHz DACs drive two analog displays up to 2048 x 1536

System Configuration and Benchmarks

On this outing and maintaining the entry level workstation stability we adhered to the well established system utilised in previous tests on the new FireGL Cards.   This in house built system configuration has most certainly proven and earned its golden spurs.   One point of interest and for peace of mind to some readers; for those of you looking for that added security of ECC memory, the MSI K8N Diamond Plus does support it.   For those of you thinking about new builds, the direction we have taken here certainly will help if budgets are of concern, but you are looking for that extra bang and your SI/VAR will be able to provide the same system we have shown below. 

1 X MSI K8N Diamond Plus SLI Mainboard
2 X 1GB (2GB Total) 4400PRO Corsair TwinX Memory
1 X AMD Opteron 180 with AKASA EVO 120 AMD HEATPIPE COOLER HSF utilising
       Akasa HI-Spec Pro-Grade + 5022 Thermal Compound
1 X NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 Professional Graphics Card with Driver Release 84.26
2 X Western Digital 150GB 10K Raptor with 16MB Buffer Configured to Raid 0
1 X AKASA ECLIPSE-62 Chassis
1 X AKASA POWERPLUS iQ 650W
1 X AKASA 120MM Ultra Quiet Amber Series for the Intake Fan
1 X AKASA 120MM Ultra Quiet Amber Series for the Exhaust Fan.

Throughout the tests we also hooked the Akasa EVO 120 Heatpipe Cooler directly up to the Akasa ALLInONE Controller leaving the CPU, and system fans under its direct control of the Auto Setting.   Ambient room temperature was a constant 22C.   During installation of Windows we once saw the CPU temps creep up past 33C, thereafter under the control of the ALLInONE the CPU remained steady between the temps of 28.2C to 29.8C, under load of heavy renders in 3D Studio Max 7.   The fans and system remaining astonishingly silent!   A true testament to Akasa’s skilled engineering teams.   You can now fully understand why now we have chosen this system configuration for such heavy tests.   Not withstanding MSI UK’s contribution of the new K8N Diamond Plus this mainboard has shown remarkable trustworthy stability throughout.

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 came courtesy of NVIDIA and may also be purchased from Man and Machine UK.   CPU paste and a majority of the components making up Test System were sourced from Akasa UK .   AMD for the supply of the new AMD Opteron 180, MSI UK for the K8N Diamond Plus Mainboard.   Corsair Memory, for the supply of their new 4400PRO TwinX Memory.    Finally but by no means least; Western Digital for the Supply of the new 150GB 10K Raptor which allowed us to look at system performance in Raid 0 with the new drives.   Our thanks to all for making this an interesting but exciting review. 

Systems Integrators, OEM’s and VAR’s should contact all companies directly for pricing and availability of all components.   Members of the public should contact their respective suppliers requesting the parts directly from Akasa UK, Boston  and Man and Machine.

Diskeeper can be purchased from most leading Distributors and software retail outlets.  Or those of you wishing a try before buy, a 30 day trial version maybe downloaded direct from www.diskeeper.com

This review was severely hampered by very tight time constraints as these new cards are in extremely high demand.   However, we have managed to squeeze in as much as possible from the system showing off as the relevant tests and benchmarks.   This though will give the reader an indication at what to expect actually expect.

Benchmarks, Software Used and Conclusions (32 Bit Mode)

To complete all of the above tests on the system has taken some considerable time.   Maintaining the fair play rules we did not manipulate any of this mainboards superb overclocking facilities just to see how fast this board is at the default settings.  To further improve and maintain optimal hard disk performance throughout we utilised before each Benchmark / Software application was run the system had all the temporary folders and logs dumped with the drives completely defragged using the latest version (Build 593) of Diskeeper 10 Professional Premier Edition which incorporates its new I-FAAST technology.   The benchmarks were each run several times over to ensure that no anomalies or discrepancies were to be seen.    All tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 70Hz in 32 bit colour.  

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 with full Updates
Diskeeper 10 Premier Edition
PCMark 2005 Advanced with patch 1.1.0
Cinebench 9.5 (New)
SPECapc for 3ds max™ 7
SPECviewperf® 8.1

With this complete we move onwards to the actual results obtained.