NVIDIA® Quadro FX1800

System Build, System Set-Up and Software Used

On gaining the basic price point of the mainboard and CPU we therefore decided to build as an efficient system as possible and see what we could get for £1000.00 UK Pounds before VAT and Taxes.  For a mid range system here is what we came up with and it is after all a very professional system.   For once the mid range units are now affordable and we have at our disposal another excellent workstation to clarify oddities that some might see or hear about within the community.   The final build well the pictures below demonstrate how much space is available within the chassis once the basics have been put into place.

Yes you saw correctly the Bling from the Kingsberg mainboard and the Skull really does flash

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

Intel EU for the supply of the 2.93GHz Intel® Core™ i7-870  and the Intel® Mainboard DP55KG (Kingsberg)
Kingston Memory  for the HyperX  DDR3 Memory  1333MHz Unbuffered Validated P55 mainboard memory.
Coolermaster for the supply of the Hyper TX3 Heatsink Fan
Akasa for the supply of the Zen Chassis and  500 Watt Power Green 80+ PSU
NVIDIA for the supply of the Quadro FX1800
Western Digital for the ever so reliable 300GB 10K rpm VelociRaptor

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.

With the support and help of all the companies involved.   It gives you the reader a new choice on upgrade  paths that many of you look for here with the performance ratio’s each system has to provide.  One main e-tailer that can supply the EU reader readily all the parts listed you should pop over to SCAN  and see what  todays best bottom dollar deal is on the parts listed.  System Integrators now all have stock of their mainboards and CPU's, and, we are in this instance predicting a sudden uptake of this technology as many have been waiting patiently for it to arrive.   Therefore get your orders in now.

Benchmarks and Software used in 64-bit Mode

To maintain our target audience within the professional market place, though we are now seeing many old readers coming back who like the style we produce; we opted for this outing a complete set of professional applications benchmarks.   This in turn means all walks of life have a very good idea what they are about to buy and just how fast it really is from this factual article.  The test system shown within will be readily found within many arena's now, therefore those just wishing the simple upgrade of the NVIDIA Quadro FX1800  can see readily how much performance gain has been achieved. 

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit SP2
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP4 64-bit GPU/Video Tests only
POV-Ray Ver. 3.7 beta 34 64-bit
Bentley MicroStation Benchmark
Cinebench 10 64-bit
Autodesk 3DS Max 2009 Scenes
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit test only

All tests have been ran at 1280 X 1024 Resolution.

Each set of tests has been applied on the clean system hard drive shown above to ensure that no residue drivers were left installed with all updates/patches applied.   A test/render has been completed many times over different periods of the system uptime.   Maintaining the fair play rules of SPEC® and following the lead of recently submitted results - HyperThreading disabled and Turbo Boost enabled and the memory left at Auto showing the default of 1333MHz.     Tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32 bit colour.   Results that have been shown within this article are from the application/benchmarks first run in accordance with the SPECviewperf® and SPECapc™ fair play rules.  Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is right.

The results speak very clearly for themselves as a picture paints a thousand words; so there is absolutely no need for a running commentary of the results gained from each system.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Card Pictures
Page 3 - System Build, System Set-Up and Software Used
Page 4 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP4 64-bit GPU/Video Tests
Page 5 - Bentley MicroStation Benchmark and POV-Ray Ver. 3.7 beta 34 64-bit
Page 6 - Cinebench 10 64-bit
Page 7 - Autodesk 3DS Max 2009 Scenes
Page 8 - SPECviewperf® 10 and SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
Page 9 - Conclusions and Award