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Taking into consideration that this is
the first release of this driver, we
must ask ourselves how much more can be
gained from within. Interestingly it
has been quoted that a new driver is
around the corner within the next few
months and this will address the
shortfalls seen within
tcvis-01and
ugnx-01.
Therefore wait and see, we will redo
these tests when the time is right.
As stipulated before,
Supermicro's
is a beast to see in action. Now
taking into consideration this was
running on a 3GHz Xeon in many places it
comes very close to the other results
shown. It would be interesting to see
just how close if evenly matched with
two 3.2GHz Xeons running in at Raid 0.
Though as previously stated Intel's
Skulltrail platform although only PCI Ex
1.1 complaint still romps home some very
respectable results indeed. Therefore
with those of you out there with this
system and planning the upgrade it could
just be worth it just now with the
Quadro® FX4800 until the more modern
Dual Nehalem platforms arrive. Most
certainly a sensible train of thought in
the upgrade path.
Cinebench 10 both 32 bit and 64 bit.
Within the OpenGL results these are what
we have expected, with the exception of
the Intel i7 3.2GHz results. These are
remarkably fast and the CPU tests
running bang in on previous outings.
Though the 32-bit OpenGL results within
are most certainly optimised we see for
Intel's i7 platforms which is a good
sign as purchasers looking at bringing
onboard Intel's latest offering will
know that they should not see any
unforeseen problems. More will tell
very soon when we look at the cards on
Supermicro's new X8SAX workstation
variant of the X58 chipset. As shown
earlier within our news page the
mainboard supports both ECC and
Unbuffered Non ECC memory, therefore
this will be an exceptional choice of
workstation mainboard to revisit all.
The results from
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
has been the one to blow us away, to
date we have never seen such very high
scoring. To check sum it was no freak
result we completed a fresh run iaw the
fairplay rules and the results came in
extremely close to the first run. Some
discreet and very happy smiling faces
will be quietly walking about today
within Santa Clara.
What of cost and availability of this
new wondrous bit of equipment fresh from
the pedigree stable of NVIDIA? At
going to print the current pricing of
the NVIDIA Quadro® FX4800 wings in at
the starters gate at $1999 USD or €1350
Euros. Shipping, quoted from many
sources within industry as soon as the
next couple of weeks, therefore to
certain excited end users Christmas has
come early.
Notwithstanding, the utilisation of
CUDA, developer and performance tools
available to the proficient end user,
this card has much to offer. Therefore
NVIDIA's professional driver team has
looked very carefully at its new
contribution to the professional end
user. There has been much focus on
getting the final WHQL drivers out on
time with the product and many kudos
for achieving this.
Its early days to make comments and
predictions on the way ahead, though
what has been observed within today has
been exceptional and all within NVIDIA's
HQ must be quietly pleased with
themselves. How are the market end
users going to react, this is a very
difficult question as its been some time
since a product of this magnitude has
hit the streets. Some will come
rushing back, others will be a little
cautious for now and see what the next
few months deliver.
Ultimately, this is when things get very
difficult indeed, in one breath the
NVIDIA Quadro® FX4800 has performed
remarkably well indeed. In another
breath not so and we would have expected
it to have shone through in all areas
considering the remarkable results shown
within SolidWorks. But and there always
is a but. These are very early days for
a product of this nature and with the
forthcoming new drivers improvements
should be seriously observed as we
previously commented. For those looking
for a swift upgrade at a snip of the
cost of the previous Quadro's then this
is the way ahead as the price for such
good value will make so much of a
difference. Customers who are within
the "hmm lets wait and see" scenario -
once more you cannot lose out on such a
solid performer. |
