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ATI has brought to
the fore a good mid range professional
graphics card that fills the gap in this
sector. Over the last 4 months they
have driven forward new drivers that see
significant leaps forward in performance
that will appease the many.
Well engineered and we must also take
into consideration ATI’s thought for the
demand of their end-users with the
recent launch of the ATI® FirePro™ V5800
Dual DVI card aimed squarely at the
Medical professionals. This will allow
them to utilise the full
30-bit
Display Pipeline enabling more colour
values than 24-bit products for more
accurate colour and grayscale
reproductions. These
enhancements especially within mission
critical outputs must be extremely
accurate in the reproduction of reading
and
manipulating a
model or
viewing MRI scans or other outputs
similar to this nature.
We have now nearly concluded over
the last year the complete ATI FirePro
range and each article shows off each
card in tremendous light in it's chosen
competitive area. ATI most certainly
have completed their homework here as it
is a fine piece of engineering the ATI®
FirePro™ V5800. But, and there always
is, what of the future as we are nearing
a complete year since initial launch of
the new range of FirePro professional
cards. There are many rumours' are
firing about. What to believe. That
is difficult to put to print. All we
can say from this location, is watch
these spaces and take fully into account
it does take quite some considerable
amount of time to put together a new
range of professional cards and their
drivers. Although, never say never as
the crystal ball is a tad cloudy at the
moment.
One point of note is that of the single
slot slim line cooling array built onto
the ATI® FirePro™ V5800. For those who
have a supplied chassis that has a good
intake fan then the aerodynamic front of
the card most certainly will make use of
that cool air coming in, keeping key
components cool and in turn ensuring
longevity of the products within.
Currently the stand alone pricing of the
ATI® FirePro™ V5800 is approximately
£270.00 (or for those in EU land
approximately €321.00 Euro's) before
Taxes and shipping. The price point
of the ATI® FirePro™ V5800 and will
allow many System Integrators and VAR’s
to build respectable powerful systems at
a cost suitable to many. Therefore we
see a good bang for buck across the
board and there should be no skimping on
suitable peripherals to match the
card. For some and there are a few,
this could seem a touch too much, for
the majority a reasonable price point
for a professional graphics card of this
nature. Therefore if in doubt, shop
around and find out. Ultimately and the
end point is that it is down to
individual choice, as we have this
option now right across the board.
The plethora of benchmarks available in
this arena; one could spend all day in
producing results if the time permitted,
paralysis by analysis! In order to make
this a factual hard hitting article we
looked carefully at what the community
really need to see, many have their own
in house tests. It has to be noted that
these are very important points to take
into due consideration before making
that all important final deliberation.
Some may find and uncover that their own
internal tests do run much faster than
the APC, therefore one has to think very
carefully. The specific professional
tests are good as the screen shot shows
exactly what the reader needs at a
glance without a running commentary
taking up that precious time each day
demands. Before moving forward with
these in house tests they still rely
heavily upon the industries professional
benchmarks that the unified good people
at SPEC® take so much time to produce.
Deviating slightly - watch these spaces
for more news soon on this topic.
Within SPECapc™ for SolidWorks 2007 we
see the improvements. Todays
professional graphic cards within this
benchmark do not show their true
potential and we are only seeing a
snippet of the cards actual true
complete potential. However within the
full scoring of the Day in the Life and
the actual SPECapc the graphical results
are good and not far behind Nvidia®
The results shown within both SPECapc
SM for 3ds Max 9 TM
and
SPECapcSM for Maya 2009 have
shown good improvements. For the
perceptive professional in these arenas
productivity will only increase, and,
increased productivity in the mid range
is a major boost for the final
production from the high end solutions
within the studio's.
Within
SPECviewperf® 11 the scaling
performance ATI® FirePro™ V5800 has been
good showing some excellent significant
improvements within certain areas,
predominately those being Catia-03,
Lightwave-01 and SW-03. Therefore ATI
are now playing catch-up with Nvidia’s®
dominance. We have been advised that
more FirePro™ driver improvements are
underway within the next package. Until
then, we have to wait and see.
Overall there should be happy people in
AMD's® H.Q. today the ATI® FirePro™
V5800 performance has
accomplished itself
impeccably. |
