ATI FirePro™ V8750 3D Workstation Graphics Accelerator

With a rush to the call we requested - more hardware.   More unforeseen events had transpired which meant final tests on the V8750 had to be scratched on the current systems and moved up an notch.   Supermicro supplying its new X8DA3 mainboard with onboard LSI SAS Controller and Scan pulled out the stops and dispatched a Coolermaster Cosmos eATX Chassis.  So, a swift switch around of a few parts as much is still underway here and we see below an awesome system that most certainly gives a professional graphic card of this magnitude the power within.  Once the dust settles we will have a more complete look under the hood of Supermicro's X8DA3 as from first impressions it certainly is a beast.

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

Supermicro for the supply of the X8DA3 Mainboard with the additional 2 X 32GB Intel Enterprise SSD's

Intel EU for the supply of the 3.2GHz Intel® Xeon® W5580 Nehalem EP® CPU's.

Crucial Memory  for the DDR3 1333MHz ECC Memory, thank you for pulling out the stops here, currently DDR3 ECC memory is a very limited supply option from most memory makers.  Validated memory modules may be found on both respective companies websites that has been tested.  Our advice here is don't cut the corner on this important part of the system build as it could turn out to be a very costly mistake.  On going to print we have been advised by Micron/Crucial that their is a good supply of these memory modules.

ATI for the supply of the 2 FirePro V8750 professional graphics cards.

Akasa for the supply of the  AK 965 Plus Heatsink Fan and PSU

Scan for the supply of the Coolermaster Cosmos Chassis

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.

Benchmarks and Software used in both 32-bit and 64-bit Mode

The test system shown within will be readily found within many arena's soon, therefore those just wishing the simple upgrade of this new technology in combination with the ATI FirePro V8700 ran as a singular card then moved up a gear into CrossFire they can see readily how much performance gain has been achieved

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit SP2
MAXON Cinebench 10 64 Bit
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3
Bentley MicroStation Benchmark
3D Studio Max 2010 64 Bit
SPECviewperf® 10.0 – 64-bit.   Tests ran at 1280 X 1024 Resolution.
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™

Each set of tests has been applied on the clean system hard drives 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 has been changed from Auto to 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® fair play rules.  Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is right. 

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - V8750 Pictures
Page 3 - System Build Pictures
Page 4 - System Set-Up and Benchmarks Used
Page 5 - MAXON Cinebench 10 64 Bit and SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3
Page 6 - Bentley MicroStation Benchmark & 3D Studio Max 2010 Scenes
Page 7 - SPECviewperf® 10.0 and SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
Page 8 - Conclusions and Award