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From our initial presentation and sneak
look we knew just by the visual outputs
witnessed that this was to be something
very special indeed. We said in the
beginning this is going to be
interesting and interesting it has
been. With an MRSP price tag of $3499
USD it fits the bill perfectly for many
in so many areas. The key to the whole
card is the huge multi display output.
But you say what of performance output
whilst hooked up to all these monitors.
We have been advised of an approximate
10% drop when fully enabled to all 6
displays. Though to verify this in a
few weeks we will be able to accurately
report back as we will be testing the
card and the
system with a complete suite of
monitors. So watch these spaces very
closely. ATI EyefinityTechnology looks
to be one important piece of technology
for the forth coming months as more
monitor manufacturers are leaping to the
fold of what they can also get from this
interesting technology. With the drum
persistently beating from ATI of this
being the future, and monitor prices
dropping, so far the future seems bright
in this arena. Time will tell on its
final adoption pathway by the many.
The actual positioning of the new ATI
FirePro V9800 is aimed squarely at the
most demanding of studio's and design
centre's that require the ultimate of
output's. Notwithstanding, this is a
card that will have the studio's,
architectural companies and the other
perceptive professionals screaming for
the want. With todays ISV software
packages for example Max, Maya and
SolidWorks so many commercial plugin's
are now readily available to enhance the
packages. Add into place the
combination of the
ATI FirePro™ S400 Sync Module
offers full
hardware synchronization with support
for up to 4 GPU's per module - a
possible 24 Synchronized Outputs per PC.
With this comes demands upon the whole
system I/O and the professional cards.
In order to met the demands of these
packages the hardware and supporting
Application Acceleration Tools have to
be precise for example the
Stereoscopic/Quad-buffered 3D Rendering
Pipeline.
The investment is paying off with
tremendous uptakes in many arenas of the
professional industry - Medical, Oil and
Gas, Science and even the Financial
houses have so much to gain and we must
note that this is only the tip of the
iceberg. Many more sectors of industry
are now leaping onboard adopting the
pathways open to them as the compute
power behind the card is phenomenal.
The
results shown within SPECviewperf® 11
have been very good indeed. A notable
scaling in many areas and it goes to
show how much effort has gone into the
driver packages in the last few months.
Once more we took notice indeed of the
ATI FirePro V9800 driver stability and
across the board performance. The
optimisations are coming into place with
maturity and soon we should be seeing
higher scores within the SPEC an
associated professional benchmarks.
Maya taking the biggest leap on our
driver update, once more a picture
paints a thousand words. It is very
obvious even to the untrained eye on how
well tuned each run has returned on the
operating systems that are quite
different in so many aspects. What is
consistent is the uptake in results and
with final maturity we will be seeing
something else. More to follow on this
at a point not to far away.
We previously commented and first
advised of the cards impending arrival;
the brief covering the card and a very
good one at that, was it would be a
high-quality, and solid performer.
These facts are backed up and target
audiences like the Film and Media
industries will be watching the V9800
rise as it has as we have already
covered some very good add on's to the
card. Notwithstanding new plugin's for
Max and AutoCAD are firmly underway and
these will also inflate the cards
functionality making it more readily
acceptable to these organisations an the
end-users.
The launch of the ATI FirePro V9800 has
been a huge leap in ATI's professional
graphic's expertise development that has
bolted out the stable door. Pleased
they should be. But it doesn't
stop here as the compute power that the
card has to offer is without a doubt -
magnificent. Medical, Oil and Gas,
Science and even the Financial houses
have so much to gain from this one card
and of course not
forgetting those other technical
professionals demanding nothing but the
best out from their workstations.
The extreme modeller, artist and
architect, though what it offers is that
of utter flexibility.
Before we proceed any further we have to
reflect on how well this system
performs. Supermicro's X8SAX is an
extremely resilient mainboard. The
fundamental basic's of a solid reliable
workstation starts here. Within our
introduction we stipulated "complete
and utter stability" there can be no
other option when operating professional
cards of this magnitude.
Therefore when you are looking to choose
your next system think carefully of your
options as you cannot go wrong here with
this mainboards offering and value for
money notwithstanding the backup support
Supermicro has to offer. Therefore
the Supermicro X8SAX Mainboard
retains it's status as Editors
Choice for ATX Workstation Mainboard.
Much of this performance
improvement is down to the architecture
of the new product, some down to the
driver team, the unsung heroes that so
many forget about. The results shown
within have been very good to say the
least. This card most certainly has
overtaken its predecessor in many ways,
bigger bandwidth, the aid of 1600
Shaders units - this will help many in
complex drawings and rendered outputs.
Life in the professional graphics card
market has just shifted up another gear
giving end-users more options.
The very so important pricing and
availability on going to print. The ATI
FirePro V9800 from the beginning of
October should be hitting Resellers, S.I.'s
and VAR's. It's price should be in the
region of -
$3,499 USD - £2220 UKP - €2576 Euro's,
before shipping and local taxes.
To reiterate with what's hot off the
press will be flying off the resellers
plate. We do foresee an exceptional
high demand from what we have witnessed,
and bearing this in mind get the orders
in very quickly indeed to avoid
disappointment. As the rush will be on.
This is a significant day within ATI's
record both factually and on
paper giving many analysts the
confidence they have been wanting. ATI
are tenaciously backing to the fore, a
line up of professional cards that has
seen immediate adoption from the Tier
1's and Tier 2 suppliers and
notwithstanding the support from the S.I.'S
and VARS.
Final comments and predictions on the
way ahead, what has been observed within
today has been extremely good and all
within ATI's HQ will be extremely
pleased with themselves.
After all, we
have witnessed today a
dignified demonstration of complete raw
compute and graphical power from just
one GPU. |
