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Were to
start we ask ourselves as this has to
have been one of the most exciting
articles to fire out online. The new
CrossFire™ Pro will be rattling a few
cages in many sectors as its performance
success today within certain
applications has been absolutely
astonishing. The scaling seen from the
benchmarks has been very good indeed,
especially within V5700 and V7750 (more
to come on this card very soon). For
the ultra high end user the newly
announced FirePro V8750 shows also how
much can be gained from this card in
CrossFire™ Pro Technology.
Though you
will have to pop over to our other
exclusive first outing today and read
all about it there.
This is were it all gets interesting.
As seen within the presented 4 different
stock Intel based mainboards, all easily
obtained from any e-tailers or S.I. and
each mainboard is certified as CrossFire
ready. Therefore we took each in turn
and requested from the manufacturers PR
to confirm that they would support
Crossfire - what was not known was that
we would utilise them for ATI's
CrossFire™ Pro. Each mainboard that
arrived had the latest bios flashed and
we ran the ATI FirePro V8700 ran in
singular tests to obtain the baseline
results. Once these had been obtained
after many successive runs, we then shut
down each system and in went the
secondary card. Each system was
restarted with fingers crossed and
Windows finding on each occasion the new
hardware drivers successfully
installed. Reboot and the desktop
appeared with the message from the
Catalysts Control Centre showing that
there was Crossfire enabled cards within
the system. From that point onwards -
history was made within the ATI
Professional FirePro graphic card camp.
Could we be seeing the flickering candle
light ending a 6 year dominance from
NVIDIA's Quadro SLI. It has to be said
unequivocally - yes.
The factual figures from within are
completely resounding and will have many
end-users from all walks of life
suddenly sitting up taking note on just
how much important performance uptake
now can be gained from adding in that
all important second card. Most
importantly though, the mainboard
choice. We took 4 stock Intel based
mainboards certified as CrossFire™
enabled and they all worked flawlessly
at everything we threw at each of them.
Therefore a coup de ta has been won by
ATI with the clever driver
implementation of the driver set of the
certified FirePro Professional Graphic
cards. Consequently and theoretically
speaking we should be seeing rapidly
from the manufacturers a whole scheme of
mainboards that will have ATI FirePro
CrossFire™ certification soon. So the
race is on to see who will present the
next set of certified mainboards after
what we have shown today. Once more ATI
has made life become so much easier for
the end users in all walks of life.
Not to rain on ATI's parade today but
kudos has to go to both Supermicro and
Intel the mainboard manufacturers as
their individual mainboards performed
implacability. It has to be noted how
fast each of the Supermicro mainboards
used within has streaked ahead. Though
we know from previous experience just
how well their optimised bios set-up
is. Intel's reference mainboards just
that little bit behind, but nevertheless
performing extremely well. End-users
already have a good selective choice at
were to start their CrossFire
ventures. On Supermicro's board we see
the first outings of both Akasa's new
975 Plus (Patent Pending) 1366 EP new
heatsink and Noctua's new NH-U9DX 1366
EP heatsink. Both are as advertised pop
in, screw down, fit the fan and away you
go - silence is golden, its that
simple. Each of the heatsinks supplied
has their own merits fully for those of
you who wish to build your own. Our
choice - well both companies actually,
at the end of the day it is entirely up
to the astute individual.
The card used within todays outing, the
FirePro V8700 an exceptional point at
High-End graphics, the power of two at a
fraction of the cost and within the
selective applications from 50% to 80%
increase in performance. This is not to
a figure to be radically ignored. By
now analysts will be drastically
recalculating their forecast sums as
todays announcement will undoubtedly
have caught oh so many fully off
guard. Major film studios, high-end
architects, Gas & Oil Community, Medical
& Ultra High-end Imaging Studios/ Life
Sciences / Acquisition Modalities all
alike have the raw power now not from
just one card but two cards to achieve
more than their wildest imaginings
without spending an absolute fortune on
something else. Once more with the
results shown they have to seriously
consider what has been shown today.
Talking of costs lets
have a look into this one based on
several online e-tailers prices. Please
Note. All
prices do not include TAXES and
Shipping.
2 X
ATI FirePro
V5700
total for 2 cards
= £625.98 (£312.99
for 1 card)
2 X ATI FirePro V7750
total for 2 cards = £1189.00 (Expected
MSRP is to be thought around £599.00 for
1 card)
2 X
ATI FirePro V8700
total for 2 cards
= £1897.46 (£948.73
for 1 card)
2 X ATI FirePro V8750
total for 2 cards = £2198.00
(Expected MSRP is to be thought
around
£1099.00
for 1 card)
In most arenas all the new FirePro cards
will be available as we go to print
here. Finalised prices for the V7750
and V8750 should be obtained from your
resellers. Best competitive and
current pricing for the
ATI FirePro cards within
the
EU can be
found over at
Scan.
Before anyone yelps what if.....we have
spoken with ATI who have advised us that
if that rare possibility of your current
card listed does not work first go in
CrossFire then please
return
it to reseller who sold you the card for
the bios to be reflashed. What has to
be carefully observed by the analysts is
the actual cost per unit and how much of
an impact this is going to have in these
exclusive market sectors.
Professionals using CrossFire Technology
can control multiple GPU's to
dynamically scale graphics performance,
enhance image quality, expand display
real estate, and assemble a fully
virtualized system. In addition,
certified CrossFire™ Pro enabled systems
are backed by a rigorous testing and
certification process to deliver a
certified platform solution for
unmatched stability and compatibility.
Applications that are geometry-limited
will benefit from using the alternate
frame rendering (AFR) mode.
We are therefore now in a position of
utter choice. Choice of professional
graphic cards covering a substantial
range of the market place and at most
importantly an affordable price. A
choice of workstation platforms to work
from, no longer are you constrained to
several platforms from the Tier 1
supplier. Tier 2 suppliers and
respected S.I.'s can and will enter the
affray with a massive surge to claw away
at the market share so dominated by the
Tier 1's. Without ATI's hard
persistence we would not be in this
position today of choice within the
professional graphic's arena.
With what
has been shown at the moment, the
conclusions one must be thinking are
very decisive. Even though what has
written at times may seem very
repetitive, one cannot escape from hard
unequivocal evidence that has been
displayed. |
