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ATi FireGL X1 Vs. NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000
SpinnerBait writes "The professional graphics card arena has been heating up as of late, with new
products from ATi and NVIDIA hitting the streets on the heels of SIGGRAPH
unveilings. In a first of two article series,
HotHardware has a showcase with benchmarks on the ATi FireGL X1 and NVIDIA
Quadro FX 2000. It seems as though NVIDIA still has a stronghold in
this market, as their card seems to dominate many of the benchmark runs shown
here."
Neither runs faster than the Orchid Farenheit 180.
I used Lotus 123 and WordPerfect 5.1 as the test applications.
> It seems as though NVIDIA still has a stronghold in this market, as their card seems to dominate many of the benchmark runs shown here."
...The FireGL looks like a much better value.
Not really. The benchmarks were very close in most of the tests and if you consider what the end of the article says:
At this point in time, various price search engines have the ATi FireGL X1 listed at or around $530. Conversely, the NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000 is listed at no less that $1250 and that's in the 128MB variant, not the 256MB model we tested. So with this in mind, the FireGL X1 price/performance ratio is rather compelling, at less than half the cost of the competing NVIDIA product.
The unofficial
Apart from the fact nvidia got their asses kicked in most benchmarks it does indeed rock, yes. Especially the bit which claims the price for the damned thing is over 1200 USD a piece. Ah well, next time it will be an Ati I guess, considering they both fecking cheat with benchmarks these days I might as well go for the cheapest cheater.
Hate me!
It doesn't bother me that much who has the fastest card. All I know is that this sort of competition is great in the Linux arena. With the recent trends in 3d animation studios transition to Linux, they can't ignore the need for high quality drivers.
Nvidia has really polished up their Linux drivers recently, and in response ATI has done the same.
This means Linux is one step closer to gaining a foothold on the desktop. Hopefully this will will spur interest 3D gaming on the linux platform.
One can dream of the day of playing Battlefield 1942 on Linux. I'm using the Liux FireGL drivers on my Radeon 9700 Pro, and so far, they work great for playing RTCW ET.
even if the ati card WAS faster, hell will freeze over before i ever buy another card from them!
they have crappy support, crappy hardware (as in reliability) and crappy drivers. i've had so many ATI cards die on me it's not even funny.
on the other hand i've had only one nvidia card die, due to rough handling and no fan (it came loose somehow and i didn't notice it, probably in transport)
Man, I've handled well over 100 different models from at least a dozen manufacturers over at least as many years and I've never had a card die on me. If all these cards are dying on you then there's got to be a reason - just what the hell are you using them for and in what environment? Unless you're a big time overclocker,video cards are pretty damn sturdy and the odds are that a card will outlast your use for it, so perhaps you need to re-examine just how you handle your cards and how much abuse that they're taking?
Having one card fail on you is unfortunate. Two, three or more smacks of carelessness.
(I'm not looking to troll here. I'm just comparing my extensive experience with yours.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I don't see dual monitor setups mentioned in the article. Does ATI's output quality stand up to NVidia's?
I have a Radeon 8500, and I can tell you that ATI has some serious issues with output signal quality. On my main crt monitor, I can still see occasional sheering and small display glitches. The 2nd monitor quality was even worse. I am using a pci TNT card to get 2nd monitor suupport.
Judging by the picture of the ATI card, the second DVI connection may have problems. It is an extra board so there is not a continuous trace which can introduce all sorts of problems (like contact resistance, oxidation, etc.) Yes, it is a digital signal, but it's like putting an ide ribbon cable with really short wires. You are going to get all sorts of problems...
" But if it's fast enough for me as is and looks like it'll suffice for a couple of years, I don't care about the benchmarks."
I have a similar philosophy about cards. I also do 3D work. Here's my requirements:
1.) Does it support dual monitor? (not only support it, but good desktop support as well.)
2.) Does it do decent anti-aliasing? In 3D modelling, anti-aliasing makes a huge difference. When you're building your object, this graphics mode can reveal more about how your model will look when you go to render. It's worth the hit in FPS.
3.) Does it offer enough of a boost over the card I have now? Can I spend $200 and get 2x the speed?
I used to want a professional card. However, by limiting myself a bit, I've grown to become more efficient in handling the 3D assets. I know have a more structured workflow than I would have had if I had a much much quicker machine. I'm insanely curious what a Quadro would do for me, but man I have a hard time imagining it's worth the price tag.
However, I will likely change my tune soon. All the major 3D apps are taking much more advantage of the cards, previewing more and more of what the renderer will do. Modelling is anti-aliased, lens flares show up in real time, texturing, depth of field, motion blur, you name it. I can't help but think one day I'll be buying rendering cards instead of real time 3D cards.
"Derp de derp."
HotHardware
Um, pardon me, but...who?
Call me when you've got benchmarks from a real magazine(say a CAD/CAM, 3D graphics and/or animation, etc related magazine), and not two-guys-in-a-dorm-room-who-write-reviews-for-kick backs websites who run Unreal Tournament to benchmark professional graphics cards.
Case and point is their 'testbed' system: they used a "DFI LAN Party 875Pro" motherboard. They used Pentium 4's instead of workstation-class Xeon processors. IDE drives instead of SCSI. Folks, that's NOT a "workstation". A dual Xeon cHomPaq is a workstation.
Oh, and the benchmarks? One no-name benchmark, and 3D Studio Max. Oh, and Unreal Tournament. No fill rates, no polygon counts, no NOTHIN. No mention of Linux, which is tearing into the market like crazy among top computer animation houses.
This is pathetic- they're just a bunch of guys who compile daily linkages to other cheeseball review sites. They have no industry background, no experience, no nothing...just a P4 3GHz and a (probably pirated) copy of 3D Studio Max.
Please help metamoderate.
While this may be brushing 'redundant/offtopic', I have to say that getting one of those may cost you a bit more, but it's much nicer than a consumer graphics card.
/. article on it), while the latter have been traditionally good with it.
What the author fails to mention is that there's better R&D (build quality?) put in there. Not just application-specific optimisations. If they *had* tested the consumer equivalents, they'd see them outperformed, methinks. That's my experience, anyway.
Back in '98 I had a Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro (yes, the FireGL series was owned by Diamond then), which was matching/outperforming many 'new' gaming cards my mates were buying (it was a fairly old model at the time, IIRC). Thing is, I hadn't paid a fortune for it, as you might think. It was a bit expensive, but not *that* different from what my mates were paying.
Now I have a FireGL 8800 and again the performance is there. Gaming-wise, I can play GTA3 and CMR3 at resolutions previously undreamt of with the 9500 (1600x1200).
Having said that, it's a pain to get (linux) support by ATI. Ever tried emailing them? Up 'till March (IIRC) things were OK and they even had good drivers. But now it's all shaky and iffy, as we all know.
Now I'm looking for a 3DLabs/NVidia. The former are increasing their linux support (I even recall a
It would have been very interesting if they'd included the VP990 Pro or the VP970 in the comparison...
Trian
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
How often does it fsck up a render? With consumer cards, who cares if you mess up a render, because it may just be a temporary jaggy, they just want to be all out speed-demons. But, with these corporate cards, a messed up render could be a misplaced weld, or something along those lines.
I hate sigs.
"Are benchmarks meaningful in any way? No.
Do benchmarks have any credibility whatsoever? No."
are you insane? are the people that modded you up insane?
so a company that does 3d design needs new cards for their systems.. what do you suggest they do? buy the most expensive card on the market and hope its the best? buy the most expensive one they can afford? buy an assortment of cards and try every one themselves then decide which is best then try to return the other cards?
or be sane and read a review of various cards that TEST them, with something thats called BENCHMARKING.
is benchmarking a perfect science? no. will it ever be? no. but they are of use like it or not.