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ATI Introduces FireGL V5000
karvind writes "Folks at Tomshardware> are running a review of ATI's new FireGL V5000. The card's X700 processor, code named R410GL, is based on a 110-nanometer process and the card sports eight pixel pipelines, six geometry engines, 128 MB of GDDR3 memory, dual DVI connectors for multi-display applications and dual link support for 9 megapixels displays. Anandtech also posted a review."
The video card for the rest of us...
It has "Fire" in its name and it's red! Is Ati trying to create its own ill omens?
The coolest voice ever.
...because us linux n00bs have no idea how to get ATI cards to work in Linux. I love you nVidia!
I do understand that is a mid-range market price and card, but, damn, I just bought my son a very nice computer with a very servicable video card for less than that.
http://www.busyweather.com/
they take an OpenGL workstation card, the only type of ATI card with proper linux support, and benchmark it on XP SP2?
These cards are meant to be used for workstation uses like 3D editing and creation. These aren't gaming cards. I realize you bought your gaming card for far less, but these are a completely different product.
Since this product is aimed at the mid-range market with its price-tag of $699 (630), potential customers can't expect the full feature set.
Hold the friggin' phone. 700$ is mid-range? What, do you have to take a second mortgage out to get top of the line stuff?
Anyway, it's good to see that ATI is going with V**** enumerations to match NVidia's Quadro FX ***** enumerations. Those X700/X800 and 6600/6800 patterns were too easy to remember, IMHO. It's not a free market unless you're confusing the hell out of your customer base with numbering schemes.
Bet the drivers suck for a year as usual, just in time for the next product line....
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
Tom's Hardware and Anandtech getting slashdotted??!?!
Sorry but you are overestimating the slashdot affect here.
Thats assuming your going to be running the T221 or any other high end monitor that has that kind of resolution. Plus if you can afford a T221, you can easily afford a 256mb or 512mb FireGL/Quadro.
Will ATI go on to make a LeafGL card that's green?
You can do a small modification to some ATI radeons to make them fireGL cards http://www.rojakpot.com.nyud.net:8090/default.aspx ?location=3&var1=185&var2=0
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
"based on a 110-nanometer process and the card sports eight pixel pipelines, six geometry engines..." How many geometry engines does your card have?
to regular video cards? I've always been curious that exactly these cards offer ( other than more raw power ) over regular video cards other than the dual DVI setup.
Are there any benchmarks comparing regular video cards versus these graphic workstation cards on modelling? Also, how do these cards do in games? Do these cards perhaps do worse in games ( optimizations toward different types of rendering, like more photo-realistic hardware rendering that isn't that distinguishable for games but is for 3d work )
Haha yeah maybe! Server wasn't responding for 5 minutes or so after the story was published. Bleh.
affect, effect, whatever....
All major cards accelerate OpenGL (support OpenGL). And no, OpenGL support does not necessarily mean support for Linux.
If I remember correctly, ATI fireGL cards are the same chip as their normal line, with one or two resistors added/removed from the external chip packaging. All you have to do is:
1: Remove/add the resistors and change the BIOS.
or
2: Used a readily available hacked driver to recognize your stock card as a FireGL
All in all, there is no market for a 128MB solid modeling card. We had 128MB video cards in 1996 (Glint based). This card would be a huge step backward for a number of engineers.
BBH
Okay, I'll have to take your word for it, but 700$ still seems steep, though, considering how it's been shown possible to manually hack some of the gaming cards with the hardware equivalent into FireGL cards.
As stated in someone else's post that covered the hack -- "As many of you already know, the GPUs that ATI use in their desktop graphics cards are the same GPUs used in their workstation-grade graphics cards. The reason for the performance differences between desktop and workstation graphics cards lie in the driver."
Seems like you're paying an extra few hundred dollars for software, not hardware.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2335 &p=4, part of the Anandtech article, compares the Fire to X800s and GeForces. Dumbass Post=Very Yes.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Wow! This must be a great product with all the X's and four digit numbers in all the coded names!
I've got to tell Boddicker before he uses the Cobra gun on the SUX3000!
Why is a midrange workstation FireGL video card being discussed in slashdot/games. This is not your gamer's video card, This is meant for OpenGL apps in a workstation setting.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
*Insert foghorn sound here*
The FireGL series has been around since it was a workstation graphics card line owned by Diamond. ATI bought Diamond's graphics cards a while ago, and then started to make their own FireGLs. The new ones are more for gaming than the old ones were, but they are still decent workstation graphics cards. They are supported in Linux using the default ATI driver as far as I am aware. These cards are called FireGL due to their amazing OpenGL accelleration.
My Diamond FireGL 3000 is sitting around waiting for a new machine (old one died), until then, I cannot really tell you much about Linux support.
Video Production Support
Bet the drivers suck for a year as usual, just in time for the next product line....
Which were you talking about, the 777 or the Toyota?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
The ATI V5000 card has dual link capability on one of its output channels.
Thus, they SHOULD work together.
Now, has anybody tried, do they ACTUALLY work together in real life?
(Not that I have the $3700 lying around that will pay for both the graphics card and the monitor.)
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Why should anybody care?
If you want to hook up the 30" Apple LCD monitor, you NEED a dual-link DVI interface, and boy, have I been drooling over the 30" monitor ever since it was introduced.
(Not that I could afford it at its $3000 list price, but that's a different topic.)
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Workstation cards provide almost no performance for games, unless those games are entirely OpenGL based, in which case they simply provide very poor performance. They do however run Maya and other high end rendering environments, something even your papa's SLI 6800U can't handle. Although I've tried another FireGL card in this performance range and was less then impressed. Stick with a FX3000 Quadro if you're at all serious about what you do.
And yes, it will work perfectly with an Apple 30" Cinema display.
Apple 30" Cinema
Dual Xeon 3.2GHz
4GB ECC DDR RAM
Quadro FX3400
The specs on the card look nice, though I have to wonder why it only has 128mb of memory for a "mid-range" card. Most other mid-range cards tend to have at least 256mb of ram, and nearly all of the high end cards have at least 512 megs of ram (the card I've been eyeing, though can't really justify the cost of right now has 640mb of memory). Of course, it's been quite a while since I've used either a FireGL or a Quatro, last I remember neither of the cards offered much bang for the buck or could really compete with cards from some of the manufacturers who just make workstation cards.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Workstation cards have three major differences from Gaming cards.
First and most important is accuracy of display. If you are trying to snap to a point on a 12mb model, it can be SOMEWHAT annoying if it is not displayed correctly on the screen. Some gaming cards do not even come close to displaying 3d wireframes correctly. In one machine (briefly) worked on this was almost a half-inch on the display. Not being able to see the line you want to pick can be a problem.
Secondly OpenGL (i.e. hardware acceleration). OpenGL is most often use in the work process. It can be used to view / rotate / zoom complex models in real time. Again here accuracy of display is important. Otherwise funky/out of order surfaces can appear.
Thirdly: Software render engines where one gets the really nice images in 3d work. Often these are custom drivers for individual applications. 3D MAX ; Lightwave ; Solidworks. These drivers have been really solid in Nvidia's line of Quattro cards. Good drives are really worth their weight in Go
I just bought a V5100, sweet price point; it should arrive next week. Plus the hardware was just a lot faster than the Nvidia cards of which PCIe has not arrived at local venders as yet.
PS. If you want Linux support Nvidia is the place to stay. Their Linux programming staff is significantly larger than ATIs. However, I guess that ATI is working on this.
There have been workstation 3d cards with support for 512MB of texture memory for a long, long time. That's actually sometimes useful in that kind of work, where you may be dealing with lots of very large textures. It's not useful in games - most games don't even take advantage of 256MB.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"