AMD ATI FirePro V9800 Workstation Graphics Card
Performance Summary and Conclusion
Performance Summary: In comparison to the previous flagship V8800, the new FirePro V9800 showed a slight performance increase. During testing, the card performed about 2% faster than its sibling due to the 25MHz core clock increase. Clearly, our test suite does not show the advantage the card's larger memory capacity over the V8800. But the V9800 was impressive during GPGPU testing, as it came in 103% faster than the Quadro 5000, and 48% better than the 6000. Granted, SANDRA is a purely synthetic benchmark that neither AMD or NVIDIA optimize their drivers for, it showcases the raw computing power of 1600 stream processors and massive amount of memory bandwidth found on this FirePro model. The card also provided a strong showing in Cinebench where it was 3% faster than the Quadro 5000, and only 7% slower than the 6000. Unfortunately, SPECviewperf 11 results were another story. On average, the V9800 fell behind the Quadro 5000 by 73%, while trailing the 6000 by 102%. NVIDIA obviously has a huge performance advantage in the applications used in SPECviewperf 11.
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In order to take advantage of the V9800's features, prepare to dive deep into your spending budget. The card retails for $3,499, which is $2,000 more than the asking price of the V8800. That's a huge premium that's difficult to justify looking back at the benchmarks, unless you require the unique features this card provides. Although, we must admit our testing and performance numbers don't show the full capabilities of the V9800. Without a doubt, it's the fastest FirePro model you can buy, and the only workstation card on the market to offer six outputs. But going from the V8800 at $1,499 to the V9800 at $3,499 is a major investment.
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Ultimately, we weren't wowed by the performance of the V9800. That's mostly due to the fact that we've already seen what the V8800 can do, and the V9800 adds features that benefit only a smaller group of users. Yes, it's a little faster than the V8800, but not by much. On the other hand, we appreciate the fact that it offers low idle power consumption, and runs basically dead silent. Of course, workstation users who utilize up to six video outputs now have the ability to use a single card in order to light up their displays, while being easy to use and simple to set up. At this time, that's a claim that only AMD can make. Indeed, the multiple display Eyefinity technology found in the FirePro line is truly it's strength, and the biggest advantage it has over NVIDIA Quadro cards. If you require a lot of pixel pushing power across several monitors, check out the FirePro V9800 4GB graphics card from AMD.
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