AMD FirePro W8000, W9000 Challenge Nvidia's Quadro

by Joel Hruska — Tuesday, August 07, 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

For the 3D modeling and animation program Maya, we ran the SPECViewPerf viewport and rendering tests that were initially created for Maya 2009. Most of the SPEC tests aren't portable from one version of a program to another -- Maya is an exception in this regard -- and while the organization is prepping an updated version of the test suite for Maya 2012, we weren't able to test it before these cards launched.

Even if the W8000's oddly low performance is a bug, the FirePro W9000 can't match the V7900, much less approach the Quadro 6000. We didn't have time to re-run this test on the Quadro 4000, but doubt it would've made much difference.

AutoCAD 2012:
AutoCAD is the grand-daddy of all Computer Aided Design programs, and we tapped the popular CADalyst benchmark to measure performance between AMD and Nvidia solutions.

Here, we see some faint signs of scaling and improved competition, but the Quadro 6000 still comes out ahead. The W8000 is only barely ahead of the Quadro 4000 and V7900.