AMD launches the Firepro V8800

AMD HAS STEPPED UP its professional graphics game and launched the Cypress derived Firepro V8800.

The professional graphics community will be able to indulge itself in ATI Cypress class GPU hardware with quad or octo display setups - with Crossfire Pro - if they can get the hang of looking at rather huge mosaics using Displayport displays.

The card is the "pro" incarnation of the Cypress XT chip, that is, the HD 5870, and it incorporates all of the architectural features of the ATI Evergreen architecture. Minor differences are the clock speeds - 825MHz as opposed to the ATI Radeon HD 5870's 850MHz - and a larger frame buffer of 2GB GDDR5 running at 1150MHz, where the HD 5870 reference is 1200MHz. The added memory has accounted for a small rise in power consumption, but it is essentially the same architecture, certified for CAD/CAM and OpenGL 4.0 and 3.2. Although OpenGL 4.0 applications are still scarce, the professional graphics design market doesn't look to be letting go of the standard any time soon. OpenCL 1.0 is also supported, as per the Evergreen specs.

The Firepro V8800's quad-display capacity can drive up to four 30-inch, 2560x1600 screens, if you get the right cabling, of course - it won't work out of the box like that. This is ATI Eyefinity all over again, only supporting four screens instead of three. It also works with the ATI S400 synchronisation module used for video broadcast output with Genlock and Framelock.

As a matter of reference, and although it is but one benchmark amongst many, 3D Mark Vantage registers overall performance numbers almost twice those of Nvidia's Quadro FX 4800 graphics card competition. In more realistic benchmarks like SpecViewPerf, the differences between the Firepro V8800 and the older Quadro FX 4800 shrink to just a bit more than marginal. It does look like AMD has a top performer this time and is beating Nvidia in price for performance while it's at it.

Nvidia will have to muster its forces quickly to retake the performance crown in the Professional graphics arena.

AMD's asking price is $1,499, but this is the flagship card. It's unlikely you'll pick this up in retail, as such. Expect similar announcements for more cost-effective CAD/CAM solutions from AMD to follow suit soon. µ