AMD FirePro V8800 Review

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Ryan and the gang at PC Perspective took a look at the AMD FirePro V8800 today. If you are in need of a professional graphics card, the FirePro V8800 could be just what you are looking for. Here’s a quote from the review:

I conclude this review being very impressed with the new FirePro V8800 card from AMD especially when it is pitted against the identically priced yet slower NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 card. The inclusion of features like support for OpenGL 4.0 and DX11, not to mention support for up to four displays in an Eyefinity configuration, really do make the V8800 stand out from the crowd of professional GPUs.
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I've got a stupid question here : Why would a professional pay close to $1500 on a graphic card when he could have the same thing with a $500 card? I mean, that V8800 is like a 5870 2Gb?

Is there really a difference in the GPU of a Pro VS consumer card?
 
because they are designed to do much more.. they are also designed to survive much longer.. a good note is see the 2 connectors on the card.. the 1 right below the crossfire connections and the one on the back.. thats exactly why people shell out 1500 dollars for a card instead of a consumer level card.. also almost every single piece of that card is hand picked and held to a much higher quality control standard then the consumer level versions.. basic rule of thumb is that a consumer level card is suppose to survive on avg 3 years.. while a professional level card is suppose to survive a minimum of 5 years.. these cards are made for specific jobs.. there are plenty of companies that could get away with just using the consumer level version of the card instead of shelling out 1500 dollars.. its the same principle in why companies buy opterons and xeon processors.. they are made to run for ever..
 
Does it have different technical capabilities too rather than just improved build quality, additional connectors and different drivers?
 
also almost every single piece of that card is hand picked and held to a much higher quality control standard then the consumer level versions.. basic rule of thumb is that a consumer level card is suppose to survive on avg 3 years while a professional level card is suppose to survive a minimum of 5 years
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Thats hardly an argument for paying the extra though. On one hand you could just purchase 3 of the consumer ones at the same time and in theory have 9 years of life instead of 5. Or wait till the card breaks and then buy another consumer one, as this will be around 3 years later, the price would have dropped dramatically.

Of course the extra connectors and whatnot might be worth the money, but the longevity/quality of the product isnt.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
basic rule of thumb is that a consumer level card is suppose to survive on avg 3 years.. while a professional level card is suppose to survive a minimum of 5 years.. these cards are made for specific jobs.. its the same principle in why companies buy opterons and xeon processors.. they are made to run for ever..
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So, consumer card = avg 3yrs and Pro = avg 5yrs? So for $1000 of consumer card, I can last avg 6yrs and even get a boost in speed with the new card I would buy mid-way...

You see, Intel or AMD not only make Xeon or Opteron, but those are CPU built to run in SMP configuration, sometime include more cache. You can't buy a HP, DELL, IBM server using desktop CPU.

But a workstation? It's possible to use whatever video card you want... Even more so if they use the same exact GPU...
 
the cards price has more to do with the software to run it and it's design to run programs like CAD. the price is more mostly b/c of software IMO I could be wrong but that's what I believe.
 
Actually, most of what you're paying for is driver validation for professional and scientific applications. FirePro drivers will (purposely) only work with FirePro hardware unless you start hacking at stuff, but the GPUs on a FirePro are tested, tested, and tested again for proper rendering and things like double-precision support. Same goes for the Quadro cards.

I've always had no compatibility or performance issues at all with my Quadro and FireGL/FirePro cards here that I support. And that's with a whole array of CAD and CFD apps - Inventor, I-Deas, NX, ANSYS, Fluent, and a few more here and there. ATi and Nvidia spend a lot of time working on compatibility, stability, and certification for their drivers, and with a smaller market for cards like this, prices will usually be pretty high as a result.
 
Repeater said:
Actually, most of what you're paying for is driver validation for professional and scientific applications. FirePro drivers will (purposely) only work with FirePro hardware unless you start hacking at stuff, but the GPUs on a FirePro are tested, tested, and tested again for proper rendering and things like double-precision support. Same goes for the Quadro cards.

I've always had no compatibility or performance issues at all with my Quadro and FireGL/FirePro cards here that I support. And that's with a whole array of CAD and CFD apps - Inventor, I-Deas, NX, ANSYS, Fluent, and a few more here and there. ATi and Nvidia spend a lot of time working on compatibility, stability, and certification for their drivers, and with a smaller market for cards like this, prices will usually be pretty high as a result.
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Sorry that's exactly what I meant to say. Thanks for clearing that up. You are 100% right.
 
Repeater said:
Hey, I wasn't correcting you - you're pretty much right on your first post. ;)
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Oh I know you weren't correcting me, I just meant sorry for not explaining it the way you did. You explained it better then I did. I was giving you props :)
 
pay that much for driver validation does not at all seem like a good deal to me. there is a reason Nvidia makes a lot of money off these type of cards. and most of the time its nothing more then a reference card with an occasional obstruction to soft modding the thing.

soft mod FTW.
 
Valset said:
pay that much for driver validation does not at all seem like a good deal to me. there is a reason Nvidia makes a lot of money off these type of cards. and most of the time its nothing more then a reference card with an occasional obstruction to soft modding the thing.

soft mod FTW.
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If you're complaining about the price, you're likely not in the target demographic. AMD does a lot of work to get these drivers validated and working in rpofessional applications. This is also not just a 5870 with different drivers, take a look at it, this card is NOT just a 5870.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
If you're complaining about the price, you're likely not in the target demographic. AMD does a lot of work to get these drivers validated and working in rpofessional applications. This is also not just a 5870 with different drivers, take a look at it, this card is NOT just a 5870.
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I don't know about this one but most of the past (green and red) the same hardware and yes they do more work on the drivers (per card sold at any rate) but not that damn much. While they have gotten better at blocking soft mods the truth is that perform on par (or used to) with the brand names. and there really isn't all that much difference between tweaking drivers for a game (some games do use openGL though not really any more). I do understand that it is a smaller install base but look how much money Nvidia rakes in. sorry but its kinda a racket, or to put it nicer a very high margin line without that much justification.

and if they did change the reference design I am betting its not much to improve the life span as to make it harder to soft mod it.
 
Repeater said:
Actually, most of what you're paying for is driver validation for professional and scientific applications. FirePro drivers will (purposely) only work with FirePro hardware unless you start hacking at stuff, but the GPUs on a FirePro are tested, tested, and tested again for proper rendering and things like double-precision support. Same goes for the Quadro cards.

I've always had no compatibility or performance issues at all with my Quadro and FireGL/FirePro cards here that I support. And that's with a whole array of CAD and CFD apps - Inventor, I-Deas, NX, ANSYS, Fluent, and a few more here and there. ATi and Nvidia spend a lot of time working on compatibility, stability, and certification for their drivers, and with a smaller market for cards like this, prices will usually be pretty high as a result.
Click to expand...

This and DirectX vs OpenGL fine tuning. For professional cards, they will be optimized more for OpenGL performance, while mainstream cards are more optimized for DirectX performance. Even Poser has OpenGL rendering options (otherwise it's the slower software rendering).

Valset said:
soft mod FTW.
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Anyone who buys a professional card then soft mods it is an idiot. There is no need to soft mod such cards and if someone buy one of these cards for gaming they're an idiot as well. Separate market, separate cards and service.
 
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