AMD ATI FirePro Round-up: V7800, V4800, V3800


Testbed and Cinebench R11.5

HOW WE CONFIGURED THE TEST SYSTEM: In order to provide comparable results, each graphics card was installed on the same, high end X58 based test system. The components we used consisted of an EVGA Classified motherboard, Core i7 980X Extreme Edition processor, and 6GB of OCZ Blade memory. Within the BIOS, we configured the processor to an overclocked speed of 4.38GHz and memory to 1857MHz. These settings will minimize the occurrences of performance bottlenecks during benchmark runs and allow the graphics cards to show their true potential. Furthermore, our Crucial M225 solid state drive entered the testing process with a clean copy of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit installed. Once installation was complete, we fully updated the OS and installed the latest drivers and applications relevant to the review article.

HotHardware's Test System
Core i7 Powered

Hardware Used:
Intel Core i7 980X Extreme Edition
Overclocked 4.38GHz

EVGA Classified 760 Motherboard
X58 Express Chipset

ATI FirePro V8800 2GB
ATI FirePro V8750 2GB
ATI FirePro V7800 2GB
ATI FirePro V4800 1GB
ATI FirePro V3800 512MB

6GB OCZ Blade DDR3-1857
(3 X 2GB) 7-8-7-20 1T


Crucial M225 128GB SSD
Firmware 1916

Relevant Software:
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
ATI Catalyst Display Driver 8.723 - Workstation

Benchmarks Used:

Cinebench R11.5 64bit
SPEC Viewperf R10
SiSoft SANDRA 2010




 

Cinebench R11.5 64bit
Synthetic OpenGL Rendering Performance


Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench R11.5 is an OpenGL 3D rendering performance test based on Cinema 4D from Maxon. The benchmark goes through a series of tests that measures the performance of the graphics card under real world circumstances. Within Cinebench, graphics card testing makes use of a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase which measures the performance in OpenGL mode. Results are given in frames per second; the higher the number, the faster the graphics card. 

 


Our first test answers one of the questions we had going into this article. How would the current generation V7800 priced at $799 perform when compared to last year's V8750 which cost almost twice as much? As you can see, it beats out the more expensive card by about 4% and comes very close to the V8800's score. Granted, folks aren't buying these cards to run Cinebench, but this OpenGL test is a solid indicator of performance nonetheless.

Another interesting comparison is found between the V4800 and V3800. These entry level cards are separated by only $80 in asking price, but their scores indicate a much larger disparity in ability. At 49.63 FPS, the V4800 is 55% faster than its less expensive sibling. Now let's get into some real world testing to see if these performance marks carry through.

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