AMD unveils $3,500 ATI FirePro V9800 workstation card

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Apparently in no rush to shed the ATI brand, AMD has launched a new workstation graphics card. The ATI FirePro V9800 is designed for professionals who "require extreme performance" and sports 1,600 stream processors running at 850MHz and 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM effectively clocked at 4,800Mhz. It's based on the same Cyprus GPU used in the V8800 released earlier this year, except the V9800 can pump out 2.72 terraflops instead of 2.64 whilst consuming less power (199W versus 208W).

The new flagship can feed graphics to half a dozen displays simultaneously via six Mini DisplayPort outputs, up from the V8800's four. It supports DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.0, Shader Model 5, and stereoscopic 3D. To make multi-display setup a little easier, AMD throws in one dual-link and five single-link active Mini DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters -- then again, for $3,500 you'd expect such accessories. That's over double the V8800's $1,500 price tag. The V9800 should be available very soon.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/40222-amd-unveils-3500-ati-firepro-v9800-workstation-card.html

 

[KG363]

I've heard these perform the same as a 5870 in games, but for a $3500 price tag, that must do something magical in rendering or whatever they are meant to do.

Also, I thought nvidia destroys ati on the workstation market, or am I a victim to manipulative advertising?

 

[EXCellR8]

Workstation cards are designed for advanced 3D rendering (i.e. CAD, modeling), not gaming

 

[ElShotte]

Exactly. Video games aren't meant for workstation cards, they wouldn't even utilize the maximum capacity of the card if you were playing on them. These cards are meant to crunch through millions of polygons on the screen and not stutter, thanks to the insane amount of memory and it's speed. Your standard video card would come to a crawl where these wouldn't even budge.

 

[ElShotte]

Although I would like to see it's performance in games just out of curiosity.

 

[EXCellR8]

Most 3D applications are scalable now so you can use gaming cards, but you will still have performance hits when your models become more advanced. Workstation cards are designed to fix this issue with gobs of onboard memory and stream processors. The FirePro and FireGL series are specifically tailored towards companies that need professional grade solutions for highly complex 2D and 3D models/layouts. They are not designed for the general consumer or people who do very little work in 3D applications.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

It is a 5870...therefore, it games the same as a 5870.

 

[TomSEA]

But how do they work in Crossfire? Where are the benchmarks?

 

[TorturedChaos]

But can i run Crysis?

The computer I used in high school when I was working with 3D Studio Max had the graphics card die in it. Since I was doing 3D Studio Max on it the school managed to get a more or less a free workstation graphics card, although no top of the line, for that computer. It was amazing how fast I could suddenly render particles .

 

[Johny47]

That's a absolute ridiculous price for a video card but it looks nice and it would 'rape' GTA IV(uses ALOT of Video memory) haha =)

 

[KG363]

how do these compare to quadro's

 

[dividebyzero]

It's generally a pointless exercise comparing ws and gaming cards in a gaming arena. Who exactly would buy a $3500 HD 5870?

You can often soft mod a graphics card to ws spec, but since a very large part of the added price is three year 24/7 support for a bona fide card, you won't see too much benefit by doing so. Whether a BIOS flash/mod would be wholly successful is also a point to consider.
The second major difference between ws and gaming cards is driver support. Workstation cards offer rock-solid drivers geared more towards compute (OpenGL/CL, CUDA) where certification and validation take considerably more time and effort to achieve.

As a point of interest. HD 5970/FirePro V8750/FirePro V8800 Unigine Heaven 2.0 benchmark

@KG363
Considering the card launched less than a day ago. I would think it a little optimistic to expect that a detailed review for a compute board would be out so soon.
Here's some AMD sponsored slides-hope this suffices. Remember to do some comparison shopping before you plunk down your $3500, since it all depends on what you're going to use it for....it may not even fit into a CM690 chassis!

 

[Guest]

I need two of those for crossfire, and a bank to steal.

 

[Archean]

I need two of those for crossfire, and a bank to steal.

You may have to sell a leg to buy two of them, because people who want to rob a bank don't say it, they just do it

@DBZ
I've read that article a while back, and I agree with their assertion that AMD's drivers have some issues which need to be ironed to have a more realistic idea of the these cards, so I'll rather wait for that before making a decision.