AMD’s newest promotional video shows CATIA through their benchmark suite “CATBench” on a new AMD FirePro V7900 with GeometryBoost and the NVidia Quadro 4000. The results are startling.
The CATbench benchmark uses a number of different models ranging in size from an engine block to an entire nuclear submarine assembly. It performs a set number of pans, zooms and rotations in shaded plus edges graphics mode.
The video speaks for itself – basically a 2:1 performance advantage for the V7900 overall. Where the difference is really apparent is with the complex large models. That is in part GeometryBoost in action.
The Quadro does a good job of keeping up until the final test of an extremely tessellated model, where the Quadro really lags.
Now, there are many many questions about these benchmarks and I wish I had a FirePro to repeat them with (*hint hint*, anyone from AMD reading?) Issues like Screen Resolution and possible configuration options in CATIA itself could be impacting the results. Also, I’ld like to see a higher-end Quadro put through the test (Like the Quadro 5000), but does show that GeometryBoost is a huge benefit to the FirePro line.
See the video below, and at FireUser’s Site
Quadro 5000 is clearly not the V7900 competitor, costing around $1700 instead of $700. So even if it matched or surpassed it in performance, it would be an unfair comparison, just to make nVidia look better.
Hmmm… I have long been a nVidia user, but am slowly thinking more about ATI cards. http://bit.ly/l940ZO