LOSTCIRCUITS

The world of professional graphics cards is shared between the nVidia Quadro family and ATI's FireGL lineup. Aside from the ultra-high end solutions above $1000 per card, there are some entry level options and there is also the middle ground that might be of more interest to most users than what the actual specs suggest. Granted, there is a certain sex-appeal to having the best of the best in any system but there is also the cost factor involved. Moreover, professional graphics applications can be divided into real-time rendering and the use of still images at very high resolution where accuracy is more important than speed.

Ultra high resolution as that used on the latest generation of medical imaging devices or even large scale LCD displays are no longer handled by a standard VGA output, instead, they require a dual-link DVI port on the graphics card. In the end, therefore, a purchasing decision needs to be based on performance and feature set of the cards. For this article, we are putting the nVidia Quadro FX1400 through the paces. To make a long story short, the FX1400 could be a very interesting solution for certain areas of CAD/CAM work, but there are some limitations with respect to handling large models and finally the screen resolution supported. We have all the details in the following.

nVidia Quadro FX1400

A few months ago we were looking at the most powerful solution in professional graphics processing at the time, namely, the nVidia Quadro FX 4500 in an SLI configuration. One thing that became apparent rather quickly was the issue of adequate benchmarks, particularly, the problem that there really aren't any. Rather it appeared as if most of the current benchmarks were limited primarily by the CPU than the GPU, an issue that was further exacerbated by the lack of multithreading support within the applications used by e.g. the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC.org).

On the other hand, benchmarks - as much as we love or rather hate them - may not always paint the correct picture. In addition, even if tbenchmarks showed the Quadro FX 4500 in a superior light, the price of these cards may be prohibitive for some outfits with a smaller budget. Moreover, not everybody needs the ultimate in real time rendering. Realistically, in most situations where Computer Aided Manufacturing is concerned, any high-precision or hi-fidelity professional card will suffice, regardless of its real-time performance, as long as it supports the necessary output resolution, to drive, for example a 30" flat panel display at 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution that requires dual link DVI.

The nVidia Quadro FX1400 does not feature a Dual LInk DVI and is, therefore, not equipped to drive ultra- high resolution as that delivered by for example Dell's 3007 WFP 30" monitor

Currently, nVidia offers a whole plethora of professional graphics cards, from minimalistic budget solution over a relatively broad midrange to the high-end solutions in the form of the FX 4500 and 5500. For the current article we chose a card in the midrange to see how it would stack up compared to some of the older cards we looked up over the years and also in comparison to the FX4500 as well as the currently fastest consumer graphics card, that is the RADEON X1900 XTX - in this case supplied by Sapphire.

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