X-bit labs

New 3ds max 5 Rivalry: NVIDIA Quadro FX vs. ATI FireGL X1

Category: Video

by FastSite

[ 02/07/2003 | 12:00 AM ]

Today we would like to offer you a really cool fight, a clash of strong wills: the new rumored NVIDIA QuadroFX based on the latest NV30 chip against the ATI FireGL X1 in one of the most widely spread professional applications - 3ds max 5. I don't think I need to tell you more: just go and see it now!

Table of contents:

• Closer Look
  
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 1000
  
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000
  
• ATI FireGL X1
  
• NVIDIA Quadro 4 980 XGL
  
• Image Quality
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance
  
• Benchmark 1
  
• Benchmark 2
  
• Benchmark 3
  
• Benchmark 4
  
• Benchmark 5
  
• Benchmark 6
  
• Benchmark 7
  
• Benchmark 8
  
• Benchmark 9
  
• Benchmark 10
  
• Benchmark 11
  
• Benchmark 12
  
• Benchmark 13
  
• Conclusion
  

Well, once again following its good old traditions, NVIDIA announces the professional version of its recently launched newest NV30graphics chip. The newcomer is known under the NV30GL codename and the first professional graphics chips based on it are called Quadro FX 1000 and Quadro FX 2000.

As usual, the company marketing people are doing their best to let everyone know that in the new NV30GL they implemented a new revolutionary approach to image displaying in viewports of 3-dimentional applications, that the image quality provided by the new solution is beyond any competition (although we all know very well, that we usually work in the most primitive wireframe and shadowed modes in viewports to speed up the image processing).

The performance of the new cards has also become the talk of the marketing people. Take for instance, the first sentence of the section on NVIDIA's web-site devoted to the new QuadroFX:

The NVIDIA Quadro FX family delivers the fastest application performance and the highest quality workstation graphics.

And all the way through the Quadro FX description you will many times come across the phrases like "the fastest", "revolutionary", "unprecedented" and the like. However, to our great disappointment, we didn't find any more or less distinct comparison of the best performance (not to mention the super image quality) with either competing products or at least the previous generation professional NVIDIA cards.

So, we decided to make up for the missing piece of info, and will take a really close look at the new professional Quadro FX 1000 and Quadro FX 2000 from NVIDIA.

Closer Look

Here we will introduce all the testing participants to you. First come the new professional solutions from NVIDIA.

NVIDIA Quadro FX 1000

   

Even though the graphics chip and the card PCB are marked as GeForce FX 2000, the card is recognized as NVIDIA GeForce FX 1000. Its working frequencies make 300MHz for the chip (A2 revision) and 600MHz for the DDR II graphics memory from Samsung.

   

NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000

   

This graphics card works at 466MHz chip frequency (A2 revision) and 933MHz graphics memory frequency. The graphics chips are DDR II chips from Samsung, like in case of Quadro FX 1000.

   

ATI FireGL X1

In fact, this is not the hundred percent "real" FireGL X1. If you have been following our January news stories carefully, you should remember, that we undertook a series of interesting experiments with the hardware and software modifications of the existing ATI RADEON graphics cards. If you take a look at the news story called "Modify the Gaming Cards on ATI Chips into Professional Ones!", you will learn how to make a professional FireGL X1 from your RADEON 9500. Our tests showed that the card obtained is a fully-functional analogy of the actual FireGL X1 (certainly, when we receive a "real" piece from ATI we will run the comparative tests, to back up our statements by indisputable evidence).

   

We have already undertaken some tests of the FireGL X1 and FireGL Z1 graphics cards. Please see our Roundup: Today's Top Graphics Cards in 3ds Max 5 for more details on their performance compared with some gaming solutions and previous generation professional cards from NVIDIA.

This card works at 325MHz chip and 620MHz graphics memory frequencies.

NVIDIA Quadro 4 980 XGL

   

This is the previous generation graphics card based on NVIDIA NV25GL chip. Its working frequencies are 300MHz and 650MHz for the chip and memory respectively. You can read more about this solution in our review of NVIDIA Quadro 4 980 XGL (AGP 8x) in 3ds max 5.

Image Quality

Before we pass over to the actual comparison of these graphics cards and their performance, we would like to veer a little bit away and to turn to history for a while. In the previous generations of the graphics chips, such as NV10, NV15 and NV20, the professional solutions were built from the gaming ones by placing some corresponding marking. And the professional graphics cards differed from the gaming ones only by the marking and a special resistor, which was responsible for the card to be recognized as "professional" by the Detonator drivers. However, starting from the last generation, NV25, NVIDIA decided to start distinguishing between the gaming and the professional graphics chips more distinctly, that is in the silicon. These are really minor differences, but, it has now become absolutely impossible to modify a gaming graphics card into a professional one.

Now let's move a bit closer to the newest graphics card generation, which is the topic of our today's coverage. We suggest regarding the NVIDIA marketing people's claims from the 3ds max user's point of view. We know that the working frequencies of their forefathers, namely GeForce FX 5800 and GeForce FX 5800 Ultra make 400/800MHz and 500/1000MHz respectively. The working frequencies of the graphics cards we got hold of were 300/600MHz for Quadro FX 1000 and 466/933MHz for Quadro FX 2000, which is lower than by their gaming forefathers. However, despite that, Quadro FX 2000 still works at higher frequencies than any other professional graphics card, which makes it very valuable for the use in 3ds max 5. This is very important because the performance in 3ds max 5 is determined almost solely by the graphics chip frequency (this is valid for contemporary graphics cards only), unlike the gaming applications where the performance depends a lot on the memory bus bandwidth, numerous pixel pipelines and texturing units.

Although the performance is a No. 1 determinative factor for most 3ds max 5 users, we shouldn't disregard another very important "quality" component, i.e. anti-aliasing quality provided by the graphics cards in viewports.

Since all contemporary graphics cards (not only professional, but also the gaming ones) do display 3ds max viewports quite correctly, it would make much more sense to speak about the image quality only in one case: with enabled Anti-Aliasing. From the 3ds max 5 user's point of view the use of Anti-Aliasing algorithms brings in the following advantages and drawbacks:

Advantages of Anti-Aliasing: As is known, the screen resolution is not very high and cannot compete with quality polygraphy. As a result we see broken lines instead of straight lines located at small angles to one another. Anti-aliasing allows smoothing slightly the sharp curves by mixing the colors of the neighboring pixels. This way, we get a more natural-looking picture. Anti-aliasing is an excellent solution for final rendering in games, and at the same time it suits quite OK for smoothing the object borders in Smooth + Highlights modes in professional applications.

Drawbacks of Anti-Aliasing: As is known, anti-aliasing as well as any other image filters can make the final image more beautiful, but less precise. By mixing the pixel colors, we get wrong colors of the objects as well as of the surrounding background, which creates an unbelievable mess in Wireframe mode when we have a lot of intersecting lines. Moreover, the colors of these lines also get distorted, and the worst this is that these lines become at least 1 pixel thicker. This way the actual resolution in case of single-pixel lines (which are the majority in 3ds max 5) gets at least twice as small.

Let's have a look at the anti-aliasing quality at the example of the scene taken from Benchmark 1:

No Anti-Aliasing

To make it easier to see what we are talking about, the two selected fragments were magnified 4 times.

Now let's look at these fragments drawn by our graphics cards, namely Quadro FX 1000/2000 (Maxtreme .26), Quadro 4 980XGL (Maxtreme .26), FireGL X1 (1021):

NVIDIA Quadro FX






NVIDIA Quadro 4 980XGL






ATI FireGL X1

The screenshots showed that the best anti-aliasing algorithm belongs to Quadro FX, while the worst one - to FireGL X1.

Now let's check the 4x Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing quality:

NVIDIA Quadro FX

The anti-aliasing algorithm by Quadro 4 980XGL is analogous to the same algorithm by Quadro FX that is why we didn't provide any screenshots here. The drivers of FireGL X1 graphics card do not allow enabling FSAA that is why we simply couldn't offer you any screenshots, unfortunately.

This way, the anti-aliasing quality comparison of Quadro FX, Quadro 4 and FireGL X1 proves that the best quality is provided by the new Quadro FX, with the FSAA algorithm being more efficient than the lines anti-aliasing algorithm.

The performance of all graphics cards with enabled anti-aliasing remained unchanged since the times of GeForce3 that is why you can enable this feature without fearing to lose any of the precious performance. However, we suppose that anti-aliasing in 3ds max 5 still has more drawbacks rather than advantages. And the biggest drawback is the reduction of the actual resolution in viewports.

Now that we have already paid attention to the image quality aspects in 3ds max 5 viewports, let's pass over to the performance of our testing participants.

Testbed and Methods

From now on we enhanced our testing methodology for 3ds max 5 application set. Now we will not only get the average fps-rate for each graphics card, but we will also offer you a momentary fps-rate in a form of a graph. This appeared possible due to a new script we will use for our tests.

Our testbed was configured as follows:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPU;
• Gigabyte 8INXP (Granite Bay) mainboard;
• 1024MB PC2700 CL2 DDR SDRAM;
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 1000, NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000, NVIDIA Quadro 4 980XGL, ATI FireGL X1, NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600 graphics cards;
• 30GB Seagate Barracuda ATA V HDD.

We used the following software:

• Windows XP SP1;
• 3ds max 5 (OpenGL rendering), 1280x1024 32bit.
• Texture Size: 512x512 background, 256x256 material (if not mentioned specifically);
• Drivers for NVIDIA graphics cards: Detonator version 42.81, V-Sync off + Maxtreme 4.00.26;
• Drivers for ATI FireGL X1 card: version 1021.