Testbed and Methods

The primary goal of this test session was to compare the performance of the top-of-the-line professional solutions from Nvidia and ATI. We tested these graphics cards on a dual-processor platform built with AMD Opteron processors and an NVIDIA nForce Professional based mainboard. Our test platform was configured as follows:

• CPU: 2 x AMD Opteron 254 (Socket 940, 2.8 GHz, 1024KB L2);
• Mainboard: Tyan K8WE (S2895) (Dula Socket 940, NVIDIA nForce Professional);
• Memory: 4096MB Registered DDR400 SDRAM (Kingston HyperX KRX3200AK2/1G, 8 x 512MB, 2.5-3-3-6, ECC);
• Graphics cards:
  • ATI FireGL V7350 (PCI-E x16);
  • NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 (PCI-E x16);
• HDD: Seagate 7200.8 500GB (SATA150);
• OS: Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

We used the following drivers:

• ATI FireGL Unified Driver Version 8.223 for Windows XP / 2000;
• NVIDIA ForceWare Driver Version 81.67 Driver Version.

Vsync was disabled everywhere, if possible.