Conclusion

In general, the Quadro FX 3400 from NVIDIA leads in this comparative test. But ATi is hot on its heels with its FireGL V5100. On average, the model from ATi lies just about 5.6% behind the NVIDIA card. And the same can be said about the two manufacturers' entry-level boards. If ATi had managed to submit its FireGL V7100 in good time, the manufacturer would have very likely emerged as the winner.

But NVIDIA is not relenting in its efforts. The next OpenGL roundup will certainly include the new Quadro FX 1400 und FX 4400 boards, against which ATI's FireGL V7100 will really have to show its merits.

ATi scores points with its pricing policy. All the Canadian company's test candidates deliver a considerably better price/performance ratio than NVIDIA. So if you can put up with a few minor reductions in performance you will find ATi a worthy partner.

We were pleasantly surprised this time about the stability of the drivers. Although PCI Express is still an extremely young technology both manufacturers were already able to offer certified WHQL drivers, which ran impeccably on our E7525/Tumwater platform with Nocona Xeons. That was not the case in recent OpenGL reviews.

ATi has made strides in its driver development. In the past we always found that ATi could only score in the Viewperf synthetic test, always lagging behind in the application benchmarks. Eventually, the problems were indeed resolved, but it was a long while before it became possible to talk of the time-to-market. ATi's subsidiary in Starnberg, Germany used to take care of the OpenGL drivers, but it was dependent on the supply of core drivers from Canada. So ATi's global centralization of driver development has indeed paid off.

Features Table And Pricing