FirePro V8750 vs Radeon HD 5870 benchmarks justify workstation vs consumer monikers

I’ve written before about the real difference in CAD and DCC performance between using a professional graphics card like a FirePro and a consumer graphic card like a Radeon.  But what about the new “Evergreen” line of DirectX 11-based GPUs like the Radeon HD 5870.  This is getting awesome performance reviews.  So how does this compare to a top of the line FirePro card?

Icrontic recently had the same question so he ran some benchmarking tests (Cinebench R10, SPECviewperf 3ds Max, and SPECviewperf Maya) between the Radeon HD 5870 and the FirePro V8750 (with a GeForce 8800GTX thrown in for comparison).

Quote from the article for Max:  “The FirePro V8750 handily overpowered the Radeon HD 5870 by more than twice the average framerate. The Radeon HD 5870 followed with a strong showing of its own, as it doubled the average framerate put up by the GeForce 8800 GTX.”

Quote for Maya: “Results in Maya were nothing short of shocking. While the HD 5870 was in a virtual dead heat with the 8800 GTX, the FirePro V8750 quite simply facepounded both of them. In fact, the V8750’s average performance increase over the big, bad Radeon came out to about 650%. Six hundred fifty percent.”

Why is this the case when the basic hardware specs look so similar?  Chip and board-level optimizations on the FirePro account for the bulk of the performance difference (sorry softmodders).  On top of that are the optimized drivers and heavy testing to ensure optimal performance.  Icrontic is actually going to talk to AMD engineers to get more details.

Also one great quote from the comments referencing the price differential:  “One thing to remember is that the cost of the card is inmaterial compared to the cost of the people running the hardware. If the artist is waiting for screen re-draws that’s productivity lost.”