Review of ATI FirePro V8800 under Lunux

Phoronix reviews the ATI FirePro V8800 running under Linux (Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit with the Linux 2.6.31 kernel, GNOME 2.28.1 desktop, and X.Org Server 1.6.4.). General conclusion: “If you are looking for the very best in workstation graphics, look no further than the AMD FirePro V8800.”

And from the article:

“We were already quite pleased when AMD introduced the FirePro V8700 last year and then their subsequent introduction of the FirePro V8750 that upped the memory performance a few months later. AMD then rejuvenated these workstation graphics cards last month when rolling out an enhanced driver. A simple Linux driver update caused the performance in some OpenGL benchmarks to improve by as much as 32 to 59% faster than the older software stack. With the introduction of the FirePro V8800, AMD has successfully pushed the limits of workstation graphics even further.”

“In some of the OpenGL workstation benchmarks we carried out under Linux there were a few areas where the performance only improved by ~3% with the V8800 compared to the V8750, but in a majority of the tests there were sizable gains from 14~18% and higher. The most significant gains we found were actually with the Unigine-based Heaven / Tropics benchmarks on Linux where the frame-rate in these demanding OpenGL tests jumped by more than 50%! This is very impressive.”