Jon Peddie Research - a technically oriented marketing, research, and management consulting firm in the graphics industry.

Graphics performance is a matter of definition

Posted by Alex Herrera on June 12th 2009 | Comments Closed
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: gpu ati amd gaming firepro graphics chip

FirePro 2450. (Source: AMD)

To each his own. The fastest rendering 3D cards tend to grab most of the attention in the hardware graphics business, but just because they hog the spotlight doesn’t mean they’re the ideal solution for everyone. A lot of us don’t need to render complex 3D scenes at lightning speed, yet we still demand a lot from our system’s graphics. We just demand different things.

As analysts at JPR, we’re not at a loss for the hottest new graphics hardware to evaluate and use. But my problem is this: I’m not a gamer, and since I spend most of my time reading and writing, my rendering tasks are pretty much limited to painting windows and text. So while I often cover and analyze the latest-and-greatest 3DMark-leading cards, I don’t demand the performance they offer, at least not on a daily basis.

As a long-time graphics chip engineer, it’s in my nature to spend the most time dissecting the biggest, baddest GPUs to hit the marketplace, and I use lots of ink (OK, virtual ink) analyzing architectures and weighing technical pros and cons. But when it comes to getting my job done most effectively, the latest dual-slot, 300 W gamer and workstation cards simply aren’t the right fit for what I do.

See, what I want is a card that can display a lot of pixels—and I mean a lot, with four screens of 1680 x 1050 resolution—without stuttering on repaints and scrolls. And one that can get it done in a small package that chews up minimal Watts so that it could be cooled quietly—ideally passively, or at least function with a relatively inconspicuous fan.

Now with that set of criteria, I’ve ruled out virtually every card that most would think of as “high performance”; they can’t handle four displays, at least not in a single-card configuration, and forget about keeping down the Watts, noise and heat.

But there are a few cards out there that can handle those requirements, and thankfully, AMD has made one available to JPR for review.

Graphics hardware performance is in the eye of the beholder

Screen sub-division with AMD’s Hydragrid. (Source: AMD)

Most wouldn’t bucket AMD’s latest ATI FirePro 2450 into the high-performance category, but the fact nobody would is an indication of the narrowness of our industry’s definition of performance, rather than an indictment of the card. Sure, a hard-core gamer will stick his nose up at the well-off-the-bleeding-edge, previous generation GPU technology, and a compute-bound professional hankering for the absolute fastest renderer he can find won’t be interested either.

But this card’s not about gaming and it’s not about heavy 3D lifting. It’s not about those criteria at all, but in the context of what it is about, this card is most assuredly a top performer. We’re probably all guilty of equating a card’s performance with how many triangles it can render per second or what it can deliver on some gaming benchmark du jour. We sometimes forget that there are big chunks of the customer base—specifically the graphics professional audience—that are weighing their buying options according to a very different, yet still perfectly valid, set of performance criteria: say for example, which card can display the most screen real estate, while consuming the least amount of power, taking up minimal chassis space, and put out the least heat and fewest decibels.

A big thing in a small package

Enter cards like AMD’s ATI FirePro 2450, a dual GPU card that delivers quad display capability (up to 1920 x 1200) in a low profile form factor with a very modest power budget. Very similar in make-up to rival Nvidia’s Quadro NVS 420 (also launched recently), the 2450 goes after the same primary target market: financial and corporate users with lots of LCD monitors but minimal space and tolerance for noise, power and heat.

Low profile + low power + quad displays: a lot like the Quadro NVS 420...but there are differences

The FirePro 2450 has a lot in common with Nvidia’s Quadro NVS 420, beyond simply their target customers. Both are dual-GPU, low-profile PCI Express cards that can fit in any PC (x1 or x16 options), and both are capable of driving four simultaneous displays from high-density VHDCI connectors, burning a scant few Watts. Both promise all the features a crowded financial floor demands, but their appeal is by no means limited to Wall Street.

Dual GPUs aren’t on board for their performance, but rather for the copious display bandwidth they can provide, enough to support four high-res displays. Neither company’s base GPUs are designed to handle such a specialized load on their own, but two in tandem can do the job. In the case of the 2450, AMD opted for two of the previous generation RV620’s, a sensible choice where the goals of power consumption, minimal real estate and minimal cost outweigh the demand for performance.

But there are a couple of notable differences between the two companies’ top-end quad-display cards. Both support DVI, but while Nvidia opted to natively support DisplayPort, AMD instead chose VGA.

By not supporting DisplayPort, AMD gives up one spec that Nvidia can tout with the NVS 420, a higher resolution in quad-display configuration. Where the 2450 tops out at 1920 x 1200 for quad-display—limited by DVI and VGA—the NVS 420 ranges up to 2560 x 1600, enabled by DisplayPort. Not perfect for AMD, but then the company can offer dual 2260’s for the few customers that would demand high-res quad DisplayPort. And Nvidia’s choice isn’t without trade-offs either, as it’s also sacrificing a minority of its customer base by not supporting VGA.

The FirePro 2450 bests the NVS 420 in one important measure: power consumption. The NVS 420 impresses with a 40 W power envelope, but AMD claims < 35 W for the 2450, with a normal operating range of more like 16 to 32 W. And its high-reliability variable-speed fan means it never makes more decibel noise than it has to, while touting an MTBF of something like 10 years.

Putting the 2450 to work

AMD was kind enough to offer up a 2450 for review, and it was an offer I jumped on. Installing the card into my tool-less HP workstation chassis was simple, and after I’d downloaded the latest FireGL/FirePro Catalyst suite (drivers and utilities), I was up and running in little time and with no hassles.

The first thing I noticed (thankfully) was the difference in decibels. That’s no knock on the dual FireGL 7350s the FirePro 2450 replaced. They were top-end performers in their day, but way beyond the point of overkill for my day-to-day purposes. And the two fans sitting on each of the dual-slot card’s GPU heatsinks made their presence very clearly known. While the 2450 doesn’t do away with the fan-on-heatsink completely, it’s far lower power demand cuts down the noise substantially, down to a level that no longer grabs my attention.

I connected to each of the card’s VHDCI connectors a breakout cable (supplied), each of which splits out into two DVI connectors. I then hooked up all four Samsung 22.5” widescreen displays, set to 1680 x 1050 resolution. I brought the whole environment up quickly, and after the usual enabling of the displays (using Windows standard display setting to “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor”), followed by some re-ordering of which monitor was where, I was back to my familiar multi-mon setup. Sort of.

AMD’s new Hydragrid helps manage all those screens

While the desktop now looked the same it did with the old dual 7350’s, I had a new Catalyst software suite with AMD’s new Hydragrid management utility. Added to the existing set of multi-mon tools, Hydragrid users can sub-divide each screen into several virtual monitors. Each screen sub-division can display different applications—or perhaps a different instance of the same application (like multiple Bloomberg windows)—individually customizable in size and aspect, mixing landscape and portrait display modes.

Everyone has their own standard operating procedures of what windows they’d like to keep up most often, where to put them, and how much room each application needs to be functional. I’ve got email on the left, browsers on the right, my main work space in the middle, with a few strips and corners left for things like a Windows Explorer window to have quick access into folders.

A simple right-click on the mouse will allow easy access to the Hydragrid editor, where the user can choose among a menu of pre-set options, which work well as a starting point. I’d call the grid semi-static, meaning it’s easy enough to change, but it’s not something you want to be twiddling with every time you open a new application or window.

I custom defined bordered workspaces on each display, each customized differently for the applications that will fill the space most of the time. My main workspace I leave as one big region, with a small vertical strip on the left to leave my most often accessed desktop icons accessible all the time. Another display has no divisions at all—I like having one Internet Explorer window big, and the other two are split in two as well, different sizes.

Future Hydragrid enhancements?

I love the idea of Hydragrid, and I like how it works out of the chute. But as most first releases of any new technology, Hydragrid is a work in progress. As is, it’s an effective tool in working with our four high-resolution wide-screens. But once beyond monolithic monitors to a grid-ed display environment, I began to see opportunities for more dials, switches and controls, well beyond what the old non-grid tools could support.

For example, one thing I’d like to define a hot-key that would snap a window to a user-specified grid number with one click. Another is a setting to default all new windows to “attach to grid,” In its current incarnation, windows default to being detached from the grid, requiring a manual set to attach each of the many windows that come, go and stay resident. I like the windows snapping to the grid, and I find I want them attached far more often than not. And if Hydragrid could decide where to place newly created windows, based on the grid position the same application previously occupied, multi-monitor life would be that much better.

AMD tells us lots of features are being considered for a follow-on version of Hydragrid, including some of the features I’ve been imagining.

Four high-res monitors, courtesy of the AMD FirePro 2450. (Source: Jon Peddie Research)

What do we think?

With the myriad graphics card models out there at any given time, there are paltry few that can handle four high-resolution displays in a small, quiet package. If that’s of interest to you, and if rendering complex 3D animations—be it for work or entertainment—is mostly a don’t-care, then AMD’s got a killer card for you.

Of course, that’s assuming you don’t have DisplayPort-only monitors and so far, no one does. So, the 2450’s got the vast majority covered, at least for now.

I like Hydragrid. As is, it already offers a lot more functionality than I’ve had, and it is useful functionality. It’s not 100% there in its first release, but it’s a great step to more cleanly managing the bigger desktops—spread now across three to four high-res displays. And it’s got me wanting more.

“Side-by-Side” testing the competing PCs were logged onto the same online server thru the same router playing the same avatars.