AMD FirePro V4800 & FirePro V7800
Last month we reviewed the ATI FirePro V8800, which is the newest ultra high-end workstation graphics card from AMD that is based upon the Evergreen graphics processor found in the consumer-grade Radeon HD 5000 series. We were blown away by the performance of the FirePro V8800 and then we subsequently reviewed the FirePro V3800 and FirePro V5800 when they launched later in the month. The FirePro V3800 was designed for entry-level workstation customers while the V5800 was to fill the mid-range void. For those looking into an entry-to-mid-range or high-end workstation graphics card, today we are completing our look at AMD's Evergreen-based FirePro family with a review of the ATI FirePro V4800 and ATI FirePro V7800.
While the FirePro V8800 is able to drive four independent displays, the FirePro V7800 can only power up to three displays using ATI Eyefinity technology. The FirePro V7800 is a single-slot graphics card and has a rated power consumption of less than 150 Watts. Like the V8800, the V7800 boasts 2GB of GDDR5 video memory, albeit it is clocked less at 1.00GHz but to provide a peak memory bandwidth of 128GB/s. The FirePro V7800 is based upon the Cypress Pro GPU with the consumer equivalent being the ATI Radeon HD 5850. The core clock for the Cypress Pro running in the V7800 is 700MHz. This graphics card boasts 1440 stream processors and Framelock/Genlock support.
The ATI FirePro V4800 is also capable of driving up to three independent displays while its core is based upon the Redwood XT. The Redwood XT is the GPU found within the ATI Radeon HD 5670 graphics processor. With the FirePro V4800 there are 400 stream processors, 57.6GB/s of memory bandwidth, power consumption of less than 75 Watts, 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 900MHz, and the Redwood XT core is clocked at 775MHz.
Like the other FirePro graphics cards, AMD submitted the FirePro V4800/V7800 workstation graphics cards to us as review samples. These cards were received OEM style without any retail packaging or accessories, but normally each of these retail graphics cards will include a driver CD and at least one DisplayPort to DVI adapter. In the above photo you can see the size of the ATI FirePro V4800 and FirePro V7800 in relation to the FirePro V5800.