M6600 Graphics card support for ESRI GIS Support

Good Afternoon,

I am trying to decide whether to buy the FirePro M8900 / Quaro 3000 or Quadro 4000. I am leaning toward the FirePro M8900 mainly do to performance and pricing, but concerned on rendering speed and OpenGL support.


The laptop will be mainly for Office work and software development using VS 2010 and higher. For about 30% of the time it will create ESRI Based maps which take sometime to render. The laptop will do work with orthos and render many maps containing 15 to 20 layers, which can be polygons, points or lines based at a time. I am hesitate on the M8900 because this laptop will serve about 10% to 20% of its life as a life safety laptop during the next 5 years and I just do not want to make a mistake. If it helps, I do not game at all.

ESRI is heavy into the OpenGL and the Shader model so when I receive this thread concerning firepro driver issues and it took me back and has made me reconsider my order. I had put in the request for the FirePro M8900, but over the weekend the link made me think I should purchase one the NVidia Quadro 3000 or 4000 cards.

osg-users: Re: [osg-users] ATI FirePro M8900 - msg#00272 - OSDir

If it helps, I know of one ESRI Staffer with a M6400 and Quadro FX3800 that says his ArcGIS 10 software runs excellent. Is the FirePro M8900 similar to a Quadro FX3800 in graphics an performance? If so it is probably worth the gamble to save the money. Money is real tight in the Public sector.

For needs assessment, here are the ESRI Video requirements for ArcGIS 10:
<64 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB RAM or higher recommended. NVIDIA, ATI and INTEL chipsets supported; 24 bit capable graphics accelerator

OpenGL version 2.0 runtime or higher is required, and Shader Model 3.0 or higher is recommended. Be sure to use the latest available driver.>

There is really a knowledge hole on this one at Dell and ESRI so anyone please share your thoughts.

Much appreciated.

 

Based on the thread the FirePro can accept some drivers which can alter its behavior. Within the same FirePro class the FirePro V7900 and M8900 have similar performance marks. Has anyone tried the drivers for the new FirePro V7900 drivers with the FirePro M8900? I ask because the new V7900 drivers have something called "Geometry Boost" which is supposed to greatly assist CAD like applications. Here is the url for the article on Geometry Boost.

GPU Wars: Nvidia vs. ATI: AMD Launches Professional Graphics Cards with New "Cayman" Architecture

If the drivers would work with the similar power of the M8900 card, this could even and in some cases surpass many of M8900 scores with the Quadro 4000.

Could someone provide some feedback?

I also asked this under the Open GL for 6970 thread.

 

What if the new V7900 drivers could be used to unlock the power of the M8900 card on the Dell M6600 to make it better compete with the Quadro 3000 and 4000?

Continuing the V7900 driver theory, noted that the V7900's cayman history tracks back to the original cayman of the Radeon HD 6900 series as noted mid way down the page of the review listed below. This is a shared history with the M8900 card.

AMD FirePro V7900 and V5900 Professional Graphics Review | PC Perspective

This link posts the detailed architecture of the Radeon HD 6900 series cards of which both M8900 and V5900 and V7900 are supposed to be derived from.

AMD Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 Review - The Cayman Architecture Revealed | PC Perspective

This an old thread regarding the OpenGL abilities of the Radeon 6970 cards

AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950: Cayman GPUs are There! - 3D Tech News, Pixel Hacking, Data Visualization and 3D Programming - Geeks3D.com

If the FirePro series M8900, V7900 and V5900 are derived from the same cayman 6900 series stock architecture, could they not use the same drivers which could strengthen the M8900 OpenGL and Geometry Boost abilities allowing it to better compete with the Quadros as a professional card?

I need those more knowledgeable than I to assist on this. Could video experts review my theory and like me know if the V7900 or V5900 might boost the M8900 cards CAD and GIS abilities?

Many thanks.