FireGL X2 256t

The gap in power between traditional workstation-level graphic cards and their consumer-orientated counterparts is closing. So it’s hard to justify spending more than £500 on this single component. Indeed, for 2D and un-demanding 3D work, a £150 card is usually more than enough, as long as it’s coupled with a decent CPU.

But for those that need real processing oomph, even the best consumer cards don’t quite cut it. Sitting at the top of ATI’s workstation range, the FireGL X2 256t is aimed squarely at power users: architects, professional engineers, 3D content creation folks, and anyone who needs maximum graphical power in both DirectX and OpenGL.

The card is powered by an FGL 9800 chip, a modified version of the processor used on consumer Radeon 9800 cards. Since it runs at a nippy 412MHz, the chip is heavily cooled by a massive copper heatsink and fan. But despite its size, this isn’t much noisier than those of a standard card, and it still only needs one expansion slot in your PC. As with most modern cards, though, the 256t does require an additional power input, so a high-quality power supply is a must.

ATI’s drivers have improved massively over the past couple of years – and the 256t’s is certainlythere at the top end. Eminently stable, it includes a more robust OpenGL implementation than consumer-level Catalyst drivers, although it doesn’t appear to offer quite as much control over individual settings as we’d have liked.

However, a Configuration tablists just about every professional workstation app with appropriate default settings, and you can add your own if necessary. While the driver can, and does, accelerate Direct3D very well, it’s largely designed for OpenGL apps, particularly with regard to consistency of image quality.

On our Athlon 64-based machine, the 256t ran both benchmarks such as SPEC Viewperf and 3D apps including 3ds max flawlessly. Using the custom driver supplied by ATI for 3ds max, we clocked a noticeable speed increase over the standard drivers. But like any graphics card, the 256t does depend to some extent on the speed of the system CPU, so putting it in any less than, say, an Athlon 64 or a 3GHz Pentium 4 machine might be a waste of time – and, more importantly, money.

Ultimately, of course, whether you’re actually prepared to pay for such power is down to your own requirements. While the 256t is undoubtedly fast, it’s debatable whether it’s worth shelling out for, particularly with NVIDIA’s new Quadro models and the next generation of consumer cards about to arrive.