AMD FirePro W9000 Pro Reviews

As far as recommendations go, we'll limit ourselves to AMD's FirePro family for comparison purposes. Putting AMD up against Nvidia at this stage is simply too difficult. What we do know is that, on the desktop, the fastest GCN-based cards are easily faster than the fastest Fermi-based boards. And, fully-optimized, we'd expect these high-end FirePro W-series cards to maintain that lead. So, it's not difficult to give the FirePro W8000 a thumbs-up based on its price to performance ratio. The W8000 costs a lot less, operates more efficiently (and quietly), and performs almost as well as AMD's FirePro W9000. Yes, it's a little strange to give a $1600 graphics card a value-oriented recommendation knowing that most folks have no need for such an expensive piece of hardware. However, for the professional users who can't compromise on points like validation, performance, or support, $1600 can quickly pay for itself in recovered productivity. If you don’t need the FirePro W9000's extra performance, AMD's FirePro W8000 should make a great long-term workhorse in your workstation. The company has already taken strides in catching its competition, and we expect it to continue chipping away at its deficit. What remains to be seen is how Nvidia's Kepler-based Quadro cards compare.

At the end of the day AMD has brought more power to CAD/CAE and Media & Entertainment professionals. If you are looking to speed up your 3D renderings in order to get visualizations you need when you want them, then take a look at these cards!